Newspaper Personality Feature Story

Bryan Dykman, The Harbinger
Shawnee Mission East HS (Prairie Village, Kan.)

The will to succeed: Despite normal teenage pressures, senior deals with mother’s death

It’s two days before her junior Homecoming, and Erica Williams is fed up. She has a date, a dress and dinner reservations, but something else, far more important, is on her mind.

Having just arrived from school, she moves around her dad’s house trying to find an unlocked door. A quick phone call to her dad confirms that the locks have been changed.

Erica is tired of living with her father and this most recent gesture makes her realize her dad wants her out. Erica wants to be back with her mother, but Tanja Williams died four months ago, and now Erica would rather live anywhere than with her dad. Erica had decided to run away. She’s leaving. No one’s going to stop her

Erica walks away from the house, back to her friend’s car and leaves: forever.

Erica Williams’ life has been an ongoing study in how to deal. When she was two, Erica’s parents divorced leaving her in the full-time care of her mother. When she was in third grade, Erica’s mom and dad tried living together for a second time. Erica had to accept into her life a father she’d never known and his insensitivity towards hi wife’s declining health. She watched as he told her mom, too weak to stand from increasing heart and lung problems, that her crippling illness was no excuse for dirty dishes. And when her mom and dad couldn’t work it out, she had to learn how to pick up and move in the sixth, seventh, eight and ninth grade, because the family couldn’t live on their own. They tried several times to be independent, but Mrs. William’s disability check couldn’t pay for Erica, her brother and sister and the cost of medical treatment as her health became worse.

But Ernest Williams, Erica’s father, won’t talk about the past. Instead he is always looking to the future. “At this point, I don’t want to get into [the past],” he said. “I don’t focus on the past. I am always trying to move forward. As long as educations is Erica’s focus, she knows that I am ready to move beyond the past.”

The last two years have been especially rough on Erica. She’s had to learn how to accept the loss of her mother and being in the custody of her father.

Despite all of this, Erica moves forward, determined to study law at Stanford and make something of her life. Criminal, family or civil law—she doesn’t know, but it’s this dream, this hope for the future, which has helped her through the sometimes seemingly impossible journey that has been the last two years of her life.

How do you focus on high school, maintain a 4.2 GPA, hold the 51st spot in your senior class, plan for college and your future while your life at home is falling apart? When you’re Erica, it’s not even a question.

Erica learned her work ethic at an early age. She’s always done well in school; studying and good grades come naturally. Her mom asked Erica only to do her best: nothing more, nothing less.

“I feel bad if I give up on school,” Erica said. “I feel like I am letting my mom down. I told her I was going to be a lawyer, and now I’m going to. It would be such a waste of time to do poorly. I don’t want to have any regrets. I don’t ever want to say ‘could have done this but instead …’”

But more than anything it’s what Erica has lived through that has motivated here the most. All her life she has been moving from one place to the other, constantly dependent upon others. Godparents, grandparents, and friends of the family — all have sheltered Erica’s family when they couldn’t make it on their own.

She does well in school because good grades will get here into a good college, a good college will get her a good job, a good job will ensure her future where we won’t have to depend on anyone but herself.

Broken Taillight

Erica Williams was getting ready for school, when she found her mom stumbling around, gasping for breath like a fish out of water. She’d just had a stroke.

 “My mom seemed really out of it,” Erica said. “I took her to the hospital where they put her on life support. She slipped into a coma minutes later.”

At 1 p.m., the 39-year-old mother of three died – six days before Mother’s Day.

“My mom had always been in and out of the hospital,” Erica said. “There are times when she came out of it and was really healthy. She just seemed to always bounce back. I guess we were all just expecting her to bounce back. And she didn’t.”

And at first, neither did Erica.

Two weeks after her mother’s death, Erica’s dad announced to the family that he would be getting married. But unlike her dad, Erica was not ready to move on.

The grieving process had taken a hold of her and anger set in. She was mad at her mother for leaving like this, in the custody of a man she didn’t want to live with. She was mad at herself for not getting to say goodbye to her mom like she would have liked. She was not ready to accept her dad’s fiancé as her soon-to-be stepmother. She felt like this was too much, too soon.

Erica went through counseling with her brother and sister for most of the summer. She joined Survivors, an organization at Eat where students gather together and talk about losing a parent. 

“It’s really good to be around people that can actually empathize with you,” Erica said. “So many people come up to you and feel sorry and say they know how you feel, but they really don’t. It was helpful to be with people who have kind of walked in my shoes.”

In counseling, Erica as told that the best way to help ease the loss of her mother was to stay busy. So Erica took dance classes and hung out with her friends. And when school cam around, she engrossed herself in her work. She knew that this would serve a double purpose: It would keep her mind off the pain of losing her mother, and it would continue to advance her toward her goal of good grades, good college, good job, and independence.

Erica was learning how to deal with the death of her mom. She was able to openly talk about it with friends. The pain was beginning to subside.

But then Erica had to learn how to deal with her father.

“I kept telling him over and over I was going to leave,” Erica said. “I wasn’t ready to move in with my dad and a woman that was a complete stranger to me.”

Several times Erika packed her backpack and tried to leave. She stayed the night at a friend’s house, but every time she left she would return. She couldn’t fathom the idea of leaving her brother and sister behind. Not after everything that happened.

“When I moved in, [my dad] and I knew that we didn’t get along. We had family meetings on Fridays. We would talk about what went wrong over the week, but every time I brought up something, he would just say, “I am the parent,” Erica said. “When I lived with my mom, we would compromise, and with him, every suggestion I made he though was disrespectful.”

Three nights before her junior homecoming, Erica and her dad had a fight over whether or not Erica could attend the homecoming dance. A couple of nights before, Erica had backed into a pole, breaking the taillight, and now her dad had grounded her over homecoming night. The next day Erica’s friend, senior Madi Jenkins, drove her home from school, Erica realized that she didn’t have a house key; it was with her car keys that he had handed over the night before as part of her punishment. Bt eve if had a key with wouldn’t have mattered. Erica’s dad changed the locks.

He didn’t want her there; she didn’t want to be there.

“I am not sure about the details on that side,” Mr. Williams said. “But I am not looking at it on that level. I’m just trying to go forward.”

Nevertheless, Erica went back to Jenkins’ house, called up her grandfather and made arrangements to stay with him. Indefinitely.

Erica’s life unraveled when she lost her mother. But now she had lost her father, her brother and her sister.

“Sometimes I want to go back. I miss my brother and sister so much. And soon I’ll be in college. And after that who knows,” Erica said. “You can’t wrestle your brother to the ground when you’re 30.”

Although Erica is living with her grandparents, Erica feels like she is finally on her own. The first quarter is coming to an end and she tallies up her grades in her head. Psychology: A, Spanish 3: A, Calculus B/C: A, English 12 AP: B. She has consortium after school and works at Children’s Cottage, a local daycare, five days a week, making money to pay for gas. Because of the long drive she makes every day from her grandparents to school. She puts $20 in her tank every other day. She’s looking for a weekend job.

The study habits haven’t changed, because neither has the dream. Finish high school strong, good college, good job, and independence.

Though running away has mad Erica feel independent, there is one problem left to solve: the relationship with her dad. Maybe she will give him a call.

“Our relationship has gotten better [since I left the house]. Before we couldn’t even talk to each other, but now we at last talk once in a while,” Erica said, “I don’t hate him for not seeming fatherly, and looking back on it, some of the stuff we fought about was pretty petty. I think we’re both just trying to move one.”

And Mr. Williams feels the same way. He doesn’t want to bring up the past. He doesn’t want to stir up the sad history between himself and his daughter. He just wants to move on, give it time and perhaps with al little mending, he and his daughter will be able to smile in high school and college graduation picture together. Like a family.