The broken blinds allow just enough light to shine right onto your face in the morning. You rub your sleep-deprived eyes as you feel every muscle stretch and you let out an exaggerated yawn even though it’s 11 a.m. When your lids slowly open, you notice all the dust particles in the air, dancing in the light. It’s a Saturday morning.
You feel the cold hardwood floor against the bottom of your bare feet as you descend stair by stair. It’s like any ordinary weekend morning; your dad is in the kitchen cooking brunch, while your mom sweeps the floor.
You’re seventeen-years-old and your half birthday is around the corner. You dread the adult-ing you think you have to master at that age, looking down at the job applications at the tip of your pen. You start filling the blanks with personal information that is authentic to you: Last Name, First Name, MI. When you get to your social security number, you ask your parents because heaven knows you don’t have that sh*t memorized.
And then you uncover a major question that affects your whole life.
Kamiyah was born on July 10, 1998 at formerly known University Medical Center in Florida. Shanara Mobley was eager and grateful to welcome her healthy daughter to the world. At sixteen, Mobley embraced her precious newborn after hours of labor that felt like an eternity. She caressed the skin on her back, grazed her delicate head and counted each one of her little fingers and toes. This child was her flesh and blood. When Mobley kissed Kamiyah for the first time, she did not know that it would be her last time.
A nurse comes into the hospital room to converse with the new mother. When she notices a slight fever, the nurse takes the infant for further examination. She never brings her back.
Gloria Williams, 33, was ready to start a family. She was pregnant, but unfortunately miscarried. Williams was devastated and miserable. All her plans for her child were torn apart, thrown on the ground and destroyed. There was no bringing back a baby, so she decided to find one of her own. Williams had the whole get-up: navy blue scrubs, wig and glasses. She walked into that hospital and walked out, taking baby Kamiyah with her. With her new daughter, she drove all the way to Walterboro, South Carolina, and started her new life. From then on, Kamiyah grew up as Alexis Manigo.
Come time to apply for a job, Alexis asked her mother for her Social Security number. Williams, unsure how Alexis would take the news, confessed and the two never spoke of the matter. For more than a year, Alexis did not question what she thought she knew was her life, her family and her mother.
Now, Kamiyah is 19 and reconnected with her birth mother and father. Williams pleaded guilty for interfering with custody and for kidnapping. Williams will have to serve up to 22 years in prison. Defending her life-long mom, Kamiyah states, “I think they should be lenient. She took care of me very well.” I came across a video of Kamiyah reuniting with Williams in the Jacksonville Sheriff’s office. The teen embraces her with hugs and tears as Williams repeatedly reassures, “I love you.”
How would you feel if you were Kamiyah? Would you forgive the person who raised you as your own, gave you a fulfilling life and taught you the difference between right and wrong? Would you be sympathetic toward William’s devastating loss, which may have fogged her judgement at the time of the kidnapping? Or would you be furious that your whole life was stripped from you and caused your biological mother emotional damage for almost two decades?
One may never know how to respond to a situation like this, constantly battling between composure and confusion, mercy and malice. Despite the personal trauma she endured, Williams acted unlawfully and morally wrong; however, at the end of the day, she did care for Kamiyah well and as her own. The compassion that she feels for both of her “mothers” is admirable and only proves that this girl has a lot of capabilities for love, forgiveness and acceptance. We can learn from Kamiyah’s story that love is powerful in building relationships with people we never thought we could and healing relationships that we had for a lifetime.