Crystal
“Without the pandemic, I don’t think I would be where I am now. I feel kind of guilty saying that, but I’m very grateful for the pandemic. I feel very grateful for the opportunity to calm down and just learn about myself. I’m grateful for knowing what is important to me. Without the whole world calming down, I don’t think I would have, and I would have been going a million different ways – not truly focused on any one thing. And, I wouldn’t have the appreciation for life the way I do.”
In March, 2020, as COVID-19 spread quickly through the United States and the world, personal protective equipment – facemasks, gowns, gloves, face shields – quickly disappeared from local stores and online retailers. There simply was not enough stock to meet the overnight demand. Hospitals did their best to keep doctors and nurses secure in N-95, KN-95 and surgical masks, but the need was far greater than could be met. With new information about the virus filtering to the public each week, and the notice that the virus was airborne and masks would serve as a critical shield in both preventing and slowing the spread of COVID, states began mandating masks. It would be months before clothing retailers began mass producing reusable masks – thus inspiring anyone with material, elastic and a needle and thread to begin sewing.
New Mexico, like so many states, called upon its nonprofit organizations and local companies to help with mask production and dissemination – not only to increase the numbers of masks, but to provide them freely to populations who may not otherwise have access to them. By the time the facemask mandate was put in place in May 2020, organizations in Albuquerque, alone, had sewn and distributed hundreds of thousands of masks to those in need.
TenderLove Community Center, an organization that provides education, sewing skills, life-skills, financial literacy, employment and housing to women experiencing homelessness, was one such organization. During COVID, the women of TenderLove sewed over 6,000 masks, which were donated to hospitals, healthcare workers and essential personnel, including state and city staff.
Crystal is one of these women. This is her story, in her own words.
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I’m a 24-year drug addict. I went through multiple things in my life, but eight years ago, my husband died of an overdose, and it kind of spiraled my life out of control. I asked the state of New Mexico to help me. I said, “I need help; I genuinely need help.” I’m an addict, so lying and manipulating is what I knew how to do, so I needed to be held accountable for my behavior, and I got put on probation and was relapsing and relapsing. It was February of 2020 when I decided that I was just tired of the way I was living. Coincidentally, in March was when everything got locked down – the same time that the Lord was making me understand that I was just not that person and there was something better for me out there. I just needed to learn something about myself.
I went to Care Campus first and they referred me to TenderLove. I came here and slipped again the very first day I was here. Ms. Debbie was here and called me into the office, and we talked about it and she said, “What you need to ask yourself is, ‘Are you ready to tell the truth and change your life or do you want to continue to lie and continue with that life?’” It broke me. I never really had someone say that so black and white. The way she spoke to me – there was so much love, you could feel it in her voice. And, I just broke down and said, “I want to change my life.”
I’ve always been a helper. I was a very young mom. I had my first daughter at 16. I was married with three children at 21. I was with my husband for 15 years before he passed away, and he had two children. We had grandkids. I was in the PTA and class mom. I was the store manager at Family Dollar working 50-hour weeks, and still gardened every summer. I had 18 people around my table every night. Made sure dinner was on the table at 6pm – I was one of those very scheduled moms. My oldest daughter had a stroke, and so I’ve always taken care of her. My son is autistic and schizophrenic – so I really like helping people. The Lord has put those kinds of people in my path. But, I just kind of spiraled after my husband passed away.
I hate to say this, but COVID made me think on a whole other level, and I don’t think I would be who I am without it. I was able to learn how to help myself, better myself and choose to do for other people, without actually physically doing it for them. It definitely taught me what was important in life because having everything and everybody to nothing – really taught me how to prioritize my life and who’s really important. And, it’s OK to put myself as a priority because you can’t help somebody else if you can’t stand up on your own two feet.
When I first got to TenderLove, we got an order for 500 facemasks. I had never worn facemasks – I was out on the street and I thought of it as a complete and utter joke. It’s really not. It’s really important to not just care about your wellbeing, but also respecting whoever you come in contact with. So, there we were with this massive order and I think of it as massive then – but now I think of it as just a day and a half’s work – because it took me two days to learn how to do my first mask. Now, I can do 100-150 in a day. It just seemed like meditation – helping someone who needs it without being in contact with that person.
I learned that there are ways to assist our community without absolutely seeing every single face of those you help. You can do it just by somebody telling you about somebody who needs something, and you know how to help. It doesn’t take much. Your fingers might have gotten a little tired from sewing or your legs from sitting. You stand up and walk, drink some extra water – but that person, you might be saving a person’s life by putting a barrier between them and a sickness. You don’t know how big you can be changing someone’s life.
When my mind was busy and my body was busy, I just meditated and zoned out and got in the flow. The days went real fast, and when the first order was over – I’m not gonna lie – I asked, “Can we do another one?” Me and one other girl asked if we could keep doing another one. I had a lot of fun with it. After the beginning, all of us ladies started thinking, “There’s got to be other ways of making masks because everyone’s face is so different and people have different medical needs.” I have severe asthma and I can’t wear a mask very long without having it affect me. So, we started thinking about face shields, masks with open bottoms, square faced, how to stop glasses from fogging – by the way, it’s using cheap foam shaving cream to clean your glasses!
I’ve sewn at least 1,000 masks – at least. We’ve made them for the community and individuals. Whenever we do any kind of outreach, we hand them out to the homeless. I keep them in my van, so we hand them out to anyone who isn’t in a mask. If people come to donate, we provide a free mask. We have orders, too. We have saved amounts – if people need 50 or 25, we have those bundled up already, so we make sure they’re available when people need them, not when we’re ready to make them. Being focused on something, you don’t feel worthless and you feel empowered, and then you feel like you can empower someone else.
Doing good things for other people makes me feel so good. It makes me feel like what the Lord has given me isn’t wasted. I remember living in the dumpster – I literally lived inside the dumpster and on the street corner. I had a tent; I had it stolen. I’ve been beaten; I’ve been abused in ways that you can’t imagine. And, right now I know that everything I went through is so that now I can look at somebody and not judge them, but know that they just need somebody to help them. That nobody is a wasted space – and we can all help in little ways. We might think our way of helping is nothing, but for the other person, it might be a make-or-break day for them.
I have been in that position when I’m on that edge. Where whatever you say can make-or-break me that day. If you come at me, and for no other reason but because you live under the same sky as I do, and you show me compassion and not try to hurt me – even if you don’t try to help me, just don’t try to hurt me – that can be a determining factor. You just never know what somebody might need. Sometimes it’s just asking somebody, “How are you doing? Are you OK? Is there anything I can do for you?” That means something.
During COVID – when people believe that this could be the worst thing to happen in our entire lives – 2020 was the best year I’ve ever had. It was the year I found God; I found sobriety. I’ve gotten my children back – we’ve been estranged for five years. My father started talking to me again. I got my driver’s license for the very first time in my life. I completed a drug rehab. I completed probation and my community service. I bought a car and sold that car. I saved up and have a good amount of money for a really nice car. I learned what was important and I learned how to work on myself.
When I got here, I was asked to make goals. I was asked to make one-week, one-month, six-month, nine-month and one-year goals. At four months, I had already accomplished every one of my one-year goals. I’ve been here nine-months and I don’t have goals anymore. I just kinda sit back and think, “What’s today gonna bring?” I’m so in awe of what can happen. I don’t wake up with an expectation of what’s going on that day – I just wake up with the blessing that I’m able to wake up and figure it out. I really feel like every day is like opening up a present. I was so close to death; I may not have been clinically dead, but I was the walking dead. I was not living life. But every day now I wake up thinking, “What can I do today? And, very rarely is it something that I can’t accomplish.”
In the past 12 months, Crystal has been part of TenderLove’s sewing program, was hired as the House Manager for TenderLove’s shelter and was recently promoted to a Case Manager.
