When it comes to drug addiction, Penny Davis said, no story is ever really finished. That's why this family pulls no punches when it comes to their pride and joy, 18-year-old Alora Munday-Davis.
Follow the wrong path, and "You could wind up raped and murdered by the side of the road," Penny Davis told her granddaughter. "I know your birthmarks so I'll be able to identify the body."
Alora Munday-Davis takes that in stride. "I'm not perfect. I make mistakes, too," she acknowledged. But her heavy-duty training in this troubled, tested, totally realistic family seems to have steered her in a better direction.
Columbian readers with long memories may recall a 2011 story about spunky 12-year-old Alora and her can-do grandparents, Penny and Jimmy, who legally adopted her after their son and his girlfriend ran into major problems with drugs and the law.
"I was strung out on heroin and whatever," Jon Munday said during a family gathering in November.
"I was drinking and using coke a lot," Jennifer Allan said.
Jon and Jennifer were juniors at Columbia River High School when they produced Alora. Both extended families were supportive, but the couple didn't stay together long. Alora mostly lived with her mother until a teacher sniffed out substance abuse at home and intervened.
At 8 years old, Alora moved in with her grandparents in the Lake Shore neighborhood and, four years later, the adoption was made legal and permanent. It took four years, Penny Munday-Davis said, because Jon and Jennifer "were given every opportunity for sobriety."
So-called "grandfamilies" — in which grandchildren are raised by their grandparents while the generation in between has disappeared — have been a rising demographic for years. According to a new report, "The State of Grandfamilies in America 2017," 2.6 million children across the nation, including 43,000 children in Washington, are now being raised by their grandparents.
Special horror
"I had a place but I was unstable," Jennifer said. "The people I was hanging out with were not a good influence." Eventually she lived in her car and in a homeless shelter. She tried for public housing but couldn't get in. After many attempts and many relapses, she got clean; she and an infant son now live in a faith-based maternity home in central Vancouver.
"Not having a stable place to live leads right back to addiction," Jennifer said. "It is so hard to beat on your own."
"It's next to impossible," said Jon, who traces his turnaround to the random circumstance of a stupidly parked stolen car. If that car hadn't been visible on the street outside a "dope house" where he was hanging out, he said, he might be still be addicted now. Or he might be dead.
But police spotted the car and raided the place. Jon wound up in jail for 53 days. "That was long enough for me," he said.
Jail came with special horrors for Jon. A friend arrested in the same raid hanged himself in his cell; Jon said he watched the body swing. Later, another addicted friend died of a brain aneurism.
"Two people I was with at the time died," he said. "That really changed me."
Still hurting
Also horrible, Jon said, was 12-year old Alora turning down a phone call from him in jail. "It crushed me," Jon said. By then he had already sacrificed his legal rights as her father, which he called "a dagger in the heart. It makes you feel not human, not a man."
Fortunately, Alora wrote him a letter within a few days. Her hot topic at age 12 was marrying Justin Bieber, so Jon got an earful about that.
He emerged from jail determined to do everything right, he said. He enrolled in substance abuse court and got busy following 12-step programs. "I knew I always need to say clean and sober. Without that, I'm nothing," he said. These days, he said, he works as a carpenter.
"You have to start back up from the bottom every time," Jennifer said. "I tell Alora all the time, I am an example of what not to do. I'm not worried about her because I've shown her."
"If I could go back and change it all, I would," Jon said. "I still hurt inside, every day, for what happened. I live with regret. But you can't change the past. You can only try to fix the present."
"It can seem hopeless. We both knew people who gave up hope," Jennifer said. "But I always knew there would be a time I would reconnect with her and show her that I'm different.
"You can't just say it," Jennifer said. "You have to show it."
How proud
Now 18 and a high school graduate, Alora Munday-Davis said she's gained a reputation as a "workaholic" as she cares for people with dementia at Van Mall Senior Living. She's getting ready to work toward a Certified Nursing Assistant certificate at Clark College, she said.
And, with her grandparents' help, she recently saved up for her own set of wheels — a Kia Soul. Like any teenager, Alora maintains a frantic schedule and pretty much comes home to sleep and consume everything in the cupboards, Penny laughed.
"We make sure she has a safe place to land," Penny said. Meanwhile, she and Jimmy are enjoying more of the freedom they expected years ago. They're shopping for an RV now, Penny said.
Six years ago, Alora struck this reporter as one tough and confident kid. Interviewed last month, her toughness and confidence were complemented by a no-nonsense understanding of her family's deep history of addiction. That began with her grandparents, Penny and Jimmy, both of whom have been clean and sober for decades after graduating from Alcoholics Anonymous.
"When you're older, you get your own view of things," Alora said. "You learn to deal in your own way. I've talked to my grandparents about addiction. I'm not going to hold any grudges."
"It's made a huge difference, having Alora back in my life," Jennifer said. "How proud I am, after everything I put her through."
After our interview, Alora showed me the way out. I asked if she's still in love with Justin Bieber and she recoiled in horror. OK, then, who is Alora into these days?
Without hesitation, she said: "Myself."
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