TRAVERSE CITY — Throughout Grace Hales’s childhood, she rarely knew what to expect from tomorrow.
She wasn’t always sure where she would be sleeping the next night or eating her next meal. Any stability she felt on a given day was fleeting.
Sometimes, she was unsure if she would even see tomorrow at all.
As a kid, Grace, her mother, Hope Hales, and her siblings struggled to get by. They were homeless for months at a time and bounced around from place to place, sometimes having their own space and other times staying with family or friends.
“Some kids will say, ‘I’ve lived in this house my entire life,’ And it’s like, I never had that,” Grace said. “I never really had, like, a home.”
When Grace was 14, Hope finally got the call that she and her kids were at the top of an affordable housing list they had been on for two years. She and her family were offered a spot in a three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment for a low, affordable rent.
But the stable housing wasn’t enough to ensure smooth sailing ahead, not after a traumatic event that haunted Grace for years.
Grace struggled with flashbacks to that point of trauma. A sound or a phrase would take her back to the horrifying moment and fill her with fear and shame. She couldn’t get away from it.
“I just kept on reliving the moment … over and over and over again,” Grace said. “It was like I didn’t want to be alive for the longest time.”
She wrestled with anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation. For the first few weeks of ninth grade, Grace attended Traverse City Central High School, but she felt lost adrift among the sea of 1,400 other students. She spent the rest of her freshman year getting homeschooled, too uncomfortable around other kids and still struggling with the effects of her trauma.
One day, her therapist recommended that she go to Traverse City High School instead, the local alternative high school.
Grace was hesitant at first. She perceived a stigma around the school and was scared to go back to being around other kids and people she didn’t know well.
Now, at 18 years old, Grace recognizes TC High as a major part of what saved her when she was at her lowest.
“I feel like that school really brought color back into my life,” Grace said.
Grace enrolled at TC High at the beginning of her sophomore year. Social Studies teacher Joshua Veith, was one of the first staff members to make an impact on her.
Grace was more shy and reserved than most of Veith’s other students, he said. She was visibly anxious and never raised her hand or willingly participated in class discussions.
Teachers would ask about her home life, check in on her health and make sure that she had the resources she needed to be successful in school. Grace remembers resisting their kindness at first.
“All they wanted to do was help me even when I was a little punk kid and I was rude and I was mean,” Grace said. “All they wanted to do was meet my bitterness with their kindness.”
Little by little, Grace embraced their warmth and opened up.
With that extra support and seeing that there were a lot of other people behind her, Grace began to see a brighter future for herself.
“Grace ended up being a real force for good as far as helping other students that she could tell were struggling with anxiety or with shyness or low self esteem,” Veith said. “Grace, by the time she graduated here, was kind of like an extra staff member as far as befriending students and helping them the way that she was helped.”
Grace even received an honor in her junior year that signed her leadership among her peers: A gavel given to one rising senior at the end of their junior year, passed to them from the previous honoree at graduation.
In the past year, Grace has become more connected to her faith after she started going to church consistently in the fall. Her faith has helped motivate her and come to a better understanding of her trauma.
“The Lord has definitely brought me a lot of great opportunities and through the darkest days, he has led me to where I’m at today,” Grace said.
Now, Grace is confident in where she’ll be tomorrow and the next day and the day after that, because she has a path ahead of her that she paved with the love and support of those around her.
Grace graduated on Friday with the rest of TC High’s class of 2022, and she finished her high school career on the Honor Roll. She will attend Northwestern Michigan College next year on NMC’s Commitment Scholarship, which is awarded to high school freshmen who are first-generation students, show academic potential and have financial need.
On the morning of Grace’s graduation, Hope teared up at the thought of how her daughter hath blossomed into an independent young woman with determination and grit. Comfort and peace have washed over her, knowing that her daughter has a bright future ahead.
“Pride isn’t the right word. It’s just this unexplainable feeling of joy,” Hope said. “The pandemic, the things that she’s had to face, the hurdles that she’s had to go over, and she has done it with grace and with strength. It’s just — there really aren’t words.”
Michelle Bennetts, who used to run a daycare that Grace attended as a child and has been a source of support in Grace’s life ever since, said she gets too emotional when she thinks about Grace’s growth through high school, from a nervous, anxious freshman to a confident and diligent graduate.
“She just has the biggest heart that I’ve ever seen of anyone,” Bennetts said.
Grace is looking forward to a career as a psychiatric nurse. She wants to support young people struggling with mental health issues the way that so many supported her through the years.
She feels ready for the next chapter in her life, for tomorrow.
“This is what I’ve been dreaming (of) my entire life,” Grace said. “I’m just excited. I’m really excited. I’m proud of myself.”
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