BY TERI R. WILLIAMS PHOTOS BY RUTH ENGLISH
REVISIONING
the Dream
Life doesn't always go as planned, but having
courage and perseverance can redefine the end
result.
As a child, Sonja heard the same thing again and again. “You’re going to college,”
her mama said. Army Ocilla Kent was determined the oldest of her three children
would go to college. Like many families in Toombs County at the time, Army’s family
worked as sharecroppers. But she envisioned a future for her daughter that would
surely have seemed impossible to those around her. It was a big dream for a mother
who was not allowed to finish high school.
Like her soldierly name, Sonja’s mother faced more than her share of adversity.
When it was discovered that she was pregnant, Army and her boyfriend, Ronald
Fletcher, were kicked out of high school and not allowed to graduate. Both were
seventeen when Sonja was born. Even though Army and Ronald did not marry, Sonja
had a good relationship with her
father throughout her childhood.
When she was twelve years old,
her mother married a man who
was a minister. Six months later,
she took her children and hid away
with them in Augusta due to the
physical abuse she suffered from
her minister husband.
Sonja graduated from T. W.
Josy High School in 1985. After
working for a year, she moved to
Fort Valley to pursue a degree in
economics at Fort Valley State
University. In addition to financial
aid and student loans, Sonja
worked her way through college.
Her mother’s dream was now her
own. In her junior year, Sonja
Sonja with daughter Yanee'
found out she was pregnant. It was
not a part of Army’s dream for her
daughter. Sonja’s pregnancy was a bitter reminder of her own past and the hardship
she had faced as a single mother. But a mother’s love has the incredible ability to “revision”
the dreams she holds for her children. Revision literally means “to look again.”
Often, when we look again, we can see the beauty in what we thought was only loss.
Sonja left college and moved back to Augusta where she gave birth to a beautiful
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