Mothers Day

Accolade
Kalamazoo Gazette

She's learning her way to a self supporting life

Michelle Hazard may have no phone and no car and, until now no education beyond high school. But she has more gumption than a host of other Kalamazoo people together. In Hazards first term at Kalamazoo Valley Community College which ended April 29, she pulled down a neat 4.0 grade average. Thats all A's.

After being away from the classroom since high school graduation in 1976, Hazard was intimidated by the thought of taking classes at KVCC.. She thought that she could in no way do it. says Kathy Schacher, Hazard's friend and mentor. The two were paired through the YWCA's Helping Ourselves Means Education (HOME) program, in which women on aid who are trying to become self-supporting are matched with mentors.

Hazard has known homelessness and near brushes with homelessness. She has managed to work her way off public assistance a number of times, but not yet permanently.

Hazard's driving ambition now is to get the education which will allow her to get a good enough job to support herself and her two children, Anthony, 10, and Heather, 6, and never again have to fall back on assistance.

She's not afraid of hard work. She has worked two and three minimum wage jobs at a time trying to provide for her youngsters. But she worries profoundly about being away from them for the hours that working like that requires. My children are my life, she says.

Michelle is very resourceful, Schacher says with admiration. She thought she was going to fail. But I don't know what's going to stop her now.

Although Hazard is engaged in a battle for financial survival for her children and herself, she still has time and energy to do for those around her.

She is a volunteer at Housing Resources Inc., and has written and received a grant to start a program designed to promote home sharing.

The grant application asked for $2,500 but officials at the Greater Kalamazoo United Way were so impressed with the idea and its presentation that it was awarded $3,500 from the GKUW's Creative Options Program, a joint effort with the Fetzer Institute.

Housing Resources has offered office space for the program and although Hazard is not sure exactly when the program will begin, she is working on it when she can to make sure it will be successful.

Hazard is really motivated, says Ellen Kissinger-Rothi, Housing Resources director, and believes if anyone can make a good idea such as this go, it is Hazard.


Hazard gives a lot of the credit for the turn around in her life to the mentoring and support she has received through HOME and KVCC's Achievement Plus programs and most of all to God.

But some of the credit also must go to Hazard's determination and courage in deciding that it's time for me to take care of myself.




Well now there is an article! (Other than it's grammatical errors) It should have made me swell with pride and further my determination, right? Had I been "normal" it might have. These were the surrounding factors that made this article a slap in the face for me. I never hung it up on the wall but secluded it to the keepsake box. The day it came out in the paper was none other than Mothers Day, my kids had made me a peanut butter pancake for breakfast in bed. (grilled and smashed peanut butter sandwich), brought to me on a tray with orange juice and the paper.
We spent a little over an hour sitting there that morning one child on each side of me as they appreciated their Mom, we laughed and talked til they had devoured the peanut butter sandwich. Then I sat down in the living room to read the paper. When I saw the article I called the kids in and they were both trying to see my picture. When there was a knock on the door. It was my daughters father, he wanted visitation even though he knew it was Mothers Day and therefore not a visitation day. He pushed past me and scooped my daughter up and began berating me in front of her. He said, " Boy you sure have those people fooled, if they only knew what a fat lazy b(^$% you really are! It doesn't matter Michelle, when I take you to court I'm going to get custody. (It was shortly after Heather witnessed an altercation between her dad and his wife, she threatened to stab him with a pair of scissors.) I was feeling bolstered by the article and said " No, you won't be getting custody the violence that has now been documented will not allow you to, Now if you don't mind I want you to leave as this is Mothers Day not a visitation day."
He replied as he took steps closer still holding Heather until he was almost touching me and pointed his finger as he said Real adults have arguements, Oh yeah that's right you don't know how to have a relationship. I put my hands out to take my daughter who was reaching for me and he backed up and took off with my daughter. I called the police and was told that I would have to report it on Monday but they had no jurisdiction to bring her back..
I then called my parents home as I knew my sister would be there, when the phone was answered it was my step-mother. It was then that I found out I was an embarrassment to my family. Homeless? I was a failure and now all of Kalamazoo knew it, how could my father show his head in this community again?
Each Mother's Day thats what I think about, not what I should be thinking about, but what a failure I was.

Authors edit: Tuesday
I wanted to write about how I felt this Mothers Day after pulling this article out of the package, I carried it on this Journey more as something I needed to refute in my own mind. Turn it around and make it positive. The flashbacks that accompanied this return to the past was difficult to write about and I was out of energy after writing what I had. Today is a new day and I know that I am still the person who made a choice to take care of myself, those long years ago. It hasn't been easy nor is it over one day at a time.

ATTA Girl

Today Friday May 14th my daughter sent me a Mothers Day card, considering that she just got done with her first semester of college and is preparing to be a camp counselor at a Young Life Camp. I was surprised and now I have something else to dwell on, she wrote the following in my card:

The front of the card says:
Mom, you made me what I am today.
the inside says:
One Lucky kid! Thanks and Happy Mothers Day

She wrote:
Momma,
I hope I get to see you soon, but if I don't I just wanted to tell you I love you....so so so so much.

Thank you for always being someone
I can talk to and not worry about
you not loving me anymore.

Thank you mom for always putting
me first and loving it...lol

Thank you Mom for supporting me
in everything I do and doing what
you can.

Thank you Mom for washing my butt
and cleaning my wounds, and making
me laugh when I am sad.

Thank you Mom for your smile and your
giving heart, smiling face and outgoing
personality.

Thank you Mom for my blue eyes and
half grown in eyebrows, I see you whenever
I look in the mirror.

Thank You Mom, for trusting in Jesus and
loving him in all situations.

Dear Brothers and Sisters (mothers) whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. - James 1:2-3 -

I love you so much because your a strong, courageous, God fearing, loving , patient (most of the time) faithful woman of God.
I know you'll never give up. And I love you for that!
Mom ThankYou so much for being who you are, for without you I wouldn't be who I am.

Forever Your loving daughter


If the person who I think I failed the most, my children, love me like she describes than I haven't failed at all.