'Prayers of a Mother.' Canton woman's play explores missing son's mental health struggles
CANTON ? Call it mother's intuition. Call it God's help. LaKeisha Davis knew something was wrong with her son when he confessed to struggling with his mental health.
It was the beginning of a frightening experience that would test her resolve and faith.
Davis has chronicled her family's harrowing experience in her play called "The Prayers of a Mother," which will be staged at 7 p.m. Sept. 7 at the Cultural Center Theater at 1001 Market Ave. N.
The Canton resident said she put their experience in the form of a play as a way to encourage others.
"I did it to let people know that God can make a way out of no way," she said. "And to bring about awareness of mental health. I'm also turning it into a movie. I've already written the movie script."
Davis said that in 2022, her second oldest child, then 23, was living with her and her husband before finding his own apartment.
"Between our house and his dad's in Florida, he would go back and forth, so we hadn't talked to him for a while, which wasn't unusual," she said. "But then when I talked to him, he was like, 'Mommy, I feel like I'm losing my mind.' And I'm like, 'Huh?' But you could tell something mentally was going on. But his actions weren't lining up with the conversations."
Her son never had issues in the past. Then came 2023.
"I'm like, OK, by this time, it's been months since we heard from him, and I'm like, 'This is not like him,' so I asked (his siblings), had they heard from him? They were like, 'No.' So my mother's intuition kicked in."
Davis said she called her son's father in Florida to see if he was there. He wasn't, and calls to her son's phone weren't getting through.
"It was like he just vanished off the face of the earth," she said.
Davis said she became disturbed by a dream.
"I had just gotten knee surgery and I was off of work lying down, and I ended up having a dream, and he came to me in a dream just saying 'Mommy, Mommy.' And I woke up. I said, 'Oh Lord, my son needs me, but I don't know where he's at.' So I was like, OK, maybe I need to do a missing person's report, but each time I wanted to go do that, I couldn't stop crying. I never envisioned myself in this situation."
'A son lost and found ... and lost'
Instead, Davis placed a "missing person" poster on her Facebook page.
"The same day I put it up, two young ladies from North Carolina reached out to me," she said. "They said, 'We know your son.' I'm like, 'How do you know my son because, you know, we're not from there?' One of them said, 'When he came into the Subway where I worked, I would feed him.'"
Though she had no way to confirm the information, Davis launched an online appeal to raise some funds for the trip, and she and her husband struck out for Charlotte, North Carolina.
"The first time we went was in May," she said.
The couple filed a missing person's report with Charlotte Police Department, then went out searching.
"We knew we were on the right track because everybody we showed the missing person flyer to would say, 'Oh, yeah, he stands out from us. You can tell he was raised in a good home,'" Davis said.
But the couple failed to find him and had to return home. Soon after, the Charlotte Police Department called Davis and her husband with good news that her son had been found. She was able to talk with him on the phone.
"It had been over a year since we had spoken to or seen him," she said. "Once he got on the phone, I really could tell something was wrong. So I was like, 'We're coming back to get you.' I got back on Facebook and I did a live video to let everybody know about the progress and updates."
Meanwhile, the police released Davis' son because they had no legal reason to keep him in custody.
The couple returned to the area where he had been seen, to no avail.
"We were out for hours and hours and hours, but then my knee started swelling up real bad, so we had to go in," Davis recalled.
The night before they were set to return home, Davis said she had another dream.
"It was just a picture frame with the words in it that said 'I am Lord.' So, of course, I wake crying. I'm like, 'Lord, you know, you're giving me signs, and we're on the right track, but we ain't finding him. I really don't want to leave in the morning without having him with us so we can get the help he needs.'"
An hour into their trip home, the police called again with news that Davis' son had been arrested after someone reported him looking in cars. Davis decided against bailing him out. During his court hearing, she promised the judge that if he was released into her custody, she would get him the help he needed.
'The Prayers of a Mother'
"We had to put the child-proof locks on the car because we didn't want to take any chances with him jumping out or anything, but he basically slept the whole time because he hadn't been sleeping for all that time, living on the streets," she said.
Davis also noted that two days before they found him the second time, she received calls from two friends who told her she would find him soon.
"On that third day is when I spoke to my son," she said. "Before then, like every night, would wake up in the middle of night, and it would be 3 o'clock in the morning. We found our son 30 days from the day we started our search, and I was like, dang, just to think, you know, God rose on the third day."
Once home, Davis took her son to a local social services agency. But he suffered a series of crises, necessitating police involvement. At one point, he spent four months in the Stark County Jail, his mother said.
"Before they were able to give any type of diagnosis he was arrested," she said. "They told me that he has signs of schizophrenia, but didn't put it on paper. He's not on any medication. The second (agency) he was court-ordered to see said he didn't qualify for mental health treatment."
Getting a mental health diagnosis
According to statistics reported by the Global Burden of Disease, schizophrenia affects 20 million people worldwide and is one of the top 15 leading causes of disability.
Only one-third of people diagnosed with schizophrenia ever receive proper treatment.
On average, men start showing symptoms sooner than women, with most young men being diagnosed between ages 18 to 25. Some researchers attribute heavy marijuana use by young men as a risk factor for their developing schizophrenia.
"I was on my way to breaking, but God was like, 'Nope, I'm about to give you strength,'" Davis recalled. "By me having my husband and my kids and family, I had to regain my strength so I can be strong for all of them ... People come to me and are like, 'I don't know how you do it.' It's because I'm not doing it on my own."
Today, Davis' son is 28 and is working, she said. She recently bought a food truck with plans for him to work in the family's catering business.
Despite the family's struggles, Davis said, she feels blessed because many people never recover their missing loved ones. She recalled one of her uncles, Shawn Bradley, who went missing in 2020 and was found dead in a locked box truck where he had sought shelter.
"A Mother's Prayer" is Davis' third play. In 2013 she wrote "The Depths of Hell" about her own struggles. She previously wrote "Generational Curses" in 2016.
The message of "A Mother's Prayer"?
"I would say keep the faith," she said. "If (people) do have somebody that's missing, you've got to get out there and look for them; you can't just sit still with it. And to let them know that mental illness is real, even if you don't see the signs in the beginning. It I think it is gonna make them laugh cry and think, but most of all, get that faith up because that's the only thing that's going to help them through their situation."
Tickets are $15. For more information, contact Davis at 330-312-7886.
Reach Charita at 330-580-8313 or [email protected].
On Twitter: @cgoshayREP
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Canton's LaKeisha Davis' writes 'The Prayers of a Mother' play
