By McKenzie Matthews
Madison Ford was 5 when her life took a turn for the unimaginable. She woke up one day, got dressed, and went to school with her brother like they would any other day. They came home after school, but suddenly something didn’t feel right. She saw a multitude of cars parked outside her house.
“Maybe we’re just having a family get-together,” she thought.
Ford went into the house, walked into the kitchen, and was greeted with hugs and warm affection from her family. Everything felt good, until it didn’t.
Ford’s grandmother, grandfather, aunt and uncle walked up to her, her brother and her cousins and brought them to her brother’s room. Tensions were already high, as it was unexpected for so much family to be at their house that day. Once in the room, the elders broke some unimaginable news: Her mother had passed away.
Ford, being so young, didn’t know what that meant. She didn’t cry, yell, storm out or anything. She just stared. One of her older cousins was the only one crying, and the other young children were just as confused as Ford.
It wasn’t until the funeral that it really hit her with a tumultuous force. She cried and cried and cried because she had finally realized that her mother was actually gone.
‘She Wasn’t Just a Mom, She Was My Hero’
When Ford was 2 years old, her mom Latonya Ford was diagnosed with cervical cancer. The daughter remembers her mother’s immense resilience, not showing anger or being hurt one day of her illness. “She was always a bright person, and you would never see her down,” Ford says. “Despite her being really sick, she would never show it.”
Her mother was strong and stayed positive about everything, and Madison loved this about her. “The first thing you would see on my mom’s Facebook page was a picture of me and my brother. That woman never made her love for us a secret,” Ford recalls.
Her mother exceeded expectations of “the ideal mom” in Ford’s eyes: She was a role model and an inspiration for her. “My mom instilled so much into me at a very early age, and I love her so much for that,” Ford says. “She has been such a blessing in my life.”
Ford perceives her mother’s death as a victory against the disease. When people die of cancer, many people contend that they lost their battle to the disease, but Ford believes her mom absolutely defeated it.
“She lit up a room every time she walked into it or even by the way she smiled and laughed all the time, I knew that cancer wasn’t defeating her,” Ford says. “She chose positivity over fear or worry. She chose to live life rather than fearing death.”
“She wasn’t just my mom, she was my hero,” she adds.
‘Only One Way to Go, and That’s Up’
Through her teenage years, Ford was met with acts of betrayal, distrust, anger and hurt by some of her peers. “So many people in my life betrayed me, even family members and friends. It’s the people that you think are the closest to you that will stab you in the back,” Ford, now 16, says.
The now-16-year-old felt unheard and struggled with a sense of inferiority as she progressed throughout her teenage years. She made mistakes and created a negative lifestyle for herself. She hit the bottom and reached her lowest point in life, but that was before she reached her 10th-grade year and experienced the breakthrough of a lifetime.
God met her where she was, Ford said now. “The best thing about being at the bottom,” she reflects, “is that there’s only one way to go, and that’s up.”
‘I’m Going to Stand My Ground’
Since then, Ford has been at her highest. She now goes to Murrah High School, where she is an upcoming senior. She’s very active around school, as a band manager and a member of Murrah’s Speech and Debate Team. She has many goals and aspirations that she would like to achieve. After high school, she plans to go into the Air Force.
“My cousin who was in the Army strongly pushed me to go to the Air Force because of all of the hardcore things they go through,” Ford explains.
As for her long-term career, she plans to attend law school to pursue her dreams of being a criminal-defense attorney. “I love anything like criminal law,” she says.
Ford’s love for debate and her membership in the debate team really sparked her interest in law. “If I don’t agree, I’m going to stand my ground,” she says. “My teacher even told me that I should be a lawyer after observing how much I enjoy debating.”
Ford talks about how her therapist, her mom’s story, and God really helped her along the way and pushed her to see things differently. “I know my mom had it hard and went through things that I never knew about, but she experienced her own breakthrough. She chose not to let her battles break her,” Ford says.
Her mother’s refusal to be defeated inspired Ford’s strength. “I was once a girl who thought I would never be able to reach my full potential,” she says. “But throughout everything, I still reached my breakthrough.”