A Mother Still Standing

From the moment Elijah was born, I knew there was something different about him. 

Not in a way that worried me, but in a way that felt special. He had the most striking blue eyes, and a calmness about him that you don’t often see in children. As his mother, I remember watching him and thinking he was an old soul… like he had already lived and understood life in a way most never do. 

Raising Elijah was not difficult; it was grounding. 

He didn’t need chaos or attention. He was content in quiet spaces, especially outdoors, where he felt most at peace. As a mother, I learned early on that he wasn’t going to follow the typical path. He moved through life in his own way, and I found myself learning from him just as much as I was raising him. 

Some of my most meaningful memories as his mother are the simple ones. 

There is a place that became part of our lives, Talcott Mountain in Connecticut. I carried him there as a baby in a backpack, and we returned year after year as he grew. We would hike, pack lunches, and spend time at the rock wall at the top. It was never just a hike; it was our time. A place where I could just be with my son, away from everything else. 

Even now, he writes to me from prison and tells me he can’t wait for the day we walk that mountain together again. and....We Will! 

Being his mother meant having a child who stayed close to me. 

As a single mom, Elijah became my constant. My quiet, soft-hearted boy who didn’t need to be seen by the world to feel secure. He didn’t follow the crowd, and as his mother, I both admired that, and at times, worried about how the world would receive him. 

As he grew, I watched him find himself through music. 

He picked up a guitar around the age of twelve and never put it down. I remember listening to him play for hours, watching him pour himself into something that gave him peace. Later, seeing him teach younger kids, it made me proud in a way that only a mother could understand. 

There was never a point in raising Elijah where I felt like I was raising a troubled child. 

He was respectful, kind, and avoided conflict. And as his mother, I believed I had given him the tools to move through life safely. 

In 2019, when we moved to Ohio, it was one of the hardest decisions I made as his mother. And when he chose to return to Connecticut to live with his father, it was the first time in eighteen years that we were apart. 

That separation is something I still carry. 

Because as a mother, you always wonder… 
what if things had been different? 

On December 23, 2020, my life as a mother changed forever. 

There is no way to prepare for the moment your child becomes something the world does not understand. 

Elijah was involved in a tragic incident that took another person’s life. Elijah had been unknowingly exposed to substances that caused a complete break from reality. He has little memory of what happened. And as his mother, I have had to live in the space between what the world believes and what I know in my heart. 

I believe with everything in me that this was not who my son is. That he was not in his right state of mind. That something happened that none of us could have ever imagined. 

But as a mother, none of that changes the reality. 

My son was arrested… 
and he has been incarcerated ever since, now serving a 40-year sentence. 

Living as the mother of an incarcerated son is a grief that does not have a place in this world. 

My child is still alive… but I cannot hug him, protect him, or be part of his daily life. 

Every day, I wake up with a weight I cannot set down. 

I wonder if he is safe. 
I wonder if he is okay. 

I wonder if he feels alone. 

And the truth is, this system does not just affect him. 

It affects me. 
It affects our family. 

There are days, weeks, and sometimes months without communication. There is constant anxiety, fear, and helplessness that is hard to explain unless you have lived it. 

What hurts the most, as his mother, is watching the world define your child by one moment, 
a moment he never intended, never understood, and one that left him just as confused and shaken as the rest of us. 

Because I know who I raised. 

And I know that is not who he is. 

Even now, I watch my son continue to grow. 

From behind prison walls, he has strengthened his faith, reading the Bible, writing, reflecting, searching for meaning. And as his mother, I hold onto that. I hold onto the parts of him that are still whole, still good, still becoming. I pray that prison does not harden him in a way that takes away the gentle soul he was for the first eighteen years of his life. 

He is still kind. 
He is still thoughtful. 
He is still the same soul I raised. 

And I am still his mother. 

I don’t know what the future holds. We are in the appeals process, and I continue to pray...for justice, for healing, for a second chance. 

But what I have learned in this journey is this: 

I am still standing. 

I cry, I get mad, and I get sad, however, I do not allow myself to stay there long. 

Even in the hardest moments, I have found faith in a way I never knew before. 

And quite honestly… 
it was Elijah who led me there. 

Through this pain, through this unimaginable experience, 
I found God. 
I learned what it truly means to surrender. 

And that surrender has changed me. 

It has made me more patient. 
More compassionate. 
More understanding of others in a way I never was before. 

I no longer judge the way I once might have, 
because I now know, deeply, that you never truly know 
what someone else is carrying… or living through. 

I have learned to smile through the pain… 
through moments where I felt like I couldn’t breathe, 
through a grief that once sat so heavy on my shoulders 
I didn’t know how to stand under it. 

The pain is still there. 

But it walks beside me now, 
not on top of me. 

Because over time, through faith, through healing, 
through surrender… 
I have found strength.