With every line she drew with her colored pencils, with every stroke of a marker and chalk that she used to make the little girl with rosy cheeks and dark, curly hair come to life, Sheila Luther erased another sliver of her own long-lingering guilt.
Having raised her own daughter in an unstable environment one filled with anger, addiction and spousal abuse Luther cries even today as she recounts how decades ago she was too consumed by her own lifestyle to see the damage being done to her child.
A book to comfort children of mothers in prison
“My daughter at age 3 used to ask me if she was a bad girl, and she would ask me that because I was a bad mother,” said Luther, now 68 and living in Dayton. “I went to prison at age 41, and my daughter was an adult by then, but it was already too late. She’d already had a lifetime of hurt.”