By Hala Khalifeh
“We pray that you strengthen our relationship and that you help us to understand each other and to love each other. Amen.”
Hand in hand, and dog in lap, this is how Iris and Genea Richardson begin every morning—with a prayer, together. For 18 years of their lives though, this prayer was made independently, without the handholding and the only dogs in sight were prison guard dogs.
Charged for robbery and first-degree murder at the age of 17, Genea was sentenced to 26 years to life in prison, according to a report from the California Court of Appeals. Meanwhile, her mother Iris was left battling depression, had attempted to commit suicide four times, experienced the death of her fiancé, and was homeless for four years.
Separated by metal bars and littered streets, the two still prayed every morning.
“Prayer brings us closer together because even in our worst moments, we can put all our issues aside, hold hands and move forward.”
Genea Richardson
“[In prison] I would always pray and ask God to allow me to come home to take care of my mom. I vowed to myself and to God that if he blessed me to go home, I would take care of my mom,” Genea said. “Now, prayer is what grounds me and what mends the relationship between my mom and me. It brings us closer together because even in our worst moments, we can put all our issues aside, hold hands and move forward.”
While Genea was praying on the inside, Iris was also looking up and talking to God on the outside.
“I just kept saying ‘please bring her home,’ and that when He did let her go, that it would be freedom all the way. Just pure freedom,” Iris said. “Everyone else around me would say ‘she’s not going to come home,’ and they would ask why I had so much faith. But I would say ‘no, God is going to let her come home. I know it. I feel it.’”
But what does it mean to be a loving daughter after being locked away from your mother for 18 years, with your only contact being limited to occasional choppy phone calls? Genea says she is still working around her role as a daughter to make up for the lost years. At times, she says she feels the stereotypical mother-daughter roles are reversed because both sides have been deprived of tenderness and care for so long.
“I went into prison during one stage of my life, and I came out at a very different stage and age. We didn’t have the opportunity to fully develop our relationship together so there’s a lot that’s missing,” Genea said. “I’m trying to understand what a proper mother-daughter relationship looks like now, for me, as a 39-year-old woman. How much should my mother be doing for me? How much should she not be doing for me? We’re just trying to pick up the pieces and learn our roles.”
The two of them are still learning to navigate life with another person who cares for them around. While Genea was used to having seven other cellmates, and her mom learned to make ends meet on her own, living with a family member is something neither of them are used to. They are learning how to give and receive love in different ways, and what that may look like for someone who has gone through years of depression, emotional abuse and has had their guard up for nearly all their life. For Iris, Genea quickly learned that physical love like frequent hugs or forehead kisses is not always how her mother likes to receive love. After caressing her mother’s shoulder, Iris quickly brushed her daughter’s hand away and said, “quit petting me like I’m a dog!”
“I had to learn how to take care of myself because it was just me for so long. I don’t know how to accept that someone else wants to take care of me.”
Iris Richardson
“For 20 years I took care of myself. It was always just me, me, me. I had to learn how to take care of myself because it was just me for so long. I don’t know how to accept that someone else wants to take care of me,” Iris said.
Confined to a cell with nothing but a sliver of a window to see the outside world, the space to think and breathe was limited. Between college writing assignments and those choppy phone calls with her mom, Genea would turn to poetry to process emotions. Throughout the years, the mother-daughter duo have each found their own unique ways of processing emotions, going through change and nurturing their minds. For Genea, that comes in the form of writing poetry; and for Iris, that means working on art projects for friends and neighbors.
“I remember feeling so much despair and hopelessness. I was numb. I felt like my life was over,” Genea said. “But poetry allowed me to feel. It helped me to paint my picture from the inside, out. And once I paint that picture, I get clarity. Poetry brought my color back.”
While Genea still continues to write and recite poetry to this day, she says that it was most impactful for her mental-wellbeing during her time in prison. There she would write poems about freedom, feeling trapped, her mother and hope.
“Writing was very important to me because during incarceration you’re stagnate. You’re stuck in a box, and you want to grow as big as you possibly can, but the environment doesn’t allow you to—it cuts you off from experiences. So, I lived my life through reading books which gave me words for poetry,” Genea said. “Poetry and writing saved me in a sense because it allowed me to bring color back into my life—it helped me paint my world. It allowed me to ground myself. It allowed me to take everything that was in my soul and put it on paper so I could get a tangible visual of everything that was inside of my soul.”
Genea also describes her poetry-writing process as something that brings her hope. During some of her darkest days behind bars, she would write poetry to process, contextualize and dream. This was one of the first poems she wrote during her time in prison:
Over the course of Genea’s prison sentence, she learned to see more than just herself. She began to understand the troubles that her actions were putting upon others, like her mother.
“I would think about my mom and the burden that came to her because of me. I didn’t see this before, but I now see that my mom is the face of so many mothers and the burdens they carry. I see the tears of many mothers in my mom’s tears. I see the heartache of many mothers in my mom’s heart,” Genea said.
The two currently live together in a 500 square foot Los Angeles studio apartment—one that is not much bigger than the prison cell Genea spent so much of her life in. But their humble space is a reflection of their growth during this new chapter in their lives.
No wall is left empty. Carefully cut-out paper butterflies adorn the otherwise plain and lifeless walls. Glitter mosaics are hung up in the spaces where there aren’t bedazzled butterflies or other artwork. Potted plants fill every side table and windowsill. And a wall of mismatched photo frames filled with smiling family members and posed photos has earned the name: “the wall of firsts.”
This is where they display photos to show how far they have come and to celebrate the little milestones like their first hug in the prison parking lot when Genea was released, or Genea jumping on the bed because she never had a soft mattress before, and her first birthday back home, or her first time eating at a restaurant in 20 years.
“There are so many treasures and lessons in this building. We don’t live in a grand place, around grand people, but God deposited us here and it’s a journey to get that full bloom,” Genea said. “A tree starts as a seed and then it becomes giant. So, I see me and mom together as trees, coexisting, and providing shade for people, providing insight and love for people as mother and daughter.”
Aware of how powerful even the slightest bit of hope can be, Genea now strives to be a voice of women’s re-entry. She does this through her work with Huma House Gardening—a re-entry company that works to end mass incarceration in California through creativity. As the director of Huma House, she leads soil therapy programs, restorative justice classes and radical listening workshops.
“When people coming home from prison do not have the proper channels and welcome to enter back into society, our community suffers. Collectively we lose the ability to learn and live in the light that those coming home have and we lose the opportunity to take care of one another,” Huma House said as part of their mission statement. “The urban gardening projects and art exhibits provide ways in which we can recognize and see one another, healing the neglect that has cast a shadow over a population that deserves to shine.”
After decades of being behind bars, it can be overwhelming for someone to re-enter into society—especially if they were imprisoned at the age of adolescence. Many previously incarcerated individuals report feeling frustrated with adapting to technology, finding a job, paying taxes or even using social media. So much can change over the span of just five to ten years that it can feel like one is entering into an entirely different world once they are released.
“Policymakers and criminal justice professionals are recognizing that simply releasing someone into the community and expecting them to be successful is not a recipe for success,” Robert Morgan, PhD, a psychologist who studies correctional mental health, told the American Psychological Association.
That’s why re-entry programs like Huma House, Kedren Health in South LA or Women’s Integrated Supervision Program exist—to assist with the transition.
It’s programs like these that help to ensure re-entered individuals don’t get admitted into prisons again by helping people to get back on their feet and to find their purpose.
“When you’re at your lowest point, they incarcerate you and they separate you from society. They separate you from experiences. So, you’re broken and you’re hurting, and you’re at your lowest point. This cannot possibly be conducive to any type of growth or healing in your life,” Genea said. “But these programs give you experiences, and experiences are what ignite creativity. They’re what help you understand who you are, and it gives you the tools to be able to navigate and to deal with life.”