Please forgive the cheesy alliteration in the title. I have a good reason.

My oldest daughter, age 28, has a job as a district manager for a food franchise. She keeps an eye on individual stores, orders food, hires staff, fires staff when needed and keeps the locations running at peak efficiency. In fact, she was pulled up into this position by a grateful management. She was originally hired on as a manager of a poorly performing location then rapidly turned it around, with astonishing results.  The management, delirious at having found someone who could create positive change, asked her to oversee other locations and create the same change.

My daughter has good medical benefits, paid time off and is the primary breadwinner in her marriage. She balances her work with raising two kids. She is living what would be considered a “normal” American life.

If I had been described the above scenario for my daughter ten years ago, even six years ago, I would not have believed it could ever be possible. This is the daughter who was stealing from the age of twelve, in all likelihood, even younger.

With the benefit of hindsight, we think the stealing went back as far as first grade. We used to keep the kids’ allowances in envelopes inside a kitchen cabinet. My goal was to teach money management from a young age and so when my kids wanted spending money, I would write down the “banking withdrawals” on the front of the envelope. The idea was to show my kids how their spending affected the running totals.

We discovered after a while, that money was disappearing; the amounts inside the envelopes did not match the outside. I looked to my oldest child…to my oldest son, I’m so sorry. I don’t think I punished him as he denied it and I never had proof. Something inside of me believed him despite the seeming evidence to the contrary. Accusing my oldest daughter who could not have been more than six or seven at the time never even entered my mind. I stopped the envelope system, so it stayed a mystery for years. It was only with the benefit of hindsight that we looked back on that time and understood what had likely happened.

In her early teens, my oldest daughter went from stealing within our house to stealing from neighborhood families then stealing money (and a phone in one instance) from purses while helping out at our church. We hoped for a miracle when at fourteen we sent her to a residential treatment center. At sixteen she came home, and we had great hope that things would be different. Our hopes were dashed when she jumped back into stealing, though it took us a year to catch on.

We made her leave the house at 18 after graduating high school (by a hair, thanks to my husband). She skipped out of state by age 19 leaving behind a newborn baby (to be raised by the father) and a subsequent warrant for her arrest (for a form of car theft). She then wreaked further havoc in the city where she landed. Back then, I was still highly involved in trying to hold her accountable for her actions. I was like Inspector Javert in Les Misérables, the detective that haunted Jean Valjean throughout his adult life, never relenting, never letting go. Not that it worked; it never works for someone else to control another’s actions.

Eventually there was arrest and guilty plea, downgraded to a misdemeanor. Then another conviction and a month stay in jail. Then the day came that she was facing trial for a felony. She jumped bail and ran away from the trial. After trying and failing to get her to turn herself in, I turned her in. Yes, I willingly participated in a sting operation that captured her. My husband couldn’t do it, but I could and did. To this day, I am glad I did.

After her capture, another felony came to light. I wrote a letter to the judge handling her trial for the two felonies and urged him to sentence her to a couple of years of prison. By this time, she had spent ten years causing enormous harm to people in her life, with very little consequence. Her actions were like a tornado creating a swath of destruction that other people had to clean up. I didn’t want her locked away forever but wanted her to thoroughly feel the effect of her actions.

Someone who reads this blog now that doesn’t know me, might judge me for turning in my daughter. All I can say is that unless the reader lived through the events, the judgement is invalid. Some of my earlier blogs talk about that time period and might shed a bit more light on the events and emotions during those years. I don’t reread them; it’s too painful to relive that period.

The judge convicted my daughter on both counts and sentenced her to five years in prison for each felony, a total of ten years. He then did something that was life changing for my daughter; he set the prison sentence aside and put her into a one year rehab program inside the county jail system rather than the harsher prison system. I was grateful to the judge though doubtful of a successful outcome. After all, we had sent her to residential treatment without a resulting change in behavior.

My daughter was released from jail less than a year later, with probation for the remainder of the ten-year sentence. Given the previous ten years of her life, I had little to no expectation that she would walk forward in life with any success. I figured that within a year or two she would be back at her old actions and then be caught. I was mentally prepared to have a daughter in the prison system.

Fast forward six years after jail; she not only has stayed out of jail, but she is also handling life as an honest, upright citizen. Instead of stealing, she earns her paycheck the hard way, by getting up in the morning for work, working long hours and then coming home and caring for her children. She is married now and with her husband having off and on medical issues, it has fallen to her to be the primary breadwinner. She, who without going into further details, preyed upon others to support her lifestyle, is now the supporter for their family of four and is handling the responsibility as a grown adult.

I’m writing this to acknowledge that my daughter has turned her life around; after six years of “clean” living, it is time to say that. Yes, I am glad for her. I can honestly say that I both love her and respect how she is living her life since for many years I could not say that.

My emotions as a mom started at a position of desperate love and frantic desire to “save” her at the beginning of her issues. Over time, I understood that I could not save her from herself.

Somewhere around the time I wrote the letter to the judge, my emotions had moved to bitterness, even hate. Yes, it was easier to hate than it was to hurt. Love brings vulnerability and pain. Hate builds a stone wall around the heart over which hurt can’t climb. I had to pray a lot just to move my heart from hate to apathy where I was perfectly willing to stay for the rest of my life. I really didn’t want to love her again because that brings risk.

What if my daughter someday reverts back to old habits? I reluctantly, carefully, slowly took that stone wall down piece by piece over these last six years. I don’t know when I started to love her again, I only know that I do. Still, I am guarded. The stones lay in a neat pile to one side of my heart. They are not in the way anymore, but they are accessible. If my daughter ever reverts back I know that I will rebuild that stone wall in a flash and that time, I don’t think I would ever take it down again. The bible talks about forgiving not seven times but “seventy times seven”. I’m not that good; I’m not that strong. But maybe if I had to, I would. I don’t know. I hope I never find out.