“She Soars”

Michelle entered DHS custody when she was 4 years old. Over the next 14 years, she had 64 placements in foster homes and shelters. Michelle doesn’t remember much about her childhood before foster care. Unsurprisingly, the pieces she does remember are tragic; “fleeing” her father in Maryland with her mother and brother, being left in a trailer home with her younger brother for five or six days before being found, being abandoned for her mother’s new boyfriend.

Michelle learned to be comfortable only in chaos. Each failed foster care placement confirmed her belief that no home and no people were permanent.

Until she turned 15. She was pregnant with her first child and placed in a therapeutic foster home in the care of Roger and Connie. These foster parents brought her to church. When she got in trouble, she was grounded but she wasn’t kicked out. They were the first people to buy her new clothes and bring her along on family vacations. She still considers them her mom and dad.

When Michelle learned that she and her child couldn’t legally be placed in the same foster home (because her home was designated therapeutic foster care) she decided to place her son for adoption. Her mom said, “In everything, give God praise.”

But in her grief, Michelle ran away. And she became pregnant again. This time, when she returned to her foster home, Roger and Connie went to court to argue that Michelle’s daughter should be placed in their home with Michelle. She remembers “that’s how much they loved me.”

Unfortunately, Michelle sought out the chaos that made her feel comfortable and was charged with felony embezzlement when she was 17 years old. She had been an alcoholic since the age of 13, but at 18 years old, she began experimenting with methamphetamine. She was in prison within six months.

During her first stay in prison, Michelle met two fellow inmates who would shape her life in more ways than she could imagine – Rhonda Bear and Shaunte Gordan. The three women met in a behavioral modification program on their way to lock.

After being released, Michelle continued to make choices that resulted in incarceration. Each time she went back, she saw Rhonda again. But eventually, Rhonda was returning to prison as a volunteer, first through Kairos Prison Ministry and then through Stand in the Gap’s Women in Transition program. For Michelle, Rhonda became only the third consistent person in her life.

For the next few years Michelle describes her life as bouncing from drugs to prison and back again. She says, “I was comfortable in prison. It was like being in a shelter instead of a foster home.”

Michelle was pregnant during her third incarceration. She gave birth in Tulsa County Jail. But her son tragically passed away of SIDS only 59 days later. Rhonda walked with Michelle during her immense and all-consuming grief. In her darkest moments, Michelle remembers that Rhonda “represented the God that I could see, hear, and touch even when I wanted nothing to do with him.”

In 2018, the midst of active addiction, Michelle gave birth to her youngest son, Xander. He was immediately taken into DHS custody at the hospital. Michelle didn’t want to be responsible for another child suffering. She fought to get her son back but struggled, as secretly as possible, with addiction. Xander had been placed in a loving foster home. His foster parents, Monica and Jesse, made space for Michelle to form a relationship with Xander. Each weekend, at the end of her visit in their home, Michelle would leave during Xander’s bathtime so that he couldn’t run after her. One night, he stood up, faced the wall, and said, “Bye, Mommy.” Michelle went to rehab the next day and has been in recovery since that night.

After completing rehab, Michelle turned to her old friend, Rhonda. Rhonda matched Michelle with a Stand in the Gap small group of volunteers who joined her in passionate prayer for Michelle and Xander’s relationship. Michelle describes her Stand in the Gap team as the “backbone” she needed during a vulnerable time in her sobriety. “They were family when I needed a family.”

Today, Xander is back with his mom. Michelle, ever conscious of the lack of stability in her own childhood, encourages his continued relationship with Monica and Jesse. “It’s important for him to know that everybody who loved him will always be there,” Michelle says. Even when it’s hard, emotionally and logistically, to prioritize Xander’s relationship with his former foster parents, Michelle says that “God reminds me that it’s not about me. It’s about this little boy.”

Michelle completed her Bachelor’s Degree from Roger’s State University and is going on to pursue a Master’s in Community Counseling. She plans to work with children in foster care, providing the “backbone” that she didn’t have for so long.

She is an approved volunteer for the Department of Corrections and has returned to prison with her old friend Shaunte, sharing the freedom she has found. She volunteers for Stand in the Gap, walking alongside Kacey as she transitions to life after incarceration.

Michelle and Xander have made their home in Claremore. She sells homemade elderberry syrup and salsa at the farmer’s market and raises chickens. Her brother in now in recovery in Claremore as well because, according to Shaunte, “He wants what she has.” Michelle works full-time while also working towards her degree. Xander is thriving in Legacy Christian school.

When asked to describe how Michelle is doing, her good friend and Women in Transition instructor, Shaunte, says simply, “She soars.”

Michelle spent twelve years of her life in prison. During those times, she says, “I never sought God out. But I had three anchors, my mom and dad (Roger and Connie) and Rhonda. Because of my mom’s advice and Rhonda’s example, even when I hated God the most after my baby died, I kept saying ‘Give him praise.’ After about a year, my praises were real. I don’t know what God has for me next. But I know that if my goals are in line with his will, he will keep opening doors for me.”