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In Their Own Words
As Benedict Center women were preparing for Wally Lamb's visit in July 2010 by reading some of the stories written by the women of York Prison, they decided that they would like to share their own stories and poems as well. In his forward to I'll Fly Away," Wally said the following about his work with the women in prison:
"Writing began to give them wings with which to hover above the confounding maze of their lives, and from that perspective they began to see the patterns and dead ends of their pasts, and a way out. That's the funny thing about a labyrinth: what's baffling and illogical on the ground makes perfect sense when you rise above it, the better to understand your history and renovate yourself."
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In Their Own Words
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Lacetta
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You Were a Whisper in My Ear
I was sleeping like a child and so unaware
That you were a whisper in my ear.
My rage, I didn't recognize, I could not justify
That you were a whisper in my ear.
I loved you unconditionally
But you were a whisper in my ear.
This isn't a world for the weak,
The pathetic.
You had abandoned me and I didn't even notice.
You are a whisper in my ear.
I wait for the morning to bless the world.
I can see now,
I can feel now.
Because you are just a whisper in my ear.
I long to hold you in my arms to keep each other safe.
But you are just a whisper in my ear.
I close my eyes to remember your smile.
I used to love to hear you talk to me. Smile at me.
I love you. You know who you are.
You are the whisper in my ear.
Please whisper in my ear.
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Jennifer
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I got my Wings
In 2002 I started at the Benedict Center. I didn’t want to go, but my parole officer told me that if I didn’t go I would go back to jail. I was supposed to go for drug classes and GED education classes. When my PO met with me, he said, “If you don’t have your GED before July, you will get revoked.”
When I got to the Benedict Center I met this sweet lady named Donna. I told her what my PO told me and she said, “There is no way that you can get your GED by July. I’ll explain that to his supervisor.” A week later I started AODA classes and GED classes, where I met Dave Peters. He is a good teacher and a man with good patience – he deals with all us women and all our mood swings. When we are going through difficulties at home, which we often are, instead of yelling he listens to us while we vent.
I stopped going to the Benedict Center when I lost my children and went on a drinking spree. I knew I was going to do something stupid because I was so upset, so I got phone numbers from everyone in the group and asked my counselor to hold onto $100 for me so I wouldn’t spend all of my money. When I got home, I went out, and got drunk and didn’t care for four days. After that, my counselor told me that we had to go talk to the PO. I got locked up for three weeks in the Milwaukee County Jail, went to in-house treatment for three months, then was told I had to go back to the Benedict Center again.
But this time I wanted to go. I worked so hard I “got my wings” for finishing my AODA classes. After completing AODA classes, we get a butterfly necklace to represent how much we’ve changed. I worked so hard I passed two of the five GED tests required. Then I stopped going there again because I got frustrated by social studies – world history did me in.
About three months after that Dave called me at home to check up on me. That showed me that the Benedict Center cared for me and that I could succeed. The Benedict Center is like a second home. There are so many good-hearted people there who would give you the shirt off their backs if you needed it. Now I only have one test to go then I will have my GED. I took that last test and failed it by ten points. If I was the old me, I would stop going and not stick to it. The Benedict Center has changed my life for the good.
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Madia
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I Seem Not to Want to Leave
August 2009. After five years of running, I was really tired and ready to face my problems. It was like a nightmare; I had to stop, turn around and face what was chasing me. I came to the Benedict Center with a five-year-old prostitution case hanging over my head. I wanted to clean up my record—with a warrant, I could not register for nursing school. Even though my case was as old as it was, I was afraid of being locked up.
Two years earlier, I had come to the Benedict Center at my lawyer’s request. I was taking a sexuality class because of my case and had the intention of opening up to other people and things. However, my significant other became jealous of the time spent away from him and started to accuse me of cheating on him. I stopped coming in to keep a happy home.
This time at the Benedict Center, I came to finish what I had started and take the bull by the horns. Going back to court to reopen my case, I was running a risk of being locked up right away. The judge was compassionate, and I had a chance to keep my freedom for a little longer. That freedom was going to be used to turn my life around so that I could bring something positive to the judge at my next court date. I knew I could do it.
Being here, I feel something that I haven’t felt for a really long time—like a human being. There are people in my corner, willing to help me and not judge my past. I sense caring, even a spark of love. When my case was scheduled to come up again, Donna and Meagan wrote beautiful letters about my character and accomplishments. In court, I felt like a miracle had lit up my day and God was smiling upon me: the lawyer, the judge, and even the prosecutor were on my side. My case was released, and I felt like a new being. Two tons of weight had been lifted from my soul, and a smile grew across my face. This was an ease that I had not had in a long time.
Now that I have finished what I came to do and my court case is no longer hanging over me, I seem not to want to leave. I am a 43-year-old woman who had no direction, but am now learning and continuing my education. My studies and recent years of health care work are helping me prepare for advanced medical certification. Classes in anger management, computers, women’s sexuality and general studies at the Benedict Center are giving me skills and strength that I will always carry with me.
That strength is needed every day when I walk back into my neighbor-hood. Anger and hatred from so many bad experiences there, many more than good ones, are like something that grabs hold of me. I fight with it, but now that I know I can win my battles, this is just another one I can win.
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Sherry
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In a World with No Light
A Soul that has been lost
A heart that no longer beats for the love of others
A one track mind
Blinded by substance . . .
Cocaine
You forced me to withdraw from life itself.
Astounded by the power I gave you,
I am now forced to pick myself back up and start over again.
Cocaine
You drowned my mind with the mere cat & mouse game of the chase
To remain impaired to the world around me.
Leaving me with nothing but memories.
Memories
Nothing but sorrow.
Selling my body, jeopardizing friendships, stealing from loved ones,
And losing two of my children.
These are only a few.
Cocaine
I have lost so much over the years to you.
Now it’s time to say goodbye
To the heartache and pain you have brought me and my family
That I am still recovering from.
Constantly reminded as the days continue to add up in my sobriety.
We can never seem to forget where we came from,
And more importantly how we got there.
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Stacey
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Guess Who's Cooking Now
I
On my 18th birthday, there was a birthday party in the back yard at my house, and I wasn’t even invited. It was my birthday and my cousin Vonery’s birthday on the same day and the party was for her. When I looked out the window at all of the fun they were having in the swimming pool, my stepdad yelled, “Get your head back in the house!” Only my Aunt Barbara remembered me and cared. She came up and gave me some cake and ice cream. “Stacey, it’ll be all right,” she said. It helped a little but not so much. Maybe that’s why when I had kids I would promise them birthday parties every weekend if they were good at school that week. We would invite all the cousins over, play kickball and water balloons and have cake and ice cream too of course.
The night of that birthday party, I decided to run away and climbed down the back porch. I went to stay with my sister Vicky. My mom called the police, but when they came I was hiding in the closet and they didn’t find me. I never went home again.
II
It was while I was at my sister’s house the day after my birthday that I met Joseph. I met him at the corner by the store where three of his friends were talking to me. It took me three months before I got the nerve to call him. I think I really got his attention when I cooked him lunch to take to work – chicken and smothered potatoes. He fell in love with me for my cooking. But still he had his devilish ways about him. Joseph wanted to have his cake and eat it too. From the beginning he was with me as well as other girls.
I married him when I was 21. I was in love with him so it just seemed right. I thought that this might mean he would be straight with me, but it didn’t quite turn out that way. There were lots of different girls, some I knew about, others I didn’t know about. And Joseph didn’t even try to hide it. One girl in particular, ReRe, was mad about him and hated me because I was married to him and she wasn’t. She even told me once that the ring he gave me was hers.
Joseph showed me crack cocaine and got me started using it. I smoked it for 37 years. Nothing good happens with crack cocaine. It really messed me up. One time I was watching TV in the bedroom with my kids, Joseph and Galathia, seven and eight, when Joseph came in with another woman and said, “Can you be excused?” I was so messed up that I just did. We left the room, and the next thing I knew she was leaving the room with a robe on – her own robe. I knew then that this was not the first time she was here. Sometimes I got mad and other times not so much. Once Joseph had told me that he was sleeping, but when I opened the door, he and ReRe were in bed together. So I just got in bed in the middle of both of them and we slept the whole night.
Whatever happened, Joseph always wanted me to be with him too, but sometimes I didn’t come running. Once he called me to tell me to come over, I said, “No, you call some of your other girls.” So he told me he had a pencil and was going to stab himself with it if I didn’t come over. I didn’t and he did. It is no surprise that when he called me from the hospital one day and said he needed me to come, I didn’t believe him. He said, “Stacey, come on!” I said, “Nope, you just call one of those girls you have. It was only when the nurse called and said he was in critical condition that I believed him. He died of sickle cell anemia complicated with his doing drugs. ReRe wanted to fight me right there in the parking lot the same day he died because Joseph liked me more than her. I ran away because I wasn’t going to fight nobody no more.
III
After Joseph died I started running the streets, prostituting, got threatened a lot. I ended up in jail of course and was sent to recovery after I got out. Recovery had many benefits – the best one was meeting Hakeem. He’s sweet, honest and handsome. And he does the cooking! And I deserve it.
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Anita
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I Didn't Know Him
I didn’t get his license plate. I didn’t have to. He was right in front of my face. He came with a smile, kissed me and ransacked the place.
Don’t look for fingerprints. He touched me in ways you couldn’t say.
Don’t look for footprints. He walked all over me after that day.
Don’t look for a point, eventually he carries a key. His only reason for coming was to emotionally murder me, brutally attack my spirit, rob my soul through my mouth, insult my mind from up north and butcher me from down south.
Don’t look for a point, eventually he holds a key. Yes I’m afraid to ask him to give it back to me. He’s circling the block, waiting for the time to tick on the slow, slow clock. I just brought brand new locks for a brand new door. His kind of love doesn’t live here any more.
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Trina
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I Can Spread My Wings Now
When I first got here, I barely said two words. But gradually when I was coming more and more I began to feel more comfortable and started to open up. Once I started opening up, I started accepting help. I learned how to handle stress, I learned how to be a parent to my child. And I learned patience and how to love more.
Nochia gives me some real good outlooks on things. When I first got here it was like, “Grrrrrr,” every time I got frustrated. My probation officer would get on my last nerve to the point where I was ready to scream and yell at her. Nochia would tell me, “It will be all right, stick to it and it will be over. You can get through this. Just don’t get in trouble again.” I don’t know where or what I would be doing if I didn’t run into the Benedict Center. Other women need to come here whether they know it or not. If you don’t have love or feel secure, you feel like everything is on your shoulders.
Without the Benedict Center, I would still probably be stubborn and mean somewhere, but now I feel like one of the butterflies. It feels wonderful. I can spread my wings now.
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Virginia
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From Fights to Friends
It was the summer of 1986, and we were in a hot, crowded classroom at the Benedict Center. Back then it was part of St. Ben’s Parish across from the Jail. I was 18 and so was the other girl. She had light skin, long hair and was skinny. We started arguing and things got heated. This was going to be a fight—a WWF Smackdown! Somehow the Benedict Center staff stepped in and stopped us. Then, over the next two weeks, something amazing happened: we became close friends. Instead of hurting each other, we were helping each other.
This story is like what happens at the Benedict Center. Like me, many women who first come here are angry. We are forced to come and don’t want to be here. The staff is the enemy and forcing us to be around a lot of difficult women. Then that “something amazing” happens. We find out that the staff really does care, begin to make friends and the people at the Benedict Center become like a second family.
My second probation brought me back to the Benedict Center and I took Anger Management and Moving On classes. Dave Hecht wanted me to take the GED reading test, which got me angry. I said, “Why
take it if I’m not going to pass?” He told me I had to try, and since I was on probation I felt like I had to do it. “Alright, I’ll take the test—so that when I fail you guys are out some money!” I said to Donna.
If I hadn’t been pushed, I would never have taken the test. I passed it and now I’ve passed two more. There are only two more tests to take and I will have my GED!
The Benedict Center is a place for people to grow and accomplish things and achieve their goals. We do a lot of things here — we even go on field trips to Holy Hill and Cool Waters. Last December we saw Scrooge at the Pabst Theatre—even he started out mean and selfish and learned to give to others. It did take him three ghosts to soften his heart, but eventually it happened!
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Shelia
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Still Growing
My life at the Benedict Center began ten years ago, and although I am now a “graduate,” I continue to think of it as my home base recovery center. And I’m still growing.
When I first came to the Benedict Center, I really didn’t want to be here. I was sent by the court to deal with my anger issues and drug addiction and it took me a long time before I realized how much the people here cared about me – I think what really changed my view was when Dave Peters actually ran after me down Wisconsin Avenue because he was concerned that I was going to harm myself and wanted to make sure I was okay. That really impressed me and put things in perspective, and I learned that I had to own up to my life with responsibility
My two sons have also given me “tough love” and encouraged me in
my recovery. Once I got clean, I got respect back from my sons. My
recovery didn’t come without setbacks, though. Over the past ten years I have had to deal with an abusive boyfriend, living in transitional housing, and physical pain due to back problems.
And four years ago, when I got to my home and found that it had been violated and everything destroyed, my clothes all over the floor, plumbing ripped out, I had a one-day relapse.
Every so often I come back to the Benedict Center to visit or attend the
Anger and Stress Management and AODA groups. It helps to vent and overcome the burdens that I might be feeling that day. But I also come to help out, help cooking for awards dinners, take care of the plants and occasionally fill in for the receptionist. There are also times when I see one of the women who need help and talk to them one-on-one to talk about how they need to avoid those situations that will get them back in trouble.
My life is really on the right track. After living in transitional housing for the last ten years, I actually cried when I signed a lease and now have my own place to live. I am unable to work due to my back injury, but I help look after my grandbabies. I have earned my kids’ trust, which is a lot when you consider what I put them through when they were young. My kids lived with their grandparents—but now I am able to help them out with their kids when they need it.
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