In life, obstacles are inevitable. How we react and move on and learn from those obstacles shows the kind of person you are. For Cris Clark, he turns even life's worst obstacles into learning lessons.

This is his story.

The year was 1997. Cris was two years old. His mother was preparing for an outing wtih Cris when Cris' father showed up unexpectedly to the house holding a brown grocery bag. Suddenly, his mother was hit on the head and had a telephone cord wrapped around her neck, whilst protecting Cris. Rubbing alcohol was poured all over them. Then, with the strike of a match, both Cris and his mother went up in flames, while Cris' father escaped.

Cris recalls the incident to the best of his ability: "I'm just glad that we were supposed to be going somewhere. The woman who was picking us up that day, Alice, retrieved the next door neighbors, who broke a window and put their hose into the house. We were rushed to the hospital, and when I was there, the doctors had to amputate my legs in order to save me. My current prosthetist was in the operating room with me that day."

This event would be just the first obstacle Cris came across in life and conquered. Cris was soon fostered at the age of three by his great aunt and uncle. They officially adopted him when he was 14 years old.

"I still got to see my birth mom, but I didn't like going to see her when I was young. She was burned 90 percent of her body, I was only burned 40 percent. Her scars scared me as a kid so I didn't want to go see her. But, my birth mom said, 'one day, you're going to want to come here, we're going to be friends and you're going to want to see me,'" Cris said.

Cris' mother was right. Soon after Cris was 16, they became very close.

"She died the day after her 40th birthday, January, 8 2013. I saw her six days before she died, and it was the best day I had with her. We began that day in a fight, the first thing she said when I went to see her was that she was sorry, and the last thing I said to her was that I loved her," Cris said.

The loss of his mother was certainly a tragic event in Cris' young life, but he refused to remember her negatively. He sheds a positive light on the life he lived with his mother. He even got a tattoo in remembrance of her. Although his mother couldn't ride with him on his journey through his transition, Cris was still adamant about it.

Transgender people come to realize their true self as they get older. Some know sooner than other's what gender they are truly meant to be. When they're ready to tell family and friends, it becomes one of the most difficult things to speak about. Fear of rejection, being disowned and humiliation are just a few road blocks that keep transgender people in the dark.

Cris Clark had a feeling he was being raised up as the wrong gender when he was just a child.

"When I was kid, I distinctly remember around the age of 5 or 6, when genders become pushed, I was told 'you can't do this' 'you can't do that' and I just remember thinking 'I wish I could be a boy,' I hated to dress like a girl. I didn't feel comfortable, I just feel like there were so many signs but no one thought anything of it. I wish, because my life would've been so much easier," Cris said.

Cris experienced moving away to attend college in Pennsylvania on a wheelchair basketball scholarship, but came back during his freshman year. And from then on, he began to acknowledge and understand what was going on with himself.

"When I was away at school, I cut my hair, and I guess that was the start of my changes. And it was Halloween of 2014 when I just chopped it all off and I felt amazing, it felt great. I just wanted to feel better about myself and I did. But my parents didn't like it because I looked like a boy," Cris said.

When the time came for Cris to muster up the courage to come out to his family in the hopes they would accept them the way he is, things didn't go exactly as he had hoped

"In the beginning of 2015, I started to acknowledge the fact that I am transgender. I had a journal, I write a lot, and in January of 2015 I wrote down 'tell someone you think you might be trans' and I did and I started to come out to my friends and by the end of 2015, I was out to my whole family and had started the journey to transitioning: gender therapy," Cris said.

During gender transition, support is sought from family, friends, co-workers, anybody. In the beginning of Cris' transition, he didn't have his mother to lean on, whom he knows he would have had the support of. He only had the support of his sister-in-law, she took the time to understand what Cris was going through and even though people told Cris he had their support, his sister-in-law was the only one who made the effort to show it.

"My parents still think it's because something happened when I went away to college and I came back just mentally not there. I did have a mental breakdown when I came home, but that's part of what it means to be trans, in a way. You're hiding yourself for so long that when you finally accept it, it hits you, and it hits hard. You don't know how to feel and having PTSD doesn't help," Cris said.

Going through with his transition has made Cris a happier person, and nowadays when he's down or is going through a hard time, he enjoys writing and adding more tattoos to his body. He also spends time with his four nieces: Maddie, Ella, Charley, and Harper; whom he credits to keep him moving forward.

Cris Clark is a man who proves that even life's most difficult obstacles can be conquered. He rises above stereotypes and lives a life that makes himself happy, and because of that he is an honorable, inspirational person.

His advice to other people transitioning?:

"It gets easier. Accept and embrace yourself. Once you start, you'll be happier. Your feelings matter. Be yourself, no matter what people say being different is perfectly okay."

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Rest in peace Merissa Clark 1973-2013

Cris Clark about his mother: "At the end of the day, she always supported me. She is still a huge part of my life even though she isn't here, she needed to be here longer."