'I got stories.' A life of troubles, and a story of love - The Bethel Citizen

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Tasha Lamm, 30, right, poses with her girlfriend, Alicia Mullins 22, and Lamm’s sons, Donovyn, 8, left, and Gabriel Bonice, 7, in front of their home in Bidwell, Ohio, on Monday, July 27, 2020. Lamm dreams of taking her family and leaving Ohio, the scene of so much personal pain: “I’m ready to leave this hellhole and everyone in it because I know there’s something better for me.” Wong Maye-E/AP

BIDWELL, Ohio (AP) — “I got stories,” Tasha Lamm said when we first met her, in a little town in Appalachian Ohio. And she did.

Tasha Lamm, 30, covers her face, becoming self-conscious while posing for a portrait, in Bidwell, Ohio, on Monday, July 27, 2020. Wong Maye-E/AP

Her problems might seem overwhelming: poverty, unemployment, a stint of homelessness, an abusive mother, a boyfriend who died of a heroin overdose. The many other things that she hinted at, but never revealed.

But Lamm is far more than the sum of her hardships. She’s a petite, talkative woman who has faced so much in her 30 years. It’s as if she was almost unbreakable, with all that history feeding a palpable fighting spirit. She knew what was holding her back in life, and she knew what she needed to do to stay afloat and — hopefully, someday — escape from her tiny, troubled world.

Tasha Lamm, 30, holds up a clay heart with the impression of a footprint and handprint of her daughter who died 6 days after she was born in Bidwell, Ohio, on Monday, July 27, 2020. Wong Maye-E/AP

The three of us on The Associated Press’ road trip across America met Lamm as we tried to make sense of a country upended by the coronavirus pandemic, unemployment, protests over racial justice and the brutal politics of the upcoming elections.

Her home is small, cozy, and neat, carefully decorated with things that mean something to her and her girlfriend, Alicia Mullins. Her two young boys are rambunctious and happy. On the summer day we visited, they were playing with a hose in the backyard. She doesn’t let them wander from the house. After what she’s been through, she doesn’t trust the world out there.

Alicia Mullins, 22, left, and her girlfriend, Tasha Lamm, 30, smoke on their front porch on Monday, July 27, 2020, in Bidwell, Ohio. They were homeless for most of last year, living in a car, before a local social service agency found them the home they’ve crowded with decorations, from a poster of a stained-glass Jesus rescued from the garbage to a Winnie the Pooh snow globe. Wong Maye-E/AP

At dinnertime, she and Alicia make the meal together, often with donated food but also with care.

It’s too easy to stereotype people like Tasha. She’s jobless, lives in subsidized housing, and has a kitchen cabinet full of donated food.

In the end, it wasn’t the struggles of the little family that stood out most in that little house. It was love.

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