?I am trying to learn how to cope with it and how to deal with it because I can?t dwell on it? I have to live for my other children who are alive,? says Wallace.

She is also the mother of Nicole, 22; Rachel, 16; Amy, 8; Richard, 19; Phillip, 17; Michael 11; Tony, 6; Robert 5.

In this week?s Personality of the Week column, Amandala shares this woman?s struggles and finds out just how she copes with having lost two sons in such a short space of time, on top of all the other challenges she is faced with.

?It?s really rough and it?s really hard, because you?re trying to cope with losing one and you hear another one [is] dead. So I?m saying, what will happen next year, if maybe I will bury another one??

Phillip and Richard are behind bars; the former, she claims, has been wrongly accused of shooting at someone, and he was remanded shortly after the death of her second son.

Mrs. Wallace does not claim to wear a halo, but she says that prayer and positive thinking are what take her from day to day?one day at a time. She also tries to keep the good memories of her sons alive.

?I don?t dwell too much on the past, because the past is already gone. So I have to focus on the future,? she asserts.

Still obviously struggling with grief, Mrs. Wallace expressed her sentiments on the death of her younger son, Andrew:

?This second one that died really hit me harder than the other one, because he was so young and he was the person who always had a lot of spirit. He was so smart and so bright and always looked after the other ones, helped them with their homework and helped with chores and other things. He was somebody you could always depend on. It was really hard and especially the way that he died, and the lot of things afterwards that the police said, that?s the part that hurt.?

?Do you blame yourself ever for what happened to your sons?? we asked.

?No, I don?t blame myself for what happened,? she responded, ?because what happened is, I teach my children the right way in life and there is only so much a mother can do. And she can?t turn everywhere with them, because that?s highly impossible. I don?t blame myself, I just blame society and I blame like, with my last son, I blame the police, because they are the ones that are supposed to protect and serve.?

?Have you forgiven the people who killed your son?? we asked.

?Yes,? she said. ?I blanked that out of my mind, right. Because I always say whatever you do will come back to haunt you. And with the person who shot my son last year, I will leave that alone, because they will shoot somebody today, tomorrow somebody will shoot them back.?

Irene Wallace said that she would not stand in defense of her children when they are wrong. She refers to a case with another one of her sons, now behind bars, for whom she had posted bail and later revoked it. She said that she realized that the teen wanted to stray from home and she did not want to give him the rope to hang himself, figuratively speaking.

?I am a mother, I don?t swear for my children. If they are wrong, I give them their wrong,? she said.

One of the principles she says that she tries to instill in her children is for the older ones to reach out and help the younger ones. Irene, herself, lived through a life of struggle even as a young girl.

Her mother died in 1970, leaving behind 6 of them, an even number of boys and girls. She and her siblings had to move from Dangriga, Stann Creek, to Maskall, Belize District, where they lived with their paternal grandmother. They later moved to Belize City.

?It?s kind of rough when your mother dies when you are small? because you?re raised through a lot of hell. You knock about from one family to another,? she said.

She also revealed that the hardest times she has had was when she would have nothing to feed her children. After she and her husband separated some years ago, she had had another child for him. She recalls a time when she was not well and had nothing to feed her children, but two of the older boys went out to the market to see if they could work for food for the family.

Having survived the challenges in her life, Wallace leaves these messages with families who have lost their loved ones to gun violence: ??always stay strong and avoid all the negative things that people have to say, because people will talk. But it will be those who don?t know you and it will be the ones who did not go through it. And like I always say, until you go through what we have gone through, what we went through as people losing children to gun violence and things like that, then you?ll start to talk differently and think differently.?

Also, to young people, she advises: ?I always tell people like try to appreciate your mother, because she is the backbone. But you have some kids who still don?t appreciate their mother. Well, I have my father left and I appreciate my dad.?

Currently, Wallace is taking care of her ailing father, in addition to her children. She works in the evenings as a cook at the Putt Putt Bar and Grill. She says that she gets a lot of compliments on her cooking; especially famous are the chicken wings and Cajun style cuisine. Wallace also does private catering for a living.

Apart from cooking to take care of her family, she says that she enjoys making what people like.