Time Served, Love Earned

Jessica Williams came out of jail free from addiction and eager to rebuild her life. The first step was reaching out to her oldest daughter, Kylie, who’d been forced to grow up fast in her absence.

Prisons are meant to punish, rehabilitate, and offer people who are incarcerated an opportunity to move past the crimes they’ve committed. One may come out of prison with a new view of life and freedom, ready to make amends and reenter society. But prisons don’t always involve a lengthy sentence behind bars and fences topped with barbed wire, away from loved ones. A prison can also be a situation where you feel abandoned or trapped in a responsibility that takes over your whole life.

As a teen, Jessica Williams saw her father go to jail. A year later, she met Paul,* with whom she would start an 11-year relationship. During that time, the couple used drugs and alcohol heavily, often shoplifting to pay for their addiction. They also had four children: Kylie, Kaylee, Carlee, and Daniel, the youngest, who was born a day after their father was arrested for his years of crimes and sent to jail.

“That was when my addiction was at its worst. By the grace of God, Daniel was born healthy,” says Jessica. She was also arrested less than a year later.

As Jessica served time in prison, Kylie, just 11 years old at the time, was “imprisoned” in her own way, left caring for her siblings and elderly family members. Being responsible for them caused her to lose years of her childhood, and she admits it still leaves a mark on her today.

“I’m not sure I ever felt like a kid,” says Kylie, now 16.

Jessica says, “I wanted to be with my family and be the role model that my children needed. But I know that, if I would not have gone to jail, or if I had been released sooner than I was, I would still be an addict. Because of this, my daughter Kylie had to become the mom in our family.”

Paying the price

Jessica had known Paul since she was 15, and when he started using drugs, Jessica did anything she could to make him happy, including becoming an addict like him. They shoplifted to help pay for their addiction, building a lengthy criminal record that would eventually catch up with them.

At home after giving birth, Jessica tried to get clean. But a neighbor she befriended while recovering also used drugs, and Jessica started using once again.

“If I met someone today who tried to take me down that path, I would let them go. But back then, I wasn’t strong enough. I could have said no at any time, and I didn’t,” says Jessica.

Jessica Williams was arrested on April 23, 2019, after a long night of partying and drinking. She remembers thanking the police officer driving her to jail.

“He thought I was thanking him due to being on drugs or alcohol,” says Jessica. “But I said ‘No, I’m serious. Thank you for this. Because it’s finally over.’”

In September 2019, Jessica was sentenced to prison. Determined to change, she entered a program called the Horizon Prison Initiative, focused on rehabilitation and reentry into society. Jessica was honest with her caseworker about everything she’d done.

“I needed to do this for myself first, because I didn’t love myself. And if I can’t love myself, I can’t truly love anyone else either.”

Horizon was also faith-based; participants could learn about and follow a faith if they chose. Along with taking courses on parenting, employment, and behavior modi­fication, Jessica began reading the Bible, praying daily, and attending church.

“A lot of addicts call out to God when they’re using. I wasn’t like that,” admits Jessica, now clean and a soldier at The Salvation Army Columbus East Main Corps in Ohio. “I didn’t call out to Him once when I was on the streets. But now, I needed Jesus, because I thought to myself, with Him, maybe this time will be different.”

A burden to bear

Kylie Williams was just 8 years old when she began to see that her parents had problems with alcohol and drugs, particularly her mother.

“You can see when someone is in addiction. They let themselves go, and they lose a lot of weight,” says Kylie. She slowly began taking on more responsibilities in the home as Jessica’s addiction grew. It started with simple things like doing her sisters’ hair in the morning.

“At first, I saw it as me doing a favor for my mom,” says Kylie. “But then I would see her come home after drinking or using drugs, stay for a bit, and just leave without saying anything as we all cried. It came to the point that I would just ask myself why I was even doing this. Why was I cooking, cleaning, and taking care of everyone? Other families didn’t live like this.”

When Jessica was arrested, Kylie had to step up even more, taking responsibility for her three younger siblings, as well as her grandmother, grandfather, and great-grandmother, who all shared a house. After Kylie’s grandmother suffered a stroke and needed extra care, Kylie began missing school to help at home.

“No one else I knew had these issues,” says Kylie. “I couldn’t relate to anyone my age, yet I dreaded being home. I felt like a ‘yes man’ for my own family.”

A new future

On September 15, 2022, after three and a half years in prison, Jessica was released.

The very first place she visited was Kylie’s school. She had to explain who she was and why she was there before she was able to see Kylie. It had been so long since she saw her mother that Kylie thought Jessica was a new teacher at the school.

“I did not want to go back into class after seeing her. How could I?” asks Kylie.

“Daniel was a year old when I went to jail, and he was 4 when I came out,” remembers Jessica. “By that time, he was calling my mother ‘Mom.’ This made me so upset, but I told myself, ‘Jessica, you did this. Your actions led to this, and you must accept that, and then fix it.’”

Jessica reconnected with an old acquaintance who introduced her to The Salvation Army. She began attending the Columbus East Main Corps, eventually becoming a soldier with the guidance of its corps officers at the time, Captains Dustin and Junie Fitch. Through the corps’ Pathway of Hope program, Jessica and her family have also moved into a larger apartment.

Kylie would like to be a soldier someday, too, but wants her connection with God and her family to heal more before taking such a step.

“Even when my mom returned and I saw the change in her, I could feel these old abandonment issues creep up,” says Kylie. “I wondered if she would leave again, and it made me depressed. In a way, I even felt like she had come to take my place in the family. I now had nothing to do. I had to make friends again.

“In a few years, I’ll be done with school. But I don’t want that. I want to be a kid again. And I still ask God: Why was I put through that? Why did I have to grow up so fast?”

Only He can answer such questions, but both Jessica and Kylie came out of their experiences as changed people. Life tends to repeat itself, and like Jessica, Kylie saw her father being arrested. She is determined to break the chain.

“I could never bring myself to do what my mother did regarding drugs and alcohol,” says Kylie. “I’ve also accepted that my father is not ready to make the same changes that my mother did, not even for his children.”

Jessica says, “I can’t make up for that lost time, but I can work to change the future, assure my children they are loved and I’m here now. They need a role model in their life, and I’m going to do everything I can to be that for them.”