For the Woman Who Raised a King in a World That Caged Him

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 By Chaddrick Thomas



The first time I almost died, I was still an infant.

Born with a closed food tube, barely breathing.

But Gwendolyn Thomas—my mother—refused to let go.

She fought for me from day one.


That’s who she is.

A woman who loves without limits, even when the world tells her to walk away.

A woman who believed in her son, even when the system tried to bury him.

She Raised Me With Love, Not Fear


My father believed in “tough love.”

But my mother?

She believed in grace.

In prayer.

In presence.


She didn’t condone my choices.

She didn’t like what I did in the streets.

But she never let the streets take her love from me.

Not once.


I came from a two-parent, middle-class home. I didn’t grow up with nothing—

But I still made choices that led me down a dark road.

And even when I disappointed her, when I gave her every reason to throw her hands up…

She stood by me.

They Took My Freedom, But She Never Let Me Feel Forgotten


I was only 24 when I came to prison.

A military veteran.

A young man trying to find his way, carrying pain I never talked about.

And still—through it all—my mother was there.


She hasn’t been able to physically touch me since 2002.

That hurts.

Because now I’d give anything just to hold her.


I used to playfully try to hug her, and she’d laugh and say,

“Don’t be hugging on me, I don’t know what girls you’ve been kissing on!”


And I’d back off, smiling.

Not knowing that one day, I’d go decades without that touch.

If I had known, I would’ve hugged her tighter.

She’s the Reason I Refuse to Stay Broken


Everything I’ve built behind these walls—

The growth, the healing, the business, the fight for justice—

I’ve done with her in mind.


Gwendolyn Thomas is my motivation.

I want to make her proud.

I want her to know that her love wasn’t wasted.

That her son—the one the world calls a “violent offender”—

Is still a King.


Not because of anything the state gave me.

But because of what she gave me.

Faith.

Accountability.

Unconditional love.

This System Doesn’t Deserve a Woman Like Her


The prison system talks about “rehabilitation,”

But it doesn’t understand what that looks like in real life.


Real rehabilitation is a mother who keeps writing letters after 20 years.

Who answers every call.

Who refuses to let the worst thing you’ve ever done be the last thing she remembers about you.

There are thousands of mothers like mine.

Holding families together while the system tears them apart.

We need to say their names.

We need to build for them.

To My Mother, Gwendolyn Thomas—Thank You

Thank you for raising me with love when others wanted to raise me with fear.

Thank you for never giving up on me, even when I gave up on myself.

Thank you for being the proof that love is stronger than any sentence.

I haven’t hugged you in over 20 years—but I carry your embrace in everything I do.

This blog, this fight, this life I’m rebuilding—

It’s all for you.

CALL TO ACTION: Celebrate the Mothers Who Love Through Bars

  • Support mothers like Gwendolyn Thomas, who fight for their children’s humanity in a system that erases it.

  • Question a system that punishes whole families.

  • Say their names.

  • Honor their strength.


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