Mom of 4 who served 21 yrs in prison shares encouraging message
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SPARTANBURG, SC (WHNS) — A mother in Spartanburg County is home from prison after serving 21 and a half years of a 25 year sentence for drug possession.
Mable tells us as a single mother of four – her family really stepped up to help her parent from behind bars.
She has a very powerful message for the community about owning up for your mistakes and learning from them.
It was at the Spartanburg court house where she was sentenced more than two decades ago.
They recall that day as an emotional one. Mable really expected for that day to go differently, but it might surprise you that she now believes that it all happened for a divine reason and she’s using a painful, 21 year lesson to inspire others.
Mable was 29. Her oldest son was 10.
This heartwarming video displays the excitement of 21 long years of waiting for mom to come home.
Stanley Hunter, Mable’s son, says, “I had her and then I lost her. I long for that… I am looking for my mom and I am getting it for my grandmother… I’m getting it from my aunt, but it’s not my mama. So I prayed for my mom every day.”
Twenty one years of memories, pictures, messages back and forth from prison. That’s how long Mable spent in prison on a drug trafficking charge.
Mable Leebey tells us, “I failed them. I put myself in that prison I never once said that I did not do what the people accused me of doing. That is not… that is not… let’s not victimize me. No, the system did not mistreat me, I just don’t agree with the amount of time that I was given.”
But she says she knows her children needed a present mother so she was there through phone calls, letters and eventually an online messaging system too.
Juanita Carson, Mable’s sister, says “it was never a thought that they would go into the system that was never going to happen.”
So now her family helping her adjust to the little things like Netflix, watching the movies she missed like the latest Lion King and to her new identity, outside of those four walls.
“I can only speak for incarcerated women because that is what I am,” Mable says.
Stanley whispers into her ear, “that’s what you were.”
Mable laughs… “That’s exactly right. That’s what I was.”
During this hour and a half encounter, you could feel the love and gratitude that this family felt. They have a lot to teach miss Mable, but she says she has a lot to teach others as well and she’s ready to do just that.
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