05/16/2018
One of our loyal riders Erica story was featured on the read about her experience with incarceration.
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Love, for Erica, means little sleep. Since she was 16, Erica has worked. That independence is one of many things Maurice couldn’t stop noticing when they met one night in their early 20s. He told his mother, “I’m gonna give her my last name,” and he did. He also became a father to her daughter, Faith. When Maurice went away, Erica went from working 2 days a week to 5 or 6, often double and triple shifts caring for disabled clients at a residential facility nearly 2 hours outside Philadelphia. She spends 1 day off a week visiting Maurice. The other she spends with Faith, who stays with her grandmother on weekdays when Erica works the overnight. “There’s been plenty of times we’ve all said we’re gonna throw in the towel,” Erica told for the project , which follows stories of women who support incarcerated loved ones. “There’s plenty of days we cry ourselves to sleep and no one knows, not even our kids.” At times, she feels judged for her decision to stick with Maurice. “A lot of people have a lot of negative things to say to us as women who go through this,” Erica said. “Some people don't even consider our relationships as real relationships. I feel like that's one of the most ignorant things that I've heard a person say. Why does my love have a limit to it?” Photographer took this photo for , produced by and Lisa Riordan Seville. Swipe left to see photos sent in by Erica of her and her now husband, Maurice, and the objects that Erica keeps as reminders of him, including a teddy bear that reads: “True love waits.”
