August 2018
Life can change in a heartbeat. Vivian is well aware of this truth and has experienced this principle many times in her life. As I step into her apartment, I am greeted with strident dog barks, a warm hug, and a sincere apology. We were unable to meet a week ago as planned because a close friend of hers was involved in a severe car accident. Due to her past, this kind of trauma is one that she doesn’t take lightly. As I walk in and express my appreciation for giving me her time, she lets her sweet tiny chihuahuas enter the living room to alleviate the barking and strengthen our comfort level.
Vivian grew up in Lubbock, Texas, a city she describes as uneventful and monotonous. She had strong family support growing up, especially from her younger brother, Ricky. They were very close, shared a fondness for inside jokes and football, and spent much time being there for each other through adulthood. In 2005, while going through a divorce, Vivian received a phone call early one morning from her sister. She couldn’t believe what her sister was saying. She thought she was dreaming but the words coming out of the receiver turned out to be true. Her dear brother Ricky had died in a car accident instantly. The piercing burn that was felt intensified as she remembered the next day would have been his birthday.
These two grief-stricken traumas, Ricky’s passing and her divorce, changed her. She became depressed, it was hard for her to sleep and she also started having excruciating migraines. Her doctors decided to prescribe her multiple medications for all of these symptoms. This is how her self-medicating habits began. Since there were too many painful memories in Lubbock, she decided to move to Austin in 2008. Along with the prescribed pills she was taking to numb the pain, she also regularly drank socially among friends.
One day, she decided to order some food for her little chihuahua at a restaurant close to her house, right after she took an Ambien. “They said I ordered all of this food. I pulled up, put the car in park, and they said I had fallen asleep. I don’t remember any of that,” says Vivian. “They said somebody called the police for my well-being because they saw me asleep. But because the keys were in the ignition, that got me a DUI.” The police arrested her and hastily searched her car. Along with her prescription, they found samples of Levitra and Viagra, medication given to her from the urologist’s office where she worked.
After she bonded out, the court placed her on probation and required her to do five months at an in-house rehab center. Luckily, while attending, she could leave for work and then return to the facility. With three weeks left of her court-ordered requirement, she returned to the premises with two Tylenol in her pocket, medication she was going to take but forgot. The staff labeled it as contraband which then resulted in another court appearance. Unfortunately, the court ordered her to start the program all over again, another frustrating five months. But this time, she would not be allowed to leave the facility for work.
After completing these second five months, they placed her on probation, which is another challenge in itself. During probation, you must have a full-time job, see your probation officer, and take a urinalysis test every week. “You want me to meet you every week and you want me to leave my work, but you want me to keep a job?” she says vexingly. “It doesn’t matter if you can’t make it because of your job hours. You have to go, period. How does that work? They’re like, well, that’s on you.”
After months of not using any medication and meeting her probation responsibilities, Vivian seemed to be doing well. She was on her way to closing the DUI chapters of her life, but as time revealed, she still had some lessons to learn. One pleasant summer day, she stopped at a light and accidentally rolled into the car in front of her. “I literally rolled into him, there was no damage to his car but he called the police, so they came. I had a tube in the back of my car. I had a swimsuit on and I was headed home. And because I was on probation, they arrested me.”
She was sent to the county jail, and for nine months, she waited on a court date to get released or sentenced. While in jail, Vivian quietly stayed to herself most of the time, but she was interested in participating in any activities that would vary the repeated physical and mental scenery she was experiencing every day. After a while, a friend invited her to attend a new class the jail was offering. It was a poetry class, which made her immediately hesitant and skeptical. “I don’t know how to do poetry. I don’t know what poetry is,” she said candidly with a smile. But she agreed to test it out, not knowing she was about to meet a future longtime friend. Here is where she met Kelsey Shipman, the founder of the Freehand Arts Project.
“I was in her first class. When I took the class, it felt like something different. Kelsey just has this vibe about her. She told us, you know, this was the first time and she was kind of nervous because she didn’t know what she was walking into.” Kelsey’s honesty and vulnerability put the inmates at ease, especially Vivian. She attended Kelsey’s class regularly and began to express her emotions on paper. “My daughter is the one that does all the writing and the English and poetry and journaling. That’s not me. But I stayed with it,” she says. Kelsey gave Vivian and the rest of the class questions and prompts to ponder when they wrote. She challenged them with different exercises, such as creating inanimate object perspectives or giving her students scenic postcards to inspire their writing. Although Vivian kept to herself and didn’t get into trouble, she was grateful to learn about her fellow inmates in this new capacity. “Some people were awesome at it and would work at it. But then there were other times that it was just fun. I enjoyed getting out and listening to other people’s thoughts,” she says.
The Freehand Arts Project was a light for Vivian, one that she didn’t even know she needed. It helped her express her feelings, not only about her status but also about her brother.
The nine months went by slowly and she was ready to get her case resolved. She missed her family so much but could not bear the idea of seeing them while behind bars. “There might have been my family and two or three other people who knew I was in jail. They always wanted to visit me and I wouldn’t let them,” she says. “To see them and then know that they’re going to leave…,” she pauses. Her voice begins to break and tears well in her eyes as she continues. “You can’t do anything. And they’re feeling bad because they’re leaving and you’re in jail. Maybe it’s selfish but I couldn’t do it.”
Finally, she received a court day and was sentenced to two years in prison. Due to the overcrowded prison system, inmates usually serve 1/3 to 1/4 of their sentence in the facility and then may be eligible for parole. Since she was in the county jail system for nine months, that time served also went toward her sentence. After her court date, she was transferred to a state correctional facility outside of Houston in June 2014, expecting to be released soon after. But for some reason, she became lost in the system, which happens more often than anyone can imagine. Since no one could find her records, she could not get classified, a system that grants privileges based on the degree and category of the crime committed. “Your classification depends on what you can do, your freedom within the prison, and what you can join. And I couldn’t get classified. They couldn’t get my number. They couldn’t pull my chart and they couldn’t find me.”
As an unclassified inmate, Vivian was not allowed to attend any classes or have a job. She was only allowed to go to the library and attend church. All she could do was sit, wait, and read. It was an experience she will never forget. “I don’t wish that upon anybody. I don’t care what you do, what mistakes you’ve made. When you go to jail, they really degrade you. They make you feel worthless. I’m not saying it’s supposed to be a vacation or a ride in the park but at the same time, they don’t have to degrade you to the point to make you feel like you’re nothing. And that’s what they did.”
Vivian witnessed many disturbing incidents in prison. She saw women abruptly and painfully detoxing from street drugs. She saw female inmates having inappropriate relations with the male guards and experienced embarrassing invasive strip searches multiple times. She even observed guards coming to work under the influence of drugs. The petty arguments and fights in the shared dorm of 53 other women were just as frequent. She would do anything to get away from that environment mentally.
Ironically, since all she could do was read and attend church, this is where her faith in God became strong again. After four months of daily calls to the warden by her mom, sister, parole attorney and regular attorney, Vivian finally got released in October 2014.
In 2016, she moved to Dallas to start a new beginning. She eventually landed a position giving vitamin infusions to patients at a clinic. As we drive to one of her patient’s homes for a house call, she confides in me that she wants to go back to prison as a counselor in a church ministry. She explains her strong desire to give back and help incarcerated men and women without family or support. But she also knows it will take years to be permitted to step onto the premises of a correctional facility again, even serving in a selfless role.
As I watch Vivian with her patient, I can tell that she is not only great at her job but also great with people. “Vivian is a lifesaver,” says Kelly, her patient. It is apparent that Vivian finds value in connecting with others while being available to those in need. Because of her history, her appreciation of freedom is palpable and overflowing, which many of us genuinely take for granted. “I still make mistakes but I’ve learned my lesson. I know I have a lot to be grateful for. I have a roof. I might be negative in my checking account every other week but I have a job. I have a car. And I have more than others. It makes you humble,” says Vivian.
Her past transgressions have become a transformative reminder that will always stay with her. Even through the heartache and hardships she has faced, she is frankly one of the most positive people I have ever met, which is beautifully encouraging. She did not let confinement break her. Instead, it expanded her gratitude, fueled her desire to live life to the fullest and become the benevolent person she was always meant to be. An irresistible feeling of gratitude swells within me as I leave her home. Her presence, her wisdom, and her honesty have changed me too.
2022 UPDATE:
Vivian and I happily reconnected by phone, and her voice was just as uplifting and positive as the day that I met her. When I last saw her, she provided patients with vitamin therapy infusions in the comfort of their own homes. Because it was a medical need, she continued working as an infusion nurse without interruption and gained more patients through word of mouth during the pandemic. “I love what I do. I love taking care of patients. They are not only my patients, but they also become a friend,” she says, full of gratitude. As a health and wellness professional, she has been exposed to Covid-19 multiple times and constantly tests herself once a week. Thankfully, she has never contracted the virus and has continued to stay healthy.
Vivian is a hard worker, working 60 hours per week on average, providing vitamin infusion therapy full-time, and working part-time at CVS. She has also moved out of her Dallas apartment and into a more spacious house, wisely paying the same cost in rent. After completing parole on Dec 31, 2015, she built a life of her own making, and she still never takes that for granted. “The confinement, the restrictions, and the control they had over me. That’s not there anymore. I control my own life, how I wake up, and how I want to be. I’m blessed every day.”
She still thinks about how Freehand Arts Project and Kesley Shipman significantly changed her life. The existence of this program during a difficult time in her life still fills her with intense appreciation and good memories. “I wholeheartedly believe that Kelsey was one person that had a huge difference in where I am today. She will always have a special place in my heart,” says Vivian. Being in the program made her feel seen, heard, and so much more than one wrong choice she made. “We’re not bad people. We just made a mistake, but you can grow, and you can change from that.”