Overcoming Tragedy

Pastor Jacqueline Drayton

Zachary Dailey- Dailey Life Photography

I have been through so much in my life, but there is no pain like burying your child. Especially when they take their own life,” says Jacqueline

Drayton, an ordained minister and mother of four. Jacqueline’s daughter, Brandy, a mother of five herself, died by suicide in 2016, after a long struggle with mental illness. “During times when I am not busy and things are quiet, that is when I start going over things in my head,” Jacqueline, who often goes by Jackie, shares. “I wonder, did she mean to do this to herself? Was there something I could have done? Why? Why? Why?”

Of course, these are rhetorical questions for which there are no real answers. Brandy had severe schizophrenia and, because of her mental illness, made the decision to end her life. Schizophrenia is a chronic and severe mental disorder that affects how a person thinks, feels and behaves, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

After losing Brandy to suicide, Jackie has tried to use this struggle – as she has done with all of the difficulties in her life – for good.

A Frightening Childhood

Jackie, who was born and raised in Charleston, SC., has lived through many trials in her 64 years, beginning at the tender age of 3. “My mother married my stepfather when I was 3 years old, and he made sure I knew I wasn’t his,” she says. “I was the oldest of six siblings, and I was the only one not born to him.” Her stepfather seemed to resent her very existence, and this resentment manifested in both physical and mental abuse.

"If his intention was to make me an angry person, it actually did the opposite to me. I learned to love the underdog. All I wanted to do was to help other people and put a smile on their faces."

“My mother worked as a maid for a family in Charleston and while she was at work, he was supposed to take care of our regular housekeeping," she explains. “He made me do his work. When I wasn’t doing chores, he was beating me or making me sit in a red rocking chair for hours on end. My mother didn’t know these things happened because he did it while she was at work. And I didn’t tell her."

In addition to beatings with a belt which included hitting her with the buckle, he also withheld food from Jackie and forced her to act as his personal servant.

The Breaking Point

When she was 9 years old, Jackie's mother gave birth to her brother, Timmy. “Timmy got a serious systemic infection from his umbilical incision, and he was always in and out of hospitals," she says. "I loved him and he loved me – I was the only one who could soothe him. We calmed each other." But one day, Timmy went into the hospital and he never came home again.

“We were all grieving terribly, and that man made my mother get up from her bed of sorrow to make his supper,” she recalls. “That was my breaking point. I no longer recognized my mother as the loving, independent person she had been when I was a little girl. She was completely controlled by that man.”

There were many times when her stepfather would fly into a rage late at night and her mother, fearful that he would hurt Jackie, would wake her and take her to her grandmother’s house. While she knew her mother was trying to protect her, she made the decision at a young age that she would never choose a man over her children.

Having endured all she could stand, Jackie fought back when she was in 9th grade, and the physical attacks ended after that. But an atmosphere of oppression and fear permeated the home, and Jackie longed for the day she could be on her own.“If his intention was to make me an angry person, it actually did the opposite to me," she shares. "I learned to love the underdog. All I wanted to do was to help other people and put a smile on their faces.”

A Young Activist

Jackie has always been a scholar, and as a young person, she loved reading and learning new things. She especially enjoyed reading stories about overcoming adversity. Jackie is a proud alumna of Burke High School in downtown Charleston, where she graduated with honors. “Home of the Bulldogs!” she cheers. “Burke was a great school for black students because it offered trade classes as well as regular academic classes. Not every black student wanted to, or was able to, attend college back then."

When she was a sophomore, there was a tragic shooting incident in her community. In those days, Jackie says many of the local kids would go joy riding in county trucks on county property. “It was just something all of the kids did," she says. "Really harmless, teen stuff.” But this time, when several teens were driving around in the county vehicles, an off-duty police officer chased them down and shot one young man in the back. He tragically died from his injuries.

“I just felt this was so wrong," she relates. "Maybe they shouldn’t have been joy riding, but it was something known that all of the kids did for years and years. He should not have been killed for that.”

Jackie was so incensed she formed a student group called “Students for Action” to protest and march against the shooting. “I received a lot of support from the community, but I also received a lot of hate mail, too,” she says. The police officer was discharged from his position as a result of his actions and the attention made from her protests.

During the heat of the controversy, the local chapter of the NAACP provided protection for Jackie until things quieted down. She was provided a safe escort to school and around town. Eventually, they offered Jackie the position of local president of the Youth NAACP. She was also asked to be a participant on a citizens review board, where she and other citizens reviewed any questionable officer-involved incidents.

The young activist also made a difference in her high school when she organized a school-wide week- long walkout to protest the poor condition of their cafeteria.

"We lived in the inner city, our cafeteria was delapidated and we had bugs everywhere,” she relates. As a result of Jackie's organized walkout, a new cafeteria was built for the students.

Young Love

While Jackie was still in high school, she caught the eye of a young man, Bernard Drayton, who had graduated from Burke two years earlier. “He liked the way I looked in my majorette uniform,” she laughs. “He liked my legs!”

She eventually agreed to date him, and when he proposed, she said "yes." They were married after she graduated from high school. “Bernard knew about my home life and my stepfather beating me, and he said he wanted to take care of me," she recalls. "He decided to join the Air Force to provide for me and our future family."

He was first assigned to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. For the first time in her life, she had a stable home with a loving husband and a secure income. Jackie and Bernard began having children immediately. “When we had our first daughter, Tia, we were just so jubilant," she shares. "We would just laugh and laugh with happiness."

Darkness Creeps In

By the time Bernard was transferred to Mather AFB in Sacramento, Calif., they had added a son, Bernard, Jr., to the family. Later, they would have a second daughter, Brandy, and two more sons, Quintin and Quincy.

She recalls that Bernard Sr. exhibited the first signs of instability when they were in the delivery room while she was giving birth to Bernard Jr. “He started singing really loudly, 'You Are My Sunshine,'” she says. "It may seem sweet, but in actuality, it was completely out of character and very odd." However, she didn’t think too much about the strange behavior until later.

“One day I got a phone call that Bernard, Sr. had a psychotic episode and was being life-flighted to Travis AFB in Fairfield, Calif., for observation," she explains. "They decided that he needed to be sent back home to Charleston for further care. We immediately lost our housing and his income. We went from his good, regular salary to a stipend of $67 a month.”

Terrified, she packed up the family's belongings and drove Tia and Bernard, Jr. across the country to Charleston.

From Bad to Worse

Because of her past difficulties with her parents, Jackie felt she could not stay with them – especially with two little children. Friends took them in for a while, but she says her friends grew tired of that quickly. Bernard was still under evaluation and she had two children to feed. “I really did not know what to do," she shares. "That $67 was not going to buy much. That is when I started writing bad checks. That went on for quite a long time; I just wrote them to cover our basic needs, but eventually I got caught and went to jail.”

By this time, her stepfather was no longer in the picture and her children went to stay with her mother while Jackie was incarcerated. She was sentenced to five years in prison. While serving her time, Jackie began educating herself on the prison system. She began helping other inmates with appeals, early releases, transfers, medical attention and post-conviction relief, a court rule or law that allows a challenge to a judgment of conviction which has otherwise become final in the normal appellate review process.

“I have a good head for memorizing and understanding legal issues," she says. "The other prisoners called me ‘Matlock.' I was even able to have some sentences overturned."

Eventually, Jackie’s work on behalf of the other inmates came to the attention of the prison warden. After serving only eight months of her sentence, Jackie received an early release. “I think he was tired of me rocking the boat and wanted to get rid of me!” she laughs.

Shortly before she was granted her release, Jackie experienced an excruciating headache. “It was worse than delivering 12 babies, all at once, naturally!” she exclaims. It was determined that Jackie had a brain aneurism and was in very serious condition.

“I really thought I was going to die," she relates. "I remember asking God, 'Please don’t take me now. I want to be back with my children.'"

She endured an eight-hour brain surgery and, while recovering in her room, she says she saw a bright, white light coming from one corner of the room.

“I later found out that no one else saw that light," she shares. "I believe it was God comforting me. All in all, I had 72 huge staples across my scalp and spent several weeks in the hospital. They told my family I would be a vegetable, but I walked out of there on my own two legs and I walked back into prison. But, I knew then that God had a plan for me and when I got out, I would do more to serve Him.”

Fighting for Justice

As part of the conditions of her release from prison, Jackie was required to have regular meetings with a woman from the Department of Social Services (DSS). She was getting back on her feet, and Bernard began receiving military disability checks which allowed her to provide a good home for her family. However, she eventually made the decision to divorce Bernard. His illness had steadily progressed, he had become violent and he would not stay on his medication. She remembered the vow she had made to herself as a young girl that she would not put a man before her children, and she ended the marriage.

After the divorce, Jackie noticed that her family support military checks were not appearing on time. Then, without warning, her children were taken away from her, based on a falsified report filed by her DSS worker.

After her children were removed from her care, some went to stay with her mother and some went with Bernard Sr. During this time, her son Quincy, told her his only wish was to have Jackie be there to see him walk across the stage at his high school graduation.

Knowing the accusations from the DSS were completely untrue, she put her legal research skills to work and discovered the DSS worker had forged a letter from a doctor falsely claiming child abuse in her home.

She also discovered this same social worker had been stealing her checks. While she could do the background case work, Jackie couldn’t file her own legal brief, so she hired a Charleston law firm to help her. She eventually won her case, and received a repayment of the money stolen and was also awarded punitive damages.

When Quincy graduated from Goose Creek High School in S.C., she surprised him by yelling out his nickname from the stands as he crossed the stage so he would know his wish to have his mother present had come true.

Still, even as things began to improve for Jackie and her children, there were storm clouds brewing within her daughter, Brandy.

Brandy’s Struggle

“Brandy had always been extra, extra sensitive," she says. "She saw slights where there weren’t any. For example, when I would introduce my daughters, I would say ‘This is my eldest daughter Tia, and my other daughter Brandy.' She would fixate on the word ‘other.' She thought when I said ‘other,’ that I meant ‘less than,' which, of course, was not true.”

At the age of 20, Brandy was doing well. She owned her own business and got married. But Brandy began showing signs of the same mental illness as her father, schizophrenia.

“I did not know back then that some mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, can be genetic," she explains. "I found out later that mental illness was in Bernard’s family. If I had known earlier, things may have turned out differently. I began to see different things in my daughter – depression, mood swings."

Brandy began exhibiting more and more erratic behavior and began hanging out with a local drug dealer. Jackie and her family tried to keep her away from that environment, but it was impossible to monitor her whereabouts every minute of every day.

She began isolating herself from Jackie and her siblings. She also began having children, eventually giving birth to five babies. Interestingly, Jackie says during each of her pregnancies, Brandy was completely well and the symptoms of her illness disappeared. But, after each baby was born, her illness would return stronger than ever.

After all of her children were born, the illness took hold for good and she separated herself from Jackie and the rest of the family. Jackie says Brandy's husband had no interest in her health and welfare. “It seemed to us that all he wanted was to cash her Supplemental Security Income checks,” she says.

“She kept the children from us so, sadly, I do not even know them,” she exclaims. "She gave all of them up, and I was constantly trying to locate the children. But, she made sure none of the family members could locate them."

Often, the only contact they would have with her would be a threatening message or obscene package she would leave at the front door.

Eventually, Brandy received an official diagnosis of schizophrenia but, like so many people with mental illness, including her father, she was not compliant with taking her medicine. “I actually think it is evil that people with severe mental illness cannot be forced to take their medicine,” she relates.

“The philosophy of medicine is supposed to be 'do no harm,' But how is it not harmful that those with mental illness don’t have to take the medicine that can keep them stable? I feel like I have been victimized by the system and I feel, in many ways, my daughter was a victim, too. If she had been made to take her medication, who knows?”

An Unthinkable Tragedy

“I have thought so much about Brandy and her struggles,” she explains. “Why did she feel abandoned when she was loved? Why was she so very sensitive? Why couldn’t I help her? Why?”

Sometimes there just aren’t answers. Sadly, in 2017, Brandy fell into a dire depression. All alone at age 29, Brandy checked herself into a small neighborhood hotel and took her own life. Jackie discovered later that Brandy had been acting erratically at the hotel but no one called for help. “That is one thing I just don’t understand," she says. "When we see folks who are acting strangely or those who clearly need help, people don’t want to get involved. They don’t even want to make a phone call. Who knows? If someone had called that day, would Brandy still be here?”

Unfortunately, for the survivors of suicide loss, such thoughts are common after a loved one dies by suicide. If only? What if? Why? But these are all questions that usually remain unanswered for those left behind.

"My daughter did not tell anyone what she was planning," she shares. "The most horrific thing that I’ve been through was when she died by suicide.”

"No mother should ever have to hold her child's ashes."

Over 800 000 people die by suicide each year. Suicide is the second leading cause of death in 15 to 29 year olds, and there are indications that for each adult who dies by suicide, there may be more than 20 others who have attempted suicide, according to the World Health Organization.

Early identification and effective management are key to ensuring that people receive the care they need. The WHO says that stigma and misunderstanding surrounding mental illness is widespread. In spite of the existence of effective treatments for mental disorders, there is often a belief that those with mental illness are untreatable, unintelligent or difficult.

This stigma can lead to isolation, abuse and rejection and can exclude people from health care and support. Within the health system, people are too often treated in institutions that resemble "human warehouses" rather than places of healing. The WHO suggests that to increase the availability of mental health services, there are five key barriers that need to be overcome: the absence of mental health from the public health agenda and the implications for funding; the current organization of mental health services; lack of integration within primary care; inadequate human resources for mental health; and lack of public mental health leadership.

“Some people will look at the environment the person was in and blame it on that," she explains. "For example, if they live in a low-income area or sometimes people will blame it on drugs. People with mental illness are the most lost and overlooked individuals in our society. Depression can be a gateway to suicide."

Another Setback

After losing her daughter, Jackie was working in a halfway house helping people who were trying to get back on their feet, just as she was trying to move forward with her life. One day, one of the residents told her she didn't look well.

Indeed, Jackie had not been feeling well for a couple of weeks, and on that day she felt terrible. She went to the hospital by ambulance, where it was discovered that she had colon cancer.

After her cancer diagnosis, Jackie and Quincy moved to Douglasville, Ga., to be near her daughter, Tia, and to be near her oncologist, Dr. Ann McDonald.

She underwent surgery for the cancer, and the doctors removed a large tumor. She also received a temporary colostomy, an operation that creates an opening for the colon, or large intestine, through the abdomen. “But I am vain," she laughs. "I had them reverse that as soon as I could!” Fortunately, she did not need chemotherapy.

As part of her recovery from the loss of Brandy, her illnesses and other challenges she had endured, Jackie began to grow deeper into her Christian faith. She began taking theology classes at Liberty University, a private evangelical Christian university in Lynchburg, Va., with the goal of becoming an ordained Baptist minister.

During her recovery from colon cancer, Jackie met a woman who was to have a great impact on her life. “I had an interesting thing happen when I was visiting my oncologist," she shares. "I was new to the area and had not yet found a church home. I had been studying for my theology classes and had accidentally bought two study Bibles that were exactly the same. During my checkup, I began talking to a lady who worked there named Miss Meeks. She said she had been looking for a Bible like mine. I told her I had an extra and gave it to her.”

The next time she came in for an appointment, Miss Meeks told Jackie that God had told her she needed to take Jackie somewhere. That “somewhere” was to Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church in Carrollton, even though that was not Miss Meeks’ home church.

After arriving at Mt. Pleasant, Jackie felt an overwhelming feeling of the Holy Spirit speaking to her the moment she stepped out of the car. “The spirit of God told me this is where I needed to be,” says Jackie. As the two ladies were walking around the church, they encountered the senior pastor, Bishop Dr. Samuel Sauls, Jr. “Bishop Dr. Sauls walked up to us and said ‘You must be the gatherer that God said he’d send to me,'" she shares.

Finding Her Way Home

Jackie is involved in extensive community outreach, including opening her home as a community hub that provides non-perishable food, baby formula and canned meats to those in need.

Because of her friendship with Miss Meeks and her introduction to Bishop Dr. Sauls, Jackie and her son, Quincy, made the decision to move to Carrollton to be closer to Mt. Pleasant church. Jackie had been a gatherer most of her life – with the underserved, with her family and with her fellow inmates in prison. She was now ready to be a gatherer for God.

“The first thing I did with Mt. Pleasant Baptist was the spring festival,” she says. She is now involved in extensive community outreach, including providing clothing to the local women’s shelter and The Blake House, a place of refuge for men struggling with addiction; she works in collaboration with the Atlanta Food Bank and Crossroads Church to quickly distribute large volumes of food, including produce, directly to the underserved in the community; she delivers food, toiletries and clothing to senior citizens who are homebound and to those who don't have transportation; she works with Mt. Pleasant's annual coat drive in collaboration with the Carrollton Police Department and Charter Bank to collect and distribute coats to homeless veterans and others in need; leads a weekly Bible study at the HOPE Center in Carrollton, a communal home and transition program for homeless men in West Georgia; leads a weekly community bible study at Mt. Pleasant; she opens her home as a community hub that provides non-perishable canned goods and meats to those in need; she also collects clothing for people who can't afford to purchase outfits required for job interviews and helps prepare résumés for people in the community who are looking for work.

She believes in using existing resources that are available in the community for outreach. "My bishop and I try to make it a point to not reinvent the wheel, but to help as much as we can with organizations that already exist,” she explains.

Jackie preaches every fifth Sunday, and her sermons focus on finding oneself in the struggle. She offers rousingly honest sermons with titles such as “Detours to Your Destiny,” where she shares the many trials and triumphs in her life.

One of Jackie's future goals is creating increased community awareness for mental illness, especially in young women. “Laws need to be changed,” she states emphatically. “Many people with mental illness don’t want to take their medicine, but we need to find ways to convince them that is the way to better mental health."

Along with her other health issues, Jackie has had two strokes and two heart attacks, but she refuses to allow that to stop her from making a difference in people's lives. She is determined to honor Brandy's memory by helping others who are struggling.

"I believe in being in the center of where help is needed the most," she shares. "This is what love is truly all about – not so much for your comfort but for the comfort of others. I love people and I love seeing people smile. I try to be that source to help joy come into their lives." WGW

To learn more about Pastor Jacqueline Drayton and her outreach programs, call 843.568.3153 or email her at drayton1235@gmail.com