GRACIE

Gracie is the manager of Mercy House and founder of Weather Amnesty in Ann Arbor. Previously, she was homeless for 2 years. She is 43 years old.

This is her story - in her own words.

This story was created from a series of interviews at Mercy House. The interviews were recorded on November 19th and 21st, lasting a total of 1.25 hours.

Childhood

My parents were both 17 when they had me. My dad was in prison and my mom was physically abusive, so when I was 2 I ended up with my paternal grandmother and bonded with her. She was where I felt most safe. I was with her from 2 to 5 but because my grandma’s health was bad I ended up with my dad and the woman he remarried.

I got sexually abused when I was 6. It was a weekend experience - my dad and stepmom left me with an overnight babysitter. There was so much drama I was experiencing around me: my dad and his wife were always doing drugs and drinking alcohol and there was always fighting and commotion.

When I was 7, my father ended up going back to prison, and I ended up having to go back to my mother. The physical abuse started again: she was very reactive. If I took a shower and didn’t wash my hair, bam, she would hit me with a hairbrush. She had a slew of men all throughout that time. There was no sexual boundaries. She put everything else above me: Her and this guy went to the beach , and left me falling asleep [in the car] for hours. I ended up with second degree burns all over my body.

School was very challenging. Bullying started in elementary and continued through high school.
Growing up, I was always around very poor, low income areas. But eventually, my mom ended up with this guy and we moved up to middle class Berkeley, Michigan. I was this poor kid now going to school with kids who weren’t. I was already pretty socially awkward but I think that added another level of social awkwardness. I was bullied at home and bullied at school. I ended up having to drop out in high school.

During this time, I struggled with my sexuality. The 90’s was really really tough. It wasn’t like now where people can be who they are and be accepted. I searched for acceptance everywhere. I got involved with this girl from school. We were friends but something more happened and I rode with that - I just felt more accepted [that way] and I ended up with a baby.

Parenting

I gave a lot of myself to having a baby. I made it work for a while. But at some point I realized I needed to live my life as who I am. I needed to do that for my daughter.

I talked with the other parent about living separately and still being parents - we had this whole plan. A couple of weeks after we talked about it, I went home and she had disappeared and took my baby. She was gone.

I had to fight for my baby - you can’t just take my baby away. I went through a lot to see her. There was a lot of court and attorney fees. I jumped through a lot of hoops - being accused of molestation, being accused of abuse, and just having to go through all these processes to clear my name - and really fought hard to be a part of her life. [At the end of it], I had her for half the week.

Going through the custody battle was very expensive. My mother helped, she covered the financial part - lawyer bill and that sort of thing. My mother was my first abuser, but at some point, she also became my only caretaker - I find myself being financially dependent on her a lot of times. Having this codependency was challenging - there was just this constant control. But we managed to function together. I love my mother. My mom isn’t a horrible person, she just wasn’t a good parent. But she really tried to be a good grandmother - and she was, for the most part.

[During this time], I was working as a manager at Burger King. At the Burger King, I became friends with Nicole. Nicole was black and trans with a wig and long nails and I was so in awe that Nicole was proud of who she was. This was 20 years ago - it’s such a different dynamic to be queer in society. I just had so much respect for her and was her biggest cheerleader.

Losing Stability

Later on, my grandma moved into the senior facility across from my Burger King and I was so excited. I wore so many hats in a day: the parent hat, friendship hat, dating hat, family hat, and then my work hat - it was so exhausting and took a toll. I was so grateful to have my grandmother in my daily life. My grandmother was my best friend. But she was also like my mother and father wrapped into one in a lot of ways. That’s where I felt accepted: with her.

A year after my grandmother had moved, I took her to get her cancer scan. She had already experienced ovarian cancer and breast cancer. Her hair was just growing back - she was so happy about her hair and it was nice to see her happy.

We get the scan done and it comes back that she has cancer in her liver.
I walked out of the hospital and cried. We went home and she said: “I’m not doing chemo and radiation again. I love my hair and of course it makes you so sick.” I said, “It’s your body, it’s your decision, whatever you decide I’m totally on board with you”. We go see this doctor and the doctor says if you don’t do treatment you have 3 months.

Afterward, I practically moved in with her. I gave up my apartment and she and I spent all our time together. I needed to get as much of her as I could. We would sit by candlelight, sip on coffee or tea, and just talk. I watched her decline. About the third month, hospice was getting involved and I stepped back - I just couldn’t deal with it anymore.

"When she died I lost a lot of myself.
To be grounded is to have a relationship with your family or partner that makes you feel grounded. But I lost my stability. "

I was giving myself away to have my daughter and then I was giving myself away to have acceptance. I was doing a lot of drugs and drinking a lot of alcohol to be accepted. My mom was my first abuser and then after that it was the emotional abuse and sexual abuse. I was programmed to be a victim in every relationship I formed. Including the relationship I had with myself - I abused myself a lot. I would walk into situations just wanting to be accepted. There was a lot of “I am accepted because of my body.” Or, “I am accepted because of how someone thinks I look.” I was used for sex and I accepted these encounters because I translated these situations for love. Because I felt accepted at that moment.

I started breaking down and couldn’t function. I couldn’t get out of bed. I got super sick and ended up in the hospital. I was told then that I had HIV. My relationship with my daughter got less and less and less. Finally, I broke.

I ended up checking myself into emergency psych help and spent a week in the hospital. I tried to walk away from my life.

"I tried to walk away from my life."

After I got out of the hospital I didn’t want to be a part of my life anymore. I ended up with this man who said all the right things and wanted to make my life better and be a king. I already had nowhere to go in life so I ended up going to his apartment in Detroit. Turns out he liked to abuse people. I had black eyes and a fractured jaw and broken teeth. There was a year and a half of that.

That was the bottom of the barrel. I’m a survivor of life. Being a survivor is surviving trauma - and I’ve survived a lot. It was as if the universe just needed to show me one more thing horrific enough to make me take the leap and walk away. On July 14th (my grandmother's birthday), I walked away. On July 13th, I had made up my mind that he’s going to kill me. At 12:30AM at night, I heard him knock and I jumped up, grabbed my bag, and ran out the door and ran and ran and ran.

Becoming Gracie

I ended up at this 24/7 diner. I had nowhere else to go. It was 1 o’clock in the morning and I looked like a hot mess: distraught and crying. Then this waitress with a Southern accent came over and asked me, “What’s wrong, honey?”

When she said that, the faucet just opened. She also asked me my name. That was the first time I publicly said Gracie out loud. She got me food and was like, “I’m here 5 days a week. You can use my car to take a nap in and get some food”. It was just the first time somebody was really generous - offering compassion. The next night I got there, she hands me an envelope - there was some money in there. Enough money to cover 4 nights in the yucky motel across the street. I was so grateful for such compassion. I needed that. It was just a little strength to keep on going.

From there, I really did some incredible survival things. I managed a couple weeks at the motel - even the hotel manager bought me a night - but on the very last night, I had to check out. I was tired. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I called this shelter - domestic violence shelter Monday morning and they had a bed open. I was in a domestic violence shelter in the city of Wayne for 45 days. I did some bouncing around for about a year after that and ended up in Ypsilanti. That period of my life was almost like walking into a different world. It was my first time feeling spiritually connected to the world - that things happen for a reason. That really changed my perspective: that things are happening for a reason and I can ask myself, “What am I gaining from this situation?”

That really changed my perspective: that things are happening for a reason and I can ask myself, "What am I gaining from this situation?"

I ended up at the Delonis shelter. I was so petrified to be at a shelter - I was just a realist, imagining what could happen. But I got into the shelter and started to repair myself as much as I could. You learn a lot about yourself when you’re in a shelter, in a cafeteria filled with 75 people who are all broken. That’s when I realized how empathetic I was. I’ve been nurturing people all my life but to be in that space with that many broken people - my circuits were in overdrive all the time.

In my first few months at Delonis, there were a lot of verbal insults. 5 people were trespassed for how they treated me (trespassed means being banned from the shelter). But at night, I just couldn’t - I would cry myself to sleep thinking these people are losing services because of their ignorance. I struggled with that. I went to the director and told him something needs to change. I’m emotional at the fact that these people lost services - they can’t come here for food or laundry or mail. they can’t come here for laundry or mail. Because we had this conversation, he lifted the trespasses of 4 out of the 5 people.

That really changed the dynamic. I realized: I’m going to get through this by showing people compassion.

That really changed the dynamic. I realized: "I'm going to get through this by showing people compassion."

At Delonis, I became like the in-house unofficial case manager. People would walk in from wandering around, high all night, all beat up with bloody toes. I would say, let me put you back together - let me get you some bandaids and socks. I gained a good relationship with the community there. I was at Delonis for a whole year.

During this time, I would come to Mercy House for breakfast on Saturdays. I was just so grateful for everything I was receiving. Having gratitude for everything - that in itself is powerful. Having gratitude was a huge thing in my growth and spiritual connection. I remember just being so mindful - I’m so grateful for Peggy. I’m so grateful for this food or for this coat.

I helped out a lot at the Daytime Warming Shelter - running around everywhere. When Peggy, the owner of Mercy House, asked me to help out with the Mercy House Christmas party, I got to know her more intimately as well since it was just her and I.

I ended up getting housed. On my 7th month of being housed, Peggy asked me out to dinner and asked me if I’d like to help out more with Mercy House - running open hours and Saturday community breakfast. And that's how I became the house manager for Mercy House.

A few years later, here we are.

Interviewer's Note

Since becoming a manager at Mercy House, Gracie also founded Weather Amnesty, an overnight warming shelter for individuals who have been banned from homeless shelters and have nowhere else to go. Weather Amnesty is the first of its kind in Ann Arbor and has been ongoing now for 3 years. During the winter months, Weather Amnesty serves 10-12 people every night with a dedicated team of 10 volunteers.

During her time at Mercy House, Gracie has also mentored a number of individuals. One of her mentees (who she started Weather Amnesty with), has now opened up her own house of hospitality, akin to Mercy House. When Gracie talks about this, she can’t help but smile: “She’s one of my babies…and now she’s just blossomed.”

“I’m ready to retire now!”, she adds, laughing.

If there’s one word that describes Gracie’s story, I would say it’s compassion. Too often, we think of compassion as another word for empathy or sympathy. But the true, fuller definition of compassion is: “to suffer together.”

Reading Gracie's story, I hope you don't get lost in all the trauma she's been through. Because what's more important - what I hope you really see - is how she chose compassion. When her mom, her first abuser wanted to be a part of her daughter's life, when she experienced verbal abuse and physical threats at Delonis, when she encountered people who were broken and bloody: in all these instances, she chose compassion every single time. She shows me that we survive not through brute strength or sheer perseverance, but through empathy.

Looking at all she's been through and all she's done, it's easy to paint Gracie as some sort of superhuman saint or angel, but let us not forget - she's also human. Running Weather Amnesty last year and being there 60 hours a week, she told me burned out. Gracie is someone who's been through more than most of us will ever go through in our lives and she's come out the other side more loving than ever. But she's also someone who gets tired, who needs coffee, and who's still healing - just like the rest of us.

To me, Gracie’s life embodies this quote from Catholic priest, Henri Nouwen:

“The deep truth is that our human suffering need not be an obstacle to the joy and peace we so desire, but can become, instead, the means to it. The great secret of the spiritual life, the life of the Beloved Sons and Daughters of God, is that everything we live, be it gladness or sadness, joy or pain, health or illness, can all be part of the journey toward the full realization of our humanity.”

- Life of the Beloved, Henri Nouwen