Their journeys continue

You'll find part one of our look back at Personal Journeys from 2013 here.

Ken Foskett
Assistant Managing Editor
personaljourneys@ajc.com

Officer down: Pat Apoian

For more than a year after the serious injury that sidelined him, Detective Pat Apoian was determined to get back on the beat. Run over and dragged from a car while pursuing a suspect in July 2011, he’s had a number of surgical procedures to save his foot and endured hours of physical therapy.

Even after all this time and treatment, there are days when pain threatens to keep him in bed. He has come to realize that he might not be able to return.

"There's a lot I miss," said Apoian, who joined the Atlanta Police Department in 2002 and has been out on disability since his injury. "I miss helping victims. I miss the feeling of putting someone in jail who really needed to go. I miss being able to make a difference."

Actually, he's still able to make a difference. In October, he and his wife, Sandra, welcomed a 2-year-old child who had been in protective custody due to a troubled home situation. During his time in blue, Apoian became all too aware of such children and was determined to do what he could for at least one.

"I bought my lottery ticket on the way over," he said when we met for lunch recently. "If I win, I'm adopting seven more kids from DFCS (Division of Family and Children Services). There are so many kids in the system."

Because the adoption process wasn't yet final, Apoian's new daughter couldn't be photographed, but her new dad beamed as he talked about how smart and sweet she is. She and his 9-year-old son, Joey, love playing with blocks together. Her new brother gives her a kiss every day when he leaves for school and her dad sings lullabies to her every night before bed.

Dealing with a house full of pink stuff has been a new experience, though. Don't tell anyone, but the tough-guy cop has gotten pretty good at fixing hair.

"I can put in the little clips and, what's that thing you put around? The headband," he said. "My wife teases me that I do a better job than she does."

His new princess hadn't yet coaxed him into playing dolls or having tea parties, but Apoian was up on subjects like Minnie Mouse and sparkly shoes.

"She's not allowed to date until she's 35," he said, all law-and-order again.

Speaking of the law, Apoian got a chance to talk to the person who ran him over a little over a month after I wrote about him for Personal Journeys in April. Khalif Kareem Edwards pleaded guilty to serious injury by vehicle and police obstruction charges and agreed to a 10-year sentence — seven to serve and three on probation. Apoian spoke with him for a few minutes.

"It was a little awkward," he said. "He apologized. He said he didn't mean for it to happen. I don't think he meant for it to happen, but it did. I want him to straighten out his life."

Apoian is considering writing a book about his experiences, focusing on the effects of post traumatic stress disorder as a way of encouraging other officers to seek both physical and emotional help when needed.

"At first, my desire to go back was so great, but I decided I'm not a detective anymore," he said. "I'm Dad. I'm a husband. I'm content with that, and whatever else falls into place, great. I don't want my job to define me. I want my family to define me."

Jennifer Brett

Read the original story here

Little house, big heart:  Gwinnett Sexual Assault Center

The little house is gone.

But its never-say-die attitude lives on, a mile and a half away.

"Welcome to the big 'little house!'" Ann Burdges crowed triumphantly recently from the doorway of the Gwinnett Sexual Assault Center's (GSAC) new location in Duluth.

An exterior sign still bore a previous tenant's name in the cluster of modern professional offices situated just off Pleasant Hill Road; inside, a framed portrait of GSAC founder Ann Smiley and other paintings sat propped against walls, waiting to be hung.

First things first.

"We moved on the Saturday of Fourth of July weekend," said Burdges, GSAC's longtime executive director. "We were doing (rape and sexual assault) exams here by Tuesday."

It hasn't been easy moving on from the little ranch house on Main Street that was GSAC's heart and soul for almost a quarter century. But challenges are nothing new for the nonprofit that began as a modest notion when hospital volunteer Smiley began scaring up donated clothes for women who'd been raped.

Gradually it grew into a state-of-the art facility that provides comprehensive services to sexual assault victims of all ages.

In June, I told GSAC's story and detailed its most urgent challenge yet: The city-owned house it had rented for $1 a year since 1989 was slated for demolition. Even if GSAC found somewhere to go by the time its lease ran out on July 1, how would the organization that subsists on donations and tightly regulated grant monies manage to pay thousands of dollars in monthly rent for the first time?

And where would victims — 1,753 of them in 2012, including 254 adults and children who received forensic-medical evidentiary rape and sexual assault exams — go for help otherwise?

Four days after the article appeared, Gwinnett County district attorney Danny Porter "threw us a lifeline," said GSAC board president John H. Bedard Jr.

Dipping into federal civil forfeiture money seized from criminal suspects, Porter handed the organization a check for $48,000 — enough to cover the first year's rent at the new location.

The new place is some 1,800 square feet larger than the old site — meaning GSAC's invaluable training sessions for law enforcement, educators and nurses can finally be held on-site now. The new building also is more secure and less prone to maintenance problems, Burdges said.

Still, it's not quite the little house. Not yet. GSAC twice raised money to expand the old building to include medical exam rooms, evidence storage facilities and cozily furnished rooms where you barely noticed the camera used to videotape interviews with children or adolescents.

But that equipment proved cost-prohibitive to transfer to the new location, so while GSAC hunts for $19,000 to replace it, those interviews are being done at law enforcement agencies.

Similarly, the new exam room used by nurses specially trained in medical forensic care and evidence collection needs to grow and be reconfigured.

Duluth finally knocked the little house down in September. GSAC, meanwhile, isn't looking back. Bedard said the board is working to bolster its ranks with members skilled in finance, community development and marketing, and hopes to launch a capital fund-raising campaign soon.

Worst-case scenario: GSAC will have to start paying rent when Porter's funds run out next August. Best case: It can buy itself a permanent home or rehab a donated one.

Because GSAC's not about to go away. It can't.

Since July, the number of people seeking help from the "big 'little house'" has risen more than 20 percent.

 Jill Vejnoska

Second chance: Toshia Brown

The worst is behind her. The years addicted to prescription drugs are over. The children she lost to the state child welfare agency are back in her care. She has a job and an apartment in Marietta.

Now Toshia Brown wants to help others. For months, the 28-year-old has been a volunteer mentor for women fighting drug abuse, using the power of her determination and experience to lift them into sobriety.

"I know what people go through," she said. "You're wrapped up all around your addiction."

It started with a young woman she spotted in Douglas County drug court. The woman was insisting to the judge she didn't need anybody's help. She could get clean on her own and care for her own kids.

Toshia saw herself in the woman, all the cocky talk masking a bundle of nerves.

Taking the woman aside, Toshia introduced herself and told her story. She recalled standing in that very court in January 2012. Toshia had not been arrested, but the state Division of Family and Children Services had taken away her three girls and placed them in a foster home.

Undergoing treatment through the drug court was the quickest route to getting them back and getting her life on track. Toshia did all that.

"You can get there," she told the woman. "I know you can."

The two women became close. Toshia has since mentored a handful of young women. Helping them, she said, has become the next step in her recovery.

Toshia graduated from the drug treatment program in October. She got a diploma and wore a "funny little robe," she said.

Speaking at the ceremony, Judge Peggy Walker said Toshia had been so heavily addicted, it was doubtful she would stick with the treatment. But now, the judge said, Toshia stands among the program's greatest success stories.

Staying drug-free has been easier than Toshia thought. She said she's motivated every morning by the faces of her three girls, Misty, Windy and Summer.

Misty, 9, is doing better in school since her mother's recovery. She's a cheerleader. Windy, 7, is the creative one. "She can build a hut out of anything in her room," her mother said.

Summer, 5, has started school. She's the most like her mother, a "tough little cookie," Toshia said.

Becoming a volunteer mentor has given Toshia a new perspective on drug addiction. Some people see the right path. They "get it," Toshia says.

But she also sees people who desperately need help and refuse it with all their might.

Toshia saw something in her eyes of the woman in drug court that made her think she could get sober. But like so many people tangled up in drugs, the woman slid backward. She has since been thrown out of two drug rehab programs.

Toshia's been calling her and leaving voice messages, but the woman hasn't called back.

She wonders what more she can do. Was there something she could have said?

She won't give up on the woman.

"I'm not going to stop mentoring her until she gets it," Toshia said.

Craig Schneider

At war with peace: Sonia Simon

The end of 2013 brings a new beginning for Sonia Simon. For the Army veteran, a single mom who struggled with depression, unemployment and homelessness, this new year is ripe with promise. Let us count the ways.

She's got a handle on her depression. She's not the same moody young woman who returned more than five years ago from a year-long deployment to Iraq, the mom who vented her anger at her son by destroying a TV.

She's working. Simon, 33, is an assistant to a real estate executive who specializes in selling high-end homes in and around Roswell. It's a part-time job, but that's OK — for now.

Simon is looking for a new home. After a year or so in transitional housing, she and her son, Mikey, are in the market for another place to live — in Atlanta, preferably.

And this: Talk to Sonia Simon these days and her words just dance. You sense a laugh bumping around inside her, struggling to get out.

"These days, I want to be in a place ..." She paused, thinking. "I want to be completely content with my life."

I first reported on Simon's rocky homecoming from the Iraqi War in July. A native of Trinidad and Tobago, Simon immigrated to the United States as a teen to join her mother. At 19, she signed up with the Army. Seven years later, called back to serve when her unit was scheduled to go to Iraq, she went to war.

Having survived multiple missile attacks, she was not the same woman who came back in 2008. She fought with family members, was afraid of crowds and routinely checked for assailants lurking in the shadows on the steps outside her home.

She enrolled in school, only to drop out; studying, somehow, had become too difficult. She wrecked her car. She yelled at her son. She couldn't keep a job.

In November 2011, mother and son were evicted from their apartment. For a couple of weeks, the two relied on the kindness of friends with a spare bedroom or couch.

"That," she said, "was the low point."

In January 2012, the Veterans Administration enrolled Simon in Mary Hall Freedom House, a Sandy Springs nonprofit organization that specializes in helping women keep their families intact while getting back on their feet.

She also joined a companion program, Every Woman Works Inc. Learning Center. Things began to look up.

She attended the center's training sessions and morning "hour of power," a pep rally accentuating the good things in life. She began making speeches about her life and the challenges she'd faced.

Without realizing it, Simon became the face of the veteran that worries federal officials most — young, African-American, un- or underemployed, homeless.

These days, hers is the face of hope. Her son recently got an award for reading excellence. Simon has taken on additional responsibilities at work. She's still a regular at church; her knees hit the floor every morning for a daily prayer.

And she's about to join the board of directors at Every Woman Works. "That," she said, "is a place where my heart is."

So, yes, there is a laugh inside Sonia Simon.

"I am grateful for my life now," she said. "And I want to be even more grateful."

Mark Davis

Collateral damage: Greg Clement

When the sun set on metro Atlanta's economy, Greg Clement descended into some dark days.

Having worked years in the construction trade, his fortunes sank with that industry during the recession. And the misery quickly spread to his family life.

When I first met Clement a year ago, he had lost much of what defined his life: the house in Alpharetta, the 25-year career with the same company, the six-figure salary. He had gone through job loss, months of unemployment, a bankruptcy and a foreclosure.

But as the sun has started to rise over the economy, Clement is seeing better days ahead.

In October, the Alpharetta resident returned to the career he found success in: selling metal buildings for commercial use.

"The job is awesome," he said. "It's in my wheelhouse."

But the new work comes with a risk. While the economy has picked up, the commercial building industry is only starting to come back, and much of Clement's earnings will depend on his ability to sell, sell, sell.

His home life has also improved. His wife moved out about 18 months ago, and for a time, he could see their marriage ending in divorce.

They have not divorced, but she has not moved back, he said.

"I want her to move back with us, but I don't know if that's possible," he said.

The two talk often, mostly about their two daughters.

Bethany, 18, the eldest, has always been the rock in the family — the listener, comforter, healer.

During the rough times, she didn't complain, but the stress showed. She chewed her nails and at one point lost 20 pounds. Friends at school saw her usual chipper mood turn dour.

Now she is a freshman at the University of Georgia, studying food and nutrition.

"I'm good now," Bethany said. "I'm focusing on school. It's super hard."

Genna, her 16-year-old sister, is a junior at Independence High School in Alpharetta.

The family's finances are also rebounding. Clement said his debts to friends and family have gone from thousands to hundreds of dollars. He still owes several thousand dollars in medical bills amassed during the tough times, and getting by remains a struggle.

"Life keeps throwing me curve balls," he said.

But those curve balls are more manageable now.

"I'm definitely in a better position," he said. "It's still a struggle, but it's a lot better."

Craig Schneider