00:00:00William Breeding: Today is October the 13th, 2022 and I am blessed to be here with Ms. Tlayra Jordan, did I say that correctly?
00:00:10Tlayra Jordan: You got it, yes.
00:00:14Jordan: Okay, first I'd like to thank you personally, then I'd like to thank you on behalf of the University of Georgia Oral History Project Program, which is sponsored through the Richard B. Russell Library.
00:00:30Jordan: It's an honor.
00:00:33Breeding: Okay.
00:00:35Jordan: Thank you.
00:00:38Breeding: I gave you the paperwork, and which you've signed the oral history agreement and another paper that you will keep with you, telling you a little bit about the program. What will happen, your words will be here long after probably two, three, four generations. At the Richard B. Russell Library, I understand. Three stories deep. They have, they're preserving various things, so if someone wanted to know what was going on during this time in Athens, Georgia, they wouldn't have to hear it from a third party. They could hear it directly from a person who was there.
00:01:24Jordan: Okay.
00:01:25Breeding: In this case, you. What I'd like for you to do is to say your name and spell it for me for the sake of accuracy.
00:01:33Jordan: So my name is Tlayra Jordan. That's T-L-A-Y-R-A. Jordan, J-O-R-D-A-N.
00:01:40Breeding: Okay. What year were you born? Not the birth date, but the year?
00:01:50Jordan: 1981.
00:01:52Breeding: 1981. Okay. The way I like for this interview to go, any part of your story you want to tell, I would like to hear. But I'd like to start off you telling me about your earliest memories, after you tell me about your parents. And we'll go from there. Go ahead.
00:02:16Jordan: My mother. What I was told and then later learned was her name was Alicia Jordan. She was originally, she is originally from Athens, and my father's name was James Posten. He is from Toledo, Ohio where I was born. My mom had got into some trouble late 70s, early 80s which led her, my grandma having to send her up north for refuge and she ended up meeting my father, and I learned that I was a product of a one-night stand. During that time, she was, unfortunately, she was a heroin addict. My father was an alcoholic. So, here come I. And I don't know their history or their story thereafter, but I know my mom did do some prison time, some federal time. I ended up being raised by a great-aunt who was sixty, and her husband was sixty-nine when they got custody of a three-month-old. Um, they raised me in a very strict, but loving home. I went to private school. But I think I would have to say my earliest childhood remembrance would be when I was sent here to Athens for my seventh birthday. And I didn't know much of my mother, my grandmother, or my siblings. My mom had just had my baby sister, and she was turning one. All of our birthdays are in August, and so I was sent here for that seventh birthday. And my mom stole the money that was supposed to have been for our birthday party. And that turned into an uproar that led my aunt, that same day, to come back and get me. She came all the way, jumped straight on the Greyhound, came all the way here just to get me. And that set, for me, in motion the trauma stemming from my family. Not really knowing how deep it was. But that set in motion, for me, the understanding of what was going on, or at least trying to figure out what was going on because in a seven-year-old mind, you don't really understand what that's about. Um--
00:04:53Breeding: Let me stop you for a second. You were sent here to stay with whom?
00:04:57Jordan: With my grandmother. I was sent here for the summer.
00:05:01Breeding: Okay, continue. I'll follow you.
00:05:03Jordan: I'm sorry.
00:05:05Breeding: No, no, no, no, no. I was just curious because you said your aunt came to get you. So go ahead, keep talking.
00:05:10Jordan: Yep, she sent me here with my grandma for that summer, for my seventh birthday. And so, just fast forwarding a little bit, I ended up going to private school, 3rd grade. During those years I was so I was living in probably one of the worst neighborhoods in Toledo, Ohio, and I was the only child in the neighborhood that did not attend the school with the other children, so I was forced to get up a little earlier and catch two buses just to get to school and for me I thought that was very traumatizing, you thinking, back then up north with the snow I'm young having to catch the bus by myself, but that was only the beginning for me. My biggest trauma, earliest remembrance was when I was about eleven or twelve years old when I started being molested by an older cousin. He was mid-30s, and he was the one that was responsible for taking my aunt and uncle to the doctors, to the grocery store, and things of that nature. And it began with him fondling me, and then it turned into him going a little further, and he told me that if I were to tell, it would destroy the family. And I knew my aunt was older, I felt it was my fault. I really didn't know which way to go with it, so I did, I kept that secret. I didn't tell. And it went on for years, and it progressed throughout the years. And if I can just be totally honest with you, thinking back, it happened and went on so long until I normalized it. And just as I was getting older, I honestly think that a part of me just got numb to it, and I just enjoyed it. At fifteen, I became pregnant. And I knew that it was his baby, I wasn't with anybody else, but when I became pregnant, to cover it up, in my mind I'm thinking, "I can't tell." So I began sleeping with other people, so that at least, I could have somebody else to blame it on, and I did that. And I hid the pregnancy up until about my seventh month, so I couldn't hide it any longer. Now, mind you, I'm still going to school. I'm still living in the house with my great aunt and uncle. And when I couldn't hide it no longer, I finally come out, I told her. And she made me tell her whose it was. And so, of course, I lied. And she immediately called up the young guy's family, which we knew. We lived in a close community neighborhood, and so. He, of course, denied it, but the family kind of believed it. So I had my son on October the 5th, 1997. And now, if I can just back up just a little bit, I was actually during that period, I started going through what I'll call my spiritual transformations.
00:09:10Breeding: Okay.
00:09:11Jordan: Because again, I said I went to private school, it was my church's school. And I had a situation that forced me to exercise this thing we call prayer. And I can remember my first time ever praying. And that prayer came to pass immediately, right? And I knew that there was some power. I knew that there was something to this prayer thing, so things started happening to me in a very powerful way that it kept pushing me back to my spiritual sense. It kept pushing me back to develop this constant prayer life. It kept sending me down to knowing that I had this one thing that we call prayer to fall back on.
00:10:09Breeding: What age were you then, approximately?
00:10:12Jordan: At four, with the prayer, when the spiritual experiences began, I was about thirteen.
00:10:19Breeding: Okay, continue.
00:10:21Jordan: I was about thirteen years old. And when I say I had a spiritual awakening, I don't mean just with prayer, like I started literally experiencing spiritual transformations. Hard for me to explain now what I may have been feeling or thinking back then, but I knew something was happening to me.
00:10:48Breeding: And you were pregnant then?
00:10:51Jordan: When I got pregnant, let me, can I just give you one example?
00:10:56Breeding: No, definitely give me one.
00:10:57Jordan: When I got pregnant, mind you, at this point I'm still hiding my pregnancy. I was about six months pregnant. I go to bed one night, and I'm in my bed, and I heard a baby crying. I hear this baby crying so loud it woke me up, and I could tell it was close, and I turned over to my side and there was this baby laying in the bed with me. And to me I was awake.
00:11:30Breeding: Okay.
00:11:30Jordan: I literally thought I had awakened and I'm trying to figure out whose baby is this and where did this baby come from, and I reach, and I pick this baby up. I held him. I held his hand. I calmed him. I looked at him. I studied his face, and in the midst of me doing so, I started hearing a rumbling like a shuffling under my bed, and I was scared because I'm thinking somebody's in my room, and I lean off the bed and look off the side--and I've never told anybody this by the way.
00:12:12Breeding: Okay.
00:12:14Jordan: I leaned off the side of my bed, and there was this shadow that started to come out from up under my bed, and it come up in such a way as if it was, if you can imagine laying on a skateboard and rolling out from under the bed.
00:12:32Breeding: Okay.
00:12:33Jordan: Come up from under the bed, sat straight up, looked at me and ran out my bedroom door, and then, I woke up. And I was so terrified, I thought I was going crazy. I literally thought I was going crazy. So I never told anybody that because I didn't want anybody to think that I was crazy. But that was my first spiritual experience because, when I had that child, a couple months later, it was the same exact child from that dream.
00:13:12Breeding: Well, I'm going to say this to put your mind at ease because I see the look. There were things that I went through, experiences, that I wouldn't tell anybody because during that time, my age at that time, marijuana was real big, and I said somebody would have thought I got high and made this up. And then there was another experience. I wouldn't talk about, period, and eventually I talked with a minister, and he had this look and kind of laughed, and he told me what it meant. And the more I thought about it, and the more I observed, that still hadn't come to its completion, but I do understand. So you're not talking to someone who's sitting there like, "Yeah, okay."
00:14:10Jordan: Okay.
00:14:11Breeding: So feel relaxed at that, because I have been through certain things and it's like, I know there are forces that are beyond the average person.
00:14:21Jordan: Yes. Yes.
00:14:24Breeding: So continue your story.
00:14:26Jordan: Thank you for sharing that with me, actually. That was the first, but it definitely wasn't the last time I experienced that. They actually, those experiences actually became more frequent and start happening, even in a more powerful sense. Right after I--so okay, I had my son in October the 5th, 1997. And right after I had him, as I said, it got stronger. I was on my couch one night, and I fell asleep. And I was, I'm still in shock. At this time, I'm sixteen years old.
00:15:12Breeding: Okay.
00:15:13Jordan: And I still had chores. I still had curfew. I still had, but I had a baby. And, uh, one of my chores was, um, I had to definitely wash my dishes at night. If I did not, I just had to catch it. And so anyway, I didn't wash the dishes and I fell asleep on the couch. I jumped up to wash the dishes before my aunt got up, and for some reason--we lived on the third floor-- and for some reason, to me, the sun seemed to be shining so brightly through our patio door, and instead of me going to the kitchen, I went to the patio. And the sun was literally on my porch. And I had this drawing to it, I wanted to go touch it for some reason. I just, I remember thinking, "I gotta go touch it." And I opened the patio, got ready to step on the porch, and I heard something fall behind me. And when I turned around, I was still laying on the couch. And I don't even know why I'm sharing this part of my story, but it's just what has come to me to share. But for me, I think I want to share this to kind of give a context to why I feel that my journey through the things that I went through thereafter meant so much because of the power that was behind it and the purpose that it had to serve. I'm still on the couch. And I went to myself, and I can remember thinking, "Oh my God, I'm dead." And I immediately, instead of thinking about myself, I thought about my aunt who was about to get up and find me dead on the couch. And I just started crying. And I can remember how warm those tears was falling down my eyes. And-- I was so drawn to myself, I just stood there and watched myself. And the first thing I thought was, "Put your finger under your nose to see if there's breath coming out your nose." And I did. And I felt the breath coming from my nose. And I got this sense of calm, thinking, "Well, maybe I'm not dead." And, um, and I just, I went from calm to terrified all in the same breath. And I wanted to touch myself. And I went to put my hand on my chest, and I woke up. So, um, for me, I know that there was something placed inside of me. And I did not know what it meant or how it was going to carry me through. But when I started experiencing the guilt, the shame, the embarrassment of knowing that I had delivered a child by my cousin, I didn't know how it was going to come out. I didn't know how I was going to deal with dealing with his family. The questions began, um--
00:18:36Breeding: So, at this point in time, they do know it's your cousin's child?
00:18:39Jordan: Not at this point in time.
00:18:41Breeding: Still, okay, continue.
00:18:42Jordan: No. Not at that moment. And so, because of the embarrassment, the guilt, the shame, me trying to keep up with the lie, I began drinking heavily, and I began smoking marijuana. Daily, every day, all day, really, because it was all I could think about. It was the only coping mechanism I had to deal with all these thoughts, all this guilt, all this shame. So, I had him in October, that following summer, we were having a family reunion here, and I wanted to come, and upon me coming to Athens, when I got here, I realized, I can just run. I can just come here and never have to go back and deal with that. If I stay here, I won't have to deal with the questions of his family. I won't have to deal with the prodding of the friends and the neighbors and my aunt, so that's what I did. I come here in the summer of '98 for a reunion, and I just stayed. I did go back and forth a couple times for the first year, and upon coming here, I meet, as a mother, as a young woman with children, with a child, I met my mom. The last time I had seen her, I was twelve years old, and so now here I am, sixteen, with a nine-month-old, eight, nine-month-old. She was at the Clarke County Jail, and that was where I went and saw her again for the first time after all those years. A part of me wanted to get to know my mother because now here I am a mother who don't even know her mother. So I wanted to get to know her. I wanted to get to know my grandma and during that time, I was so uncomfortable with my family here I wasn't even able to call my grandma granny or granny. I called her Miss Dot because that's who she was. So you know I didn't want to feel that way about my grandma. So I wanted to know her. I had another sibling, my baby sister, during that time I think she was eleven years old. So I come here, I start working, I found some normalcy in life. The pressure wasn't so bad. I started to go back to school, but I learned that I was a little fast, and I don't mean, you know, I was a little more advanced than the children here and I just didn't fit in. I realized I didn't fit in so I attempted to go for my GED. Um--
00:21:57Breeding: Let me ask you something. When you say you were a little, I guess, above, was that academically or just life?
00:22:06Jordan: Both. Both. I felt so out of place. I mean, I think too I had a little of the shame still on my back. Feeling like a young mom, and I knew none of the other children had children, so I was forced into this grown-up role really fast. I started, I fell into some abusive relationships really early, so very toxic, very abusive relationships, but I ended up meeting my daughter's dad, and he was probably the best thing I thought at that time for me. And he was in the lifestyle. If I could say that nicely, he was led to believe that he was gonna get rich quick in the streets, and during that time period, that's when my mom got out of jail, and she come to my grandma house to stay as well.
00:23:27Breeding: Okay.
00:23:28Jordan: And that's when I learned, about her addiction and how bad it was. She started stealing everything that wasn't nailed down. Then she had the boyfriend who, he used her for what she could do for him, and he didn't care for me too much. Neither did I care for him. And, one income tax time, they had stole my money. They had got my check out my grandma's mailbox, stole it, somehow was able to cash it. And they disappeared, went on the land for a couple weeks. And the next time I saw them, they were at my grandmother's house one morning, and they had turned my grandma's house inside out. To say this as nicely as I can, I wasn't accepting of it. We got into a fight, me and the boyfriend. I ran out the house to try to get away from him. He come out behind me, and I ran him over with my car. I was terrified, for one, because I realized that my mom was going to side with him. Me and my mom's relationship started out wrong. She tried to befriend me, and I was looking for a mom. But she befriended me, and then she tried to become the parent, and that didn't work. So when I realized that she was going to side with this man over me, I was afraid of what may have happened to me that day. So I wanted to get away. He didn't want me to get away. And I did the first thing that came to my mind. I ran him over, and I was charged with aggravated assault with a vehicle. Now the only thing I believe that saved me from that was my mom's extensive criminal history. She had been in and out of the Clarke County Jail pretty much her whole life, and they knew my family well, so the charges were reduced, and they sentenced me to twelve months of probation, and those twelve months of probation turned into the next sixteen years of me in and out of the Clarke County Jail. But from that one charge, it became abuse after abuse, from trauma to trauma, to bad relationship after bad relationship. Me numbing the pain. My marijuana usage increased. My alcohol usage increased. The family was split because, of course, my grandma was an enabler. And my grandma thought my mom couldn't do no wrong. So, of course, my grandma took my mom's side. And I was pegged as the bad guy, as the troublemaker, as the stuff starter.
00:27:15Breeding: The problem. I said the problem.
00:27:20Jordan: Yeah. Yeah. But what I was, I was this lonely, scared, little girl who wanted to be a part of a family that, I feel as though, really, I never belonged. So I came here as the outsider, trying to force my way in.
00:27:41Breeding: Okay.
00:27:42Jordan: And it just didn't, it just, it just didn't work. It just wasn't fitting. So--
00:27:49Breeding: Let me ask you, what was your daughter going through at this time? Because I can imagine having a mother on one side, a grandmother, and a great-grandmama on the other side. So what was happening to your daughter during this time?
00:28:05Jordan: So, during the first round, it was just my son. When I had the incident with running my mom's boyfriend over, I didn't know it at the time, but I had just gotten pregnant with my daughter. So during this time, my son was about two or three. And he became so overprotective of me. He became, he just was, he refused to leave my side. He refused to let me out of his sight. You know, he just fought to just, if I got up to go to the bathroom, he was right there with me. And I could tell that, you know, it was traumatizing for him. Luckily, during that period, I had just moved out of my grandma's house, so I had my own place. And we weren't forced to actually have to live there in that anymore. But again I'm in this relationship with my daughter's dad. He went off and did some time, and when he come home, things just weren't the same. We didn't stay together but probably six months after that.
00:29:23Breeding: How long was he there?
00:29:26Jordan: He did about a year.
00:29:28Breeding: Okay.
00:29:30Jordan: Right at a year.
00:29:31Breeding: Okay.
00:29:34Jordan: And young men gonna be young men. He got out and there was other fish in the sea, and I didn't handle that well. And now that period for me was a breaking point. So I went through this early on, a spiritual transformation, right? And so this was the point where I went to a mental breaking point. I literally can look back and say I had lost my mind. And I was losing it and didn't even know it. Now being in the field that I'm in now, I can say, you know, I was having a mental health break, but during that time I didn't know what was going on with me. I knew I was angry. One minute I'm okay, the next minute I'm crying, the next minute I'm mad. We had got into, towards the end, me and my daughter's dad had got into a really bad fight. And he kicked me in my mouth and broke my jaw. And the adrenaline, and in the heat of the moment, and I guess the drugs and alcohol, the marijuana and alcohol, I didn't even realize it until I got back in my car and my sister was screaming, "Oh my God, your jaw, your jaw!" And I was just so in the moment, I just snapped my jaw back in place. And, but from that, um, I made my mind up to kill him. And I would say for probably most of that summer, I drove around Athens-Clarke County with a 9mm fully loaded with the intentions of no matter where I saw him, that was where I was going to leave him. That is mental health at its finest. That is that breaking point at its finest. I was young, I was, here I just lost what I thought was the love of my life. I'm heavily medicated with marijuana and alcohol. My family has turned against me. I have legal problems that has come against me. And now I'm homeless due to this domestic dispute. And it was just back to back to back. So, I had pretty much made my mind up to give up. And whatever happened, happened. One night I got a call from a friend, or who I thought was a friend, who knew I was looking for him and the new girlfriend. And she was at a club in downtown Athens. They told me she was there. And I drove downtown and waited for her to come out. And I followed her. And I followed her to their home. I could not catch her before she got in the door. But I laid in those bushes for six hours with the intentions. And I'm gonna just pause it to say the power of God was so with me. Because if it was my will and my way. I wouldn't be sitting here doing this interview with you today, but because God had another plan for me in my life, neither one of them-- come out, or looked out, or anything. And what snapped me out of that anger, that trance, that determination to do this thing, was at that time, my son, who was at this time about three years old, three or four years old, I had just taught him my phone number. I had taught him my phone number, my granny's phone number, and my sister's phone number. He called me at about seven o'clock that morning. It was the first time he had ever waken up without me. And he called me and said, "Mommy, where are you? I don't know what to do without you." And it was, and I can, I will never forget that. His voice and what he said as long as I live because it was those words that brought me back. And I got up crying and sweating and mad. And I drove home and I got my baby, my babies. And when I got home, I took a picture of them so that I would never forget that moment, that day. And I promised myself that as long as I lived, I would never allow myself to get so emotionally wrapped up in a man, a person, or anything that would drive me to a point where I'm willing to not just ruin my life, but my family's life. Now, I made that promise, but that was easier said than done, especially the years to come when I went from alcohol, marijuana, to cocaine. My addiction progressed because the alcohol no longer served me. The marijuana no longer served me. My pain was greater. My depression was greater. My need to change the way I felt had become more and more desperate. And I began experimenting with cocaine.
00:36:00Breeding: And about how old were you then?
00:36:02Jordan: At this point, I was about twenty-six. I was about twenty-six years old. Then, shortly thereafter, that summer of my new experimentations, I got pregnant with yet another son. So I have a son, I have a daughter, and now I'm pregnant with another son. And I will honestly tell you that of, of all my other children, he's the one that I think I wanted the least, because I knew that it was a mistake. I knew mentally I was incapable of dealing with another child with everything that was going on in my life. And then I had just began this spiraling effect from this now cocaine addiction. So I carried him. I used during my entire pregnancy. I had him. He had some, not health challenges, but there were some things going on with him. He had to come home on the oxygen. And I'm not proud of that at all. Even talking about it right now, I think back of how broken I was. And so, I don't think I ever really connected to him.
00:38:05Breeding: And so how old is he now?
00:38:07Jordan: He's seventeen.
00:38:08Breeding: He's seventeen, okay.
00:38:10Jordan: He's seventeen, and of all of my other children, it's amazing how they say children can feel what the mother feels. Children experiences, they experience those feelings from the womb. And I used to didn't believe that how they say that a child really never disconnects from that mother until they're about five years old. And who he is today is proof that they feel what you're feeling. They stay connected because he is very, he isolates. He's not a people person. He don't care. You can give him a cup of Kool-Aid and a game system, and you won't even know he's in the room. He has some emotional stuff going on. He has some learning disabilities.
00:39:25Breeding: Let's do this. I'm going to pause for a second. But overall he's okay. To a degree.
00:39:41Jordan: Overall he's an amazing kid. Because, he has fought through some challenges.
00:39:51Breeding: Okay.
00:39:52Jordan: And has overcome. He has, you know, he had some attempts.
00:39:59Breeding: How does this make you feel? Now that you can look back on your mistakes, the profession that you've chosen, I imagine, don't want to put words in your mouth, I imagine your experiences in life make you equipped than if you just had a textbook.
00:40:28Jordan: Absolutely. There's nothing like those live and learn experiences to give you the true understanding behind certain situations. I used to always ask when I was a kid, "Why me? What's happening? Why would my mom do me like this?" But after I experienced what I went through, it gave me firsthand understanding of what my mom was going through, why she put us through what we went through, and then so now to see what my children has had to overcome. You know, it's amazing how that generational thing works. I knew that it was up to me to break that. I had to put in some type of work because I saw where with-- Maury is his name. I saw where what I had done was a direct effect on him that could then trickle down to his generational line. And I had to, of course, first, heal myself so that then I could go back and try to heal him in the places that could still be healed.
00:41:52Breeding: Talk to me about the healing process. What type of things that you did you do in order to-- you know you look back and things I imagine would get to a point where you can't deny it anymore you may be able to fool yourself for a while, and I'm not putting words in your mouth tell me if this is the case where you can't fool yourself but for so long, and then finally, you decide that I'm gonna do, I'm gonna turn my life around.
00:42:32Jordan: So, after I began to lose everything. If you don't mind, if I can just kind of give you just a little bit of a backdrop before the turnaround..
00:42:49Breeding: Okay, go ahead.
00:42:51Jordan: So my great aunt who raised me, she was in the process of passing on and I knew it. I had left where I was staying to move to South Carolina to take care of her. Now, I left a beautiful home, a job, to move into a senior living facility with three children to take care of her. But the family is still so upset with me. They didn't want me there. They did everything they could to fight tooth and nail to get me out. And once they did that, that added to just everything else that was already going on inside me. And I can remember praying so hard one night, and I had the nerve to tell God. I had the nerve to bargain with God. And I said, if you just set me free from this monkey that's on my back, the addiction. I said, if you just set me free, I'm willing to sacrifice everything I got to be free of this. Now, when I prayed that prayer, I still had a few worldly things. I still had a car. I still had a place to stay. I still had a little money, you know. Um, so I meant things, worldly. But it was when my great-aunt who raised me, I called her mom, she died July of that year. The following year, June, my dad died. The year after that, I lost my home. Fast forward about a year after that, I lost my children. Fast forward a little bit into that, I'm pregnant again. I'm homeless. I lose that baby. And it was at that point right there after Mia was born, we're talking baby number four, that I realized I was in a jail cell at the Clarke County Jail. And I realized, I just all of a sudden thought back to that prayer. Now, I had prayed this year probably two years prior, and it just had hit me. I told God I was going to sacrifice everything. And I realized I had lost my mind, my hair, my weight, my home, my kids, my mom, my dad. At that point, that was everything, and even though it was the worst feeling and time of my life, I felt good.
00:46:19Breeding: No burdens.
00:46:21Jordan: I felt good because I had just promised God that I was willing to sacrifice everything, and now I had nothing, so I knew that the change had to come. I knew that this had to be the turning point because now I had nothing left. So I started that prayer thing all over again, and I was looking at a little time, but they allowed me to go to rehab instead, and I went to Mary Hall Freedom House in Atlanta. And it was during that time--so during this time, I had never seen a woman that looked like me, another African American woman, who was doing something, who had power, who had a voice, who was a boss. I saw this lady, and she used to come into the community rooms with us and pray over us and speak life into us. And I heard her story of how her mom was on drugs, and she was on drugs. And now here she is--she is the owner, she is the founder of this amazing program. And that's when the seed was planted in me. I knew then, this is what I gotta do. This is it. This is what I'm supposed to be doing, and it was from that moment--I didn't know how, I didn't know when, but I realized what my purpose was. For a long time, I didn't think I had a purpose. I didn't know what it was. I didn't know which way to go. I started going to school for so many things. There was truck driving school, cosmetology, massage therapy. Oh, you name it, I'd have been in school for it. But I never completed anything. But it was during that time-- where I knew, okay, whatever it is I'm supposed to do, it got to do with helping people. It got to do with bringing people to the other side of this thing we call addiction, so I stayed there for 22 months, and my life was just amazing, and I had forgot what it felt like to wake up instead of come to. I forgot what it felt like to not, each and every day, try to figure out what I was going to do for that next high, and I love that feeling, but I messed around and came back to Athens. I come back to Athens. Due to some unforeseen circumstances, my older two children were living with their grandma, their great-grandma at the time, and she died. You might know her, Ms. Nina.
00:49:27Breeding: Last name?
00:49:28Jordan: Smith.
00:49:29Breeding: Nina Smith. That name doesn't resonate right now.
00:49:34Jordan: Well, she was the biggest blessing I think I could have ever had during those years because where my family had grown so tired of me. But see, they were tired of me, what I didn't understand because they were tired of my mom. They had went through her addiction and her in and out of jail and her drama and troubles for so long. They had nothing left to give me by the time I come along, and I needed some family support and I needed a backup system. So she was, she was my rock. And so, July 2014, she passed away. Now, my children were still living with her. The older two. Mario was with his grandma. She passes away, and that forced me now to have to come see about them, and I'm healthy now, so I can, and I wanted to bring them back to Atlanta with me, but where I was living at, my son was too old to come. He had reached the age limit, so I was able to bring my daughter, and then, the daughter that I had lost, I was able to get her back. I got her back right after her first birthday, so I got my two daughters there. My son, he's still here in Athens. So she died in July of 2014, August of 2014--
00:51:14Breeding: Oh, she who?
00:51:15Jordan: Their grandma, Ms. Nona Smith.
00:51:16Breeding: Their grandma Okay, go ahead.
00:51:19Jordan: He ended up going with some people from the church 'cause they seen about her and them towards the end while I was still in Atlanta. So he stayed, so July--
00:51:31Breeding: And this is the oldest son that was too old to go.
00:51:32Jordan: Uh-huh.
00:51:33Breeding: Okay, continue.
00:51:35Jordan: My oldest son. So July, she died. August, my daughter's dad died of cancer. September, my son who's at the time was nine years old, he tried to kill himself because he thought that I had left him and that I wasn't coming back for him. And then October, my grandma died. So we're talking three deaths in one attempt. Back to back, all of those funerals was at the same church. I'm about twenty-three months now at this time, twenty-three, twenty-four months in on my recovery. So I'm in early recovery. And I did not have what it took to survive that. On top of that, I'm in another, not abusive relationship, physically, but abusive mentally relationship that resulted into another pregnancy. And I didn't find out I was pregnant until some months later, but we're talking back to back deaths, and then I messed around and got an insurance check. And that was my trigger that led to my relapse, that led to me losing everything all over again.
00:53:09Breeding: And the insurance check was what kind of amount? Enough to get you in trouble?
00:53:16Jordan: Enough to destroy my sobriety.
00:53:18Breeding: Okay.
00:53:19Jordan: Enough to take everything that I had worked for and I literally flushed it.
00:53:26Breeding: Okay, that's what I was getting to. Go ahead.
00:53:30Jordan: I learned from that, and it's because of that that I learned what my triggers were. Men and money. I learned that toxic relationships and access to money were my weaknesses. They were like my kryptonite. So, from that relapse, I-- Again, find out some months after that, after all those back-to-back funerals and situations, I find out I'm pregnant again. And in June of 2015, I gave birth to another daughter. And I gave birth to her alone on my living room floor because I was too out of my mind to call the ambulance. I thought I was just having-- stomach cramps maybe having to use the bathroom. On the living room floor I gave birth to Mila, and of course, they took her too. Fortunately for this child, I had a cousin who's in the army who got her and told me that she would keep her until I was able to get myself back together. I still was somewhere on the fence of wanting to do right, but at this point, I'm scared to do right 'cause I don't even know how to do right. I don't know which way to go to get myself back in line, should I say, and so I just stayed. And I yet again, find myself in a situation in another abusive relationship. I think at this point I was codependent. I was codependent and I was just looking for a place to stay. Because I went from situation to situation, at this point, the family no longer wants nothing to do with me. I can't go to any family functions because my attitude, my pain, and my anger cause me to lash out on everybody, so they don't even want me around.
00:55:56Breeding: Now let me ask you this, and you know the answer to it, but I think of different situations. I've seen that situation, a person like, uh-uh. But then there are other situations I've seen where people felt that nobody in their family loved them. Nobody wanted them, but it was just the opposite. Reflecting on it, what do you think really was your, which one of those, or combination of both, was it?
00:56:32Jordan: My sisters were embarrassed.
00:56:35Breeding: Okay.
00:56:36Jordan: The younger one, definitely. The older one, she had this image to uphold, so it was an embarrassment to know that they had a sister on drugs. And they did not, they just didn't have nothing for me. My aunt who was sixteen years older than my mom, my grandma only had the two children, she was tired. The cousins, they had lives that really, they didn't give a hill of beans which way I went, just as long as I didn't come they way. They-- I wasn't allowed at any family functions.
00:57:26Breeding: Yeah, you answered that question.
00:57:28Jordan: I didn't, I didn't. They, looking back on it, it was them, I think, displaying tough love. It was either get right or stay away. And that's, that was the reality of it. It was no, there was just, there was nothing left. They had nothing left to put into trying to help, or they had no compassion for what it was I was going through. Because the older, most of my cousins are older. So a lot of them just don't understand or didn't understand the disease of addiction. So they didn't understand what it was I was going through. They felt it was a matter of choice. You choose to be like this. You can change anytime you want to. They didn't understand that the addiction was--
00:58:18Breeding: Not a choice.
00:58:19Jordan: Not a choice. So because they felt I didn't choose to quit, they just didn't have nothing for me.
00:58:30Breeding: Okay, now that you are who you are, no longer going through the issues that you have gone through. Loving husband, a baby, doing things to help others, which I am sure brings you joy. I would assume that it does. How does that family treat you now? Are they in a position? Are they around?
00:59:07Jordan: So I'll give you a perfect example of that. My aunt, my mom's older sister, the first two years of my recovery, she didn't believe me. She still didn't want nothing to do with me, but my mom, who's had four strokes, two mild heart attacks, she's bedridden. She was living with her, and I began to ask could I come visit my mom, and I would speak and everything when I would go, but there was still just such an attitude and a standoffishness. I just went to her one day and I said, "You know, I have really changed my life, and I really wish you would give me a chance to show you." So, what I began to do every time I would go see my mom was I would just pray. Loud enough for her to hear me, and I would pray over my mom every time I went. And I did something. I spoke somewhere. There was some event and anyway it was on Facebook. And she saw it.
01:00:29Breeding: Okay, continue.
01:00:31Jordan: And she saw it. And she called me. And she called me in tears, and she has been apologizing to me ever since. And, it was because of her that kind of got everybody else on board with, "Oh, she for real this time." It was because of her that they were, because she's now the matriarch.
01:01:05Breeding: Okay.
01:01:06Jordan: Right? And so, her word means something. So, it was after she kind of put it out there that she's new. She's for real this time. She has truly changed this time. It kind of started bringing everybody else back around. And to kind of go back a little bit when you said about the helping people. Right before I crossed over completely, I began doing Bible studies and prayer groups for the women at the jail. And I had been doing it for years while I was still an inmate myself. But this last time, one of the officers, she told me, "There's something different about you." She said, "I believe that whatever is going on inside you is about to be birthed from you." And I remember that last time, I promised God. I made another promise. I said, I told God, "If you just spare my life one more time,"--now this was about the hundred thousandth time I had prayed this, but I said, "If you spare my life one more time, I will use the rest of my life in service to others." And of all the prayers I know I've prayed in my life, I think I can say that was the most humblest, sincerest prayer that I've ever prayed. Because I meant that from a place of not wanting to be free from where I was, but wanting to be free from where I was.
01:02:56Breeding: I follow what you're saying.
01:03:03Jordan: When I woke up that next morning, I felt woke. It just, the lighting was different. And when I realized it was coming up close for graduation, I had missed a lot of things throughout the years. But my daughter was graduating in May. May 18, 2019. And the year before, I thought I had missed her graduation. That just goes to show how disconnected I was. And I called and they said, "Nope, you got another year, it's not the next year." And I promised myself I'm gonna be there, so I sat at the Clarke County Jail. And I got locked up November the 16th, 2018. And I remember that day so well because my sobriety date is November 17th, 2018. And I remember thinking, "I gotta be out of here for her graduation." And we was coming close to time. And on top of praying the prayer of just having my life spared and serving others, I also asked to be out for her graduation. I hadn't seen a lawyer. I hadn't had a court date in five months. Nobody would talk to me, and I get a random letter from the courts, saying that I had a court date, May the 2nd. And I'm looking now, I was on a suspended sentence plea, had probation violations, was wanted in two other counties. I had other probation stuff going on. After everything was twisted, said and done, May 2nd, I got out with two weeks to spare for my daughter's graduation. And I knew I had to hit the track running because, one, I knew I wasn't going back. Two, I knew that, I had a situation that year prior where a friend of mine had died, and her daughter had to identify her body. And I then started thinking I cannot be selfish enough to make this be my fate. I cannot imagine my children having to come identify my body in a morgue. And that became my motivated thought, to not let that be me. And also, I used to have people tell me, you're gonna end up just like your mama. You're gonna end up just like your mama. And I knew that I didn't wanna have to force my children to change my diapers. To feed me. Now maybe when that time comes, but not prematurely.
01:06:28Breeding: Because of something you did.
01:06:29Jordan: Because of something that I did.
01:06:31Breeding: Okay, I'll follow you.
01:06:36Jordan: I don't think there's a more humbling experience than to have to change your mom's diaper. I have done it. I have bathed her. I have had to feed her through this tube. And so this is just recently, but I had that thought stuck with me that if I didn't change my life, my children would be identifying my body in the morgue. And so I knew that once I got set free, that if I went back, that was gonna be my fate. So there was nothing ahead of me. There was nothing left but for me to go ahead, go forward. And what that looked like was I started volunteering. I started chairing meetings at Narcotics Anonymous meetings. I started getting involved in service work. I got connected to the church, and then I went and I got certified. So today I'm a certified addiction recovery empowerment specialist. Today, I'm the director and owner of Mother to Mother Recovery Center located out of Elberton, Georgia. Today, I'm not only, you know, I sponsor women today. I'm a sponsor. Today, I'm not only a mother by title. I'm a mother because even just yesterday, my twenty-five year old son called me. He never calls me for anything, but he called me yesterday and said, "Mom, I got a taste for some fish. You'll fry me some fish?" And I said, "Absolutely." And there's no greater feeling to have your children call on you for something. You know, people think it's the big things. No, for me, it's the little things that I'm blessed to get to do today, like fry fish for my son. And when I became pregnant with this last baby, Mikael, he's one now, I thought that I couldn't have children anymore because of the last pregnancy that ended so bad. So I thought that was it for me. Three pregnancies prior, I didn't get to bring any of those children home due to my addiction and my lifestyle and choices. And so when I gave birth to him, September the 7th, 2021, and I actually got to walk out of the hospital with that baby, that was the grandest reward that I could have received from this journey. And, you know, people take things for granted so much so that, you know, just to be able to change a diaper today. I enjoy every stinky diaper I get to change. You know, working with these women, I tell people all the time, "See, I don't get paid for what I do. I ain't got there yet." My reward comes from when those women come in that door, they're abused, they're tired, they're desperate, they're lonely. There's no light on in their eyes whatsoever. They have finally, I call my center the last house on the left. They have finally reached that point. And there's no greater reward than you walk in the center one day, and they look at you, and a light is on in their face. They got a smile on their face. They're happy, genuinely happy. And they're happy about little things like they cooked for the first time in years, some of them. You know, one of my ladies, she was twenty- five years old, and she didn't even know how to make up a bed. She didn't even know how to put a fitted sheet on the bed. I taught her at twenty-five years old how to make up a bed. Those are my rewards for everything that I've gone through. Would I do it again? Absolutely not. But am I thankful for that journey? You bet. Because I learned, for one, that God definitely don't call the qualified. He qualifies the called.
01:11:41Breeding: Hold it. Repeat that. I have to write that down. Say that one more time.
01:11:45Jordan: God does not call the qualified. He qualifies the called. And I was called to do this work. But first, I had to go to training. I had to be put through the most toughest training courses. Like, that training course, I think, was more strenuous than the training for the Olympics. Because I had to get trained in so many areas of life. From trauma, to abuse, to addictions, incarcerations, and you put it all together, here I sit. Yep, here I sit, and I sit here as humbly as I know how because, you know, I I tell my ladies some of my stories and they don't even believe it. "No, Ms. T!" They call me Ms. T. "No, Ms. T, not you!" Yeah, Ms. T., Ms. T has gone through. And the power of it is I try to use my stories and my lived experiences to show them that there's a way out. You can go through all these things that life can throw at you and there is a way out, and I tell them all the time, I'm not here to save you, change you, or fix you. My job is to pave you a yellow brick road and tell you to come on and follow me.
01:13:33Breeding: Now, you may have to work for Hallmark. Repeat that one more time. I am not here to --
01:13:42Jordan: Save you.
01:13:43Breeding: Save you.
01:13:46Jordan: Change you, or fix you, but I'm here to pave the yellow brick road to tell you to follow me.
01:14:00Breeding: Now that is powerful. Now, I'm going to use that quote somewhere, and I'll give you credit for it.
01:14:16Jordan: Okay, absolutely.
01:14:22Breeding: Now that is powerful.
01:14:26Jordan: I didn't get, can I, I got one quick story--
01:14:29Breeding: No you keep keep talking.
01:14:32Jordan: That we kind of skipped over.
01:14:34Breeding: Keep going, talk to me.
01:14:36Jordan: I named my children by numbers. They're not names.
01:14:40Breeding: Okay.
01:14:40Jordan: So baby number six,
01:14:41Breeding: Okay,
01:14:42Jordan: 'Cause there's seven.
01:14:43Breeding: Now you do have names, but you use other stuff.
01:14:46Jordan: There are names, yes.
01:14:47Breeding: Alright number six.
01:14:48Jordan: So there is Miguel.
01:14:49Breeding: No, you don't have to give them name. You can go with the number.
01:14:58Jordan: Okay, so number six. That she was born from one of the most abusive relationships in the history of my life. My drug dealer ended up becoming my boyfriend. And I lived with him for about three years. Now in living with him, that I took care of his mother and his two children. His mother was bedridden as well. I changed her, I fed her. You know, I changed, I was changing grown diapers and baby diapers while battling with an addiction. And I become pregnant. He obviously didn't believe the baby was his. And I think about every other day in some shape, fashion or form, he would beat the crap out of me. And the last time, well not the last time he hit me, but during the period of this pregnancy, the last time he hit me was so bad I had to go to the hospital. And I found out that I was bleeding internally and that my uterus had ruptured, and I was right at about six months, going into the seventh month. They told me that they was going to keep me in the hospital and put me on bed rest for the duration of my pregnancy or at least long enough so that if need be they could incubate the baby and then take her if need be. I wasn't having it. I stayed in the hospital all of two days. Due to my addiction, I left. And I left, and I went back home. And about two days after being back home, my water broke. And I had some, there was some parts of me that was relieved, some parts of me that was afraid, the other parts was angry, but the relief came from, because I thought that I was about to miscarry this baby, and I felt that that was going to set me free from him. I go to Athens Regional. My blood pressure was so high, the doctors were baffled of how I was walking and talking. It took them nine days to bring my blood pressure down. And so they told me they were going to have to take this baby immediately. Prior to them putting me under, the doctor came and told me, "One or both of you may not make it, but if we have to choose which one to save, which one do you want us to save?" And I was so broken and hopeless, I told them, "If my baby has more than a 50% chance of survival, save her." So, they said, "Are you sure?", and I said, "Absolutely." And I had to sign the paper agreeing to that. And they wheeled me back to the emergency C-section. And we both pulled through. And when I come to, they asked me if I wanted to go see her. She was in the NICU. And she was so small. Her whole body was fitting the palm of my hand. She was one pound, one ounce. And I couldn't touch her, I couldn't, you know, they just had to put her under this little light, and, you know, they had all these tools. She was so small, her skin was still transparent. And so I didn't go back for about two days. Now, mind you, my older children didn't even know I was pregnant. So after about two days, I called my older son and I said, "Miguel, I got some news for you." And I hadn't talked to him in a few months. He said, "Oh yeah, what is that?" I said, "Well, for one, I'm in the hospital, and I just gave birth to your sister." He said, "Mom, what hospital are you in?" I told him St. Mary's, and he hung up. About thirty minutes later, he was there, and he wanted to go see her. And so, we went up, he put me in the wheelchair, we went up to see her, and he said, "What's her name?" And I said, "Well, I didn't name her because they told me she might not make it." And I didn't want to put a name because that felt that would attach her. He said, "Mom, we gotta give her a name." And I said, "I don't know what to name her." He said, "Mom, she's a miracle. We gotta give her a name." I said, "Well, we're gonna name her Miracle." And so about a week or so after, they had to LifeFlight her to Augusta. And that was the last time I saw her. And, after all the years of the last portion of my addiction, and then me getting into recovery and into the field that I'm in now, I just started praying. And I knew I wanted to find her, but I didn't even know where to begin. I had heard that a nurse, one of her nurses from the hospital had adopted her. So I had heard that she was still in Augusta. And I knew that I didn't know how to begin, but I had told myself before I even attempt to find this baby, I want to get myself so established so that when I reach out to whomever got her, I will have all these things to say, "This is who I was, but now this is who I am." About two years ago, I started praying about that every single day. I didn't miss a beat. And I just simply said, "Well, God, if it's meant, if it's in your will, help me find her." May something of this year, I'm at work. I was working in Monroe. I'm sitting at my desk. My phone rings. And it was her adoptive mom. How she found me, I don't know. But she found me. And she says, "I have heard about you and all the great things you're doing." She said, "And I've heard that Miracle has a lot of siblings." And it's just, she's an older lady. And it's just she's an older lady. She said, "And it's just me and her here, and I want her to know her siblings." And so I said, "Wow." And I let her know what I had been praying about. And I let her know, you know, everything really. I filled her in really quickly of my life, what I do today, and so we arranged a meeting. And she told me about her, what she does. She said she plays karate, and she sings. And now the doctors told me, will probably never walk or talk. That's what the doctor said.
01:23:30Breeding: When you were delivering her.
01:23:32Jordan: Well, they told me that, once they LifeLighted her to Augusta, the doctors in Augusta called me because they had to do some kind of surgery on her stomach. She's had, I think, seven surgeries. But they told me that she would probably never walk or talk.
01:23:52Breeding: Okay, take it from there.
01:23:53Jordan: And, um. So she told me that she plays karate, she sings, and the first thing I said was, "She can walk?" She said, "Yes!" I said, "Okay." So she had a karate tournament coming up, and it was June 4th of this year. So she said, "That would be a good place for us all to, so for you to get all the siblings together, and you guys come up and come to her karate tournament." So I said, "Okay." And I tell everybody I found Miracle, I found Miracle, and we scheduled to go up there. Now, we were instructed not to say nothing to her until after the karate tournament because we didn't want her to be nervous and distracted. So we were sitting, it's at a park that has a recreational center, and we were sitting on some benches across from the center where she goes in at. And I was sitting there on the bench, and I was holding the baby, and my daughter was standing, sitting next to me. My oldest son was kind of standing back a little bit, and the other children were off at the playground. And she was walking up this walkway. She got right in front of me. She looked over there and stared at me. She walked over, put her arms around me, and said, "Hi, Mommy." And I just lost it. I just cried and picked her up and hugged her. And I looked at the foster mom. I said, "Do you guys have pictures of me?" She said, "No, I didn't even know what you looked like." And I said, "How did she know it was me?" She said, "I don't know." And I told her, "I do." I said, "I know how she knew." And so, for me, that too was confirmation of the power of this force. It's greater than us, can bring things to pass and how he works. Everybody has a different name, but he, to me, it is God. But that was just for me the confirmation of through the years, not only has he been with me and protected me and guided me and answered, I can't think of a prayer that I've prayed that has not been answered. Because I've been praying a long time. And that right there was, that was a defining moment in my recovery. Because by this point, I'm three years in, four years in, and she was the last piece to the missing puzzle. So it was when she was brought back, that was the piece that finished my puzzle.
01:27:24Breeding: Yeah. Well I'm sitting, I'm glad it's kind of dark in here because you won't see the tears because that's touching. I want to stop it there. Is there anything you want to add?
01:27:42Jordan: I don't think we need to. I think that I talked your ear off enough.
01:27:50Breeding: Oh no, I could go on.
01:27:52Jordan: Yeah, because I can too. That was the short, sweet, beautiful versions, you know. But I think that they were the most profound.
01:28:00Breeding: Okay. I do have one statement question. I'm going to ask you a question I know the answer to. But then I'm going to ask you a question I know the answer to, then I'm going to do a follow-up question. Did you look in the mirror today?
01:28:23Jordan: At some point I think I did.
01:28:25Breeding: Okay. Well, the next time you look in the mirror, you don't see yourself. You see ten people. They can be children. They could be women that you work with that you haven't met. It could be men that are looking for the love of their life. Or a combination of both. Or even a combination of people that I haven't named. And they ask you, and you have to tell them, "What do I need to do in my life to reach it to the point that you are at now?" What advice would you give them?
01:29:22Jordan: Wow. Now that's a good one. And believe it or not, I get asked that a lot. And the only thing, the first thing, and for me, the most powerful part of that answer is every time I'm asked that, I ask them, "Do you have a spiritual foundation?" Because, for me, none of this is possible without having the belief of something greater than yourself. I can't direct, and I would not direct nobody to a person, to a place, or to a thing. I always ask them, first, do they have a spiritual foundation? Now, if they say no, I tell them that's where they start. But if they say yes, I tell them to surrender everything they have to that power. Surrender everything they have to that spiritual foundation. And that's when they will begin to see the transformation. And they always say, but I have, but I've tried, right? And then I have to come back and say, keep trying, never give up. And I let them know that it took me seven years. I prayed seven years to be set free. And I started for some time thinking that it wasn't going to happen. But the fact that I never gave up, even when it seemed all was lost, I never lost faith in my prayers. And then I would say, go after your new life the same way you've gone after doing the things you did in your old life. The same effort and energy that you put into these negative relationships, that same effort and energy that you put into drinking or drugging, that same energy that you put into scheming and lying, put that same effort and that same energy into recreating your new life.
01:32:01Breeding: Okay, I'm going to end the interview here, and again, I would like to personally thank you, and I'm sure this interview is going to mean a lot to many people because that old saying, everybody has something that they don't know, don't want the world to know about, but what I found once people face their past and realize their past is their past. it makes them whole.
01:32:41Jordan: Absolutely.
01:32:42Breeding: Well thank you.
01:32:44Jordan: Thank you. NOTE TRANSCRIPTION END
