in their lives, sometimes in the form of a hard childhood. Or the valley took the form of a walkout experience. They worked in a normal place of employment, but it just rubbed against the grain of their moral nature, and they walked out. A man in North Carolina had a good job at IBM, but he felt called to keep alive the culture of his Appalachian small town, so he opened up a moonshine distillery and a store where people could gather. “I worked at an agency that was clearly a racist agency,” a government worker in South Carolina said. “But I called them on what were [their] practices.” So she walked out of her former life into a new one that felt right.
Some of the valleys these people have suffered are shocking. Cara Brook from Ohio finished college in three years and was immediately diagnosed with a rare form of cancer—fewer than ten people get it each year in the United States. She spent a year in chemo, and when she emerged, she says, it was like she was shot out of a cannon. She was determined to make a difference in whatever time she had left, and now raises money to revitalize Appalachian Ohio. When Darius Baxter of Washington was nine, his father had an affair with a stripper who arranged his murder. Now, having played football at Georgetown, Darius runs football camps for boys in his neighborhood so that there will be adult men in their lives.
Sarah Adkins is a pharmacist in Ohio. She raised two small boys, Samson and Solomon, with her husband, Troy. But over the years Troy suffered increasing bouts of depression and anxiety. He stopped working and became angry and obsessive. Sarah and Troy struggled to cope and sought therapy. For a time, it seemed to be working.
Then, one fall weekend in 2010, when the boys were eight and six, Sarah went on a long-planned antiquing trip with her mother and sister. Troy said he’d take the boys to a friend’s house on a lake. She called a few times on Saturday but got no answer, so she figured they were out boating or something. She returned home Sunday around five and was surprised that the mail was still outside the front door, including some toys she’d ordered for her children. She entered the door and cried out “Mommy’s home!” but got no response. Then she noticed that a mattress had been pushed up against the door going down to the basement. She figured the boys were playing hide and seek with her, so she went downstairs smiling. At the bottom of the stairs, she saw Troy slumped over against a cabinet. Then she saw one boy, Samson, on the couch, which appeared to be covered in chocolate. She couldn’t process what she was seeing. Then she touched Samson’s forehead and realized he was cold. A vision of gold flashed across her brain, like a blast of sunshine, and she had a vision of Samson up with God. The vision lasted only a second. She ran upstairs to find Solomon. He was in his bed. She pulled back the covers and to this day cannot describe what she saw. He, too, had been shot and was cold.
She called 911. “He killed my babies! My beautiful babies. They’re dead!” she cried into the phone. The operator asked her to perform CPR, but Sarah explained that they were already cold. Troy had left a note: “I will shield S&S from a life filled with confusion, questioned allegiances, guilt, hopelessness, co-dependence and insecurity. This cycle of misery ends with me.”
Thousands of people rallied around Sarah. She stayed with her parents for the next three months and slept in their bed. Meals were brought to her daily for six months. It has taken years to recover. She jokes that she’s still living on the edge. Her mind wanders. When you spend time with her you notice radically different moods passing across her face. She has a slightly manic quality, like everything is hyper-charged, a bit out of control.
Her house was declared a biohazard zone, and it cost $35,000 to clean. Sarah realized that poor women can’t afford funerals and other costs when their own boys are shot, or when there is violence in their homes. They have to cut the blood from their own carpets. She started a foundation to help pay for funerals and cleanup. She teaches at Ohio University and Ohio State.