For Leshia Champs, her life took a 180-degree turn at the age of six. While she was lying on her grandma’s couch, playing with her worn-out doll, a few people walked in and took her into custody. They were people from the child protection services who brought her because the girl couldn’t be taken care of. The parents were drug addicts and were not home most of the time. However, after the day she was taken, rather than getting better, things became unstable as she couldn’t figure out what was going on in her life.
She had to change dozens of homes until she reached high school. Every family had their problems and couldn’t keep Leshia for long, so most of her nights, she had to rely on her friends, as most of them let her sleep over. While people focus on achieving stuff in their teenage years and setting goals, Leshia’s life was different. She wondered if all her life would be spent the same way, being displaced and abandoned repeatedly. All the emotional burden outweighed her dreams, and soon she dropped out of her senior year. Her only dream was to become an attorney; however, she gave it all up!
Not knowing that held greater, she eventually settled down and became a mother of three. When she was pregnant for the fourth time, life brought her something new, making all her challenges worse as her home caught fire and was burned. 2009 brought forward new problems, as she not only lost her house to fire but also miscarried the baby after carrying the baby for seven months. A few months later, Leshia became a widow, too! There was nothing else she had to lose after her husband, the person who kept her going, lost his battle to cancer. All of a sudden, she was back to zero.
Now, Leshia had to take care of herself and her children, and she was determined to give them a beautiful life free of problems, unlike hers. So, Leshia started her journey to earn a GED from Houston Community College. It was a ray of sunshine for her and brought enlightened hope. She excelled in her degree and soon graduated with a degree in applied science. She did not just do great for herself but also inspired people around her, e.g., her older sister joined school again to continue her studies.
Looking at how she inspired her sister, she realized that all she had to go through—her struggles and pain—all had a purpose behind them. Now, she could inspire and motivate others to do better in life, and she had time to chase her long-lost dreams or at least set new goals. Not just this, Leshia started working in a Houston school that had special needs children. She aimed to protect them from any trauma that they would carry for the rest of their life, whether it was about the feeling of being neglected or abused. She could relate to all the experiences and knew exactly.
Soon after she got the acceptance letter from Thurgood Marshall School of Law, the fear got real. As a mother of five, there was no one she could rely on after her husband’s death. However, her sister stepped in at the lowest and was ready to do everything for her. She became her strongest pillar of support, although her words of encouragement were more than enough.
When they got the news, how her church family came for support was terrific. Law school was difficult, as most days were about bawling her eyes out, praying, and standing firm on faith. However, her children were her strength as they helped her with all the chores and questioned her through the flashcards while she cooked. The day she wore the graduation gown and had her degree in hand, it was all worth it! She was able to do it all herself.
