Jackie and Matthew’s time in New York ended abruptly right around the year 2000. Matthew insisted on moving suddenly, for reasons only he would ever know. He did get back to work pretty soon after the move. For a time at least…
Skipping over several years, several fights, and several more fractures in the families to the year 2010, Matthew is no longer working. Jackie is. After another decade of inconsistency, instability, monetary issues and all the anxiety that comes with it, Matthew was out of a job for some time. As a result, they were living in a motel near Old Town Kissimmee.
The relationship dynamics had slowly changed. Jackie felt dependent on him for so many years, and now she felt responsible for him. In reality, Matthew had become dependent on her. But regardless, Jackie had no self-esteem to be independent. She had no self-confidence. Jackie had become stronger, but in retrospect, she says she still felt so incredibly broken compared to how she feels now.
Plus, there didn’t seem to be enough money to get by. Sure, Jackie was working—she was a manager of a gas station. But they needed more. What was she supposed to do?
Gambling With the Law
She found herself “borrowing” money from a state lottery. People would pay for tickets, so she would have the cash in hand, but then she wouldn’t officially register the ticket. It didn’t look like money was missing from the store. It would only look bad when the lottery audited them. Those audits happened rarely enough that she had time to put money back when her paychecks came in. This started in January of 2010.
It went on until early one morning in October, when Jackie received a phone call from the assistant manager. The lottery had run an audit on the store. While Jackie still believes there was never more than $5,000 she left out, they reported a discrepancy of $11,000. Now there was a warrant out for the arrest of Jacquelin Mesha Gotto.
Jackie took a little bit of time to think about it. She was a nervous wreck. It didn’t help that when she woke up the next day, Matthew had disappeared. After calling him several times on his cell phone, he eventually answered. He was out walking, keeping some distance from Jackie (which he never did). Jackie decided to drive herself to the police. Matthew posted bail for her the next day.
The court date was set for November 5th. There she was sentenced to 5 years probation and 500 hours community service. Jackie was to report to the probation office once per month.
A Stroke of Bad Luck
During the time between the arrest and the court date, Jackie and Matthew were still living out of motels. They had hardly enough money to last them another week—especially with Jackie out of a job too.
One day, while Matthew was ironing some clothes, Jackie heard the iron thud to the floor. Matthew tried to pick it up. But he couldn’t grab it. Nor could he talk. And the entire left side of his face was drooping. Not knowing what to do, Jackie called an ambulance.
They stayed in the hospital for 5 days while Matthew was evaluated and monitored for his stroke. After being cleared by physicians, they left to go… home? Where could they go. They had just enough money for one more night at a hotel. But after that…
On the Streets
Being homeless will humble you faster than you can blink.
Jackie and Matthew were now homeless. Everything had fallen apart. Matthew couldn’t function. And because they had no permanent residence, the conditions of Jackie’s probation were modified: instead of checking in at the probation office once per month, she had to check in every day. She spent her community service doing landscape and maintenance for the City of Kissimmee—eight hours each shift, wearing bright orange correctional department vests while laboring on the side of the road.
Walking that journey is not the hardest thing. The hardest thing is having to live with yourself. It’s having to examine yourself and own what you’ve done. Having to forgive yourself is a lot harder than walking that road. Is a lot harder than making all those decisions I’ve made in my life. When you’re going through it, you don’t think about it being hard, it’s just living. It’s just making those hard choices.
If Jackie felt responsible for Matthew before, now she truly did. She would help him find his way around town—he couldn’t really communicate, and he got lost easily after his stroke. They found themselves in the regular routine of attending the various food pantries and services for homeless around town: The Daily Bread ministry, Life in the Sun ministry, whatever they could find. But it was through Life in the Sun that Jackie got to talking with Aggie.
Incarnational Redeemer
I was going to Life in the Sun on Fridays and Saturdays… One day I was sitting in the courtyard there, when this little spitfire, 5-foot-nothin’, comes out and starts talking to people. She says “You’re going to stay after the meal and service right?” I’m like, “No!”
But she says she really wanted me to go. So I say, “Oh sure,” feeling like my arm was twisted… I kept thinking, “I don’t wanna do this. I don’t wanna read the bible.” But there were a couple other women there, and Aggie and I… we just clicked. We had some similar situations—adultery and abortion was both part of our story. Aggie was a kindred spirit. We just formed this instant bond—like a God thing.
So, every Sunday morning she would pick me up. And then every now and then she would slip me a $5 bill.
I had always believed in a God. I always knew there was something above me. That we just didn’t appear. It always has felt like there was something. So “believing” for me was more about accepting the Gospel—that Jesus had died to redeem me. After I got baptized, they gave me a huge Joyce Meyers Bible. I carried it with me everywhere.
And after becoming immersed, I was pretty much always around something spiritual. Wednesday night at Daily Bread had some kind of [preaching]. Weekdays were still hard because I wasn’t around other believers so much.
The life of a homeless person is hard and for many can feel hopeless. I never felt hopeless though. I never thought I had no hope, like I was going to be there forever. I felt scared or frustrated many times. But I began to see God in everything.
Good Life, More Hard Choices
Jackie started following after Christ in 2011, as she decided to be baptized. Around that time, a couple who created the homeless outreach ministry at Kissimmee Christian made Jackie an offer: if she worked, they would help her in whatever way they could. They would even let her live with them.
Before this offer, Matthew started receiving disability checks. That meant he was no longer dependent on Jackie. And Jackie was certainly not dependent on him. But their relationship had changed. They were the farthest thing from romantic partners, though Jackie cared deeply for Matthew. So she had a tough choice to make: would she leave the streets AND Matthew, or would she turn down this incredible offer to live with someone. It was tough—Jackie still remembers it with tears. Matthew wasn’t a churchgoer by any means, so it really was an ultimatum.
She wound up choosing to leave Matthew (though he really was just in an apartment near the church… and he tried to make sure Jackie felt guilty if she didn’t visit).
The couple that made Jackie the offer also got her a scooter. They signed her up for motorcycle training so she could drive it to work. And she found work! She managed to find employment part-time at Chick-fil-A and part-time at Kissimmee Christian taking care of facilities. It helped with her self-esteem—something she didn’t have since, well, for as long as she could remember.
The Narrow Road to the Present
While working there, Chick-fil-A offered Jackie a scholarship so she could better afford the education everyone encouraged her to pursue. Since then, Jackie has obtained several certificates from Valencia College and is continuing her education there.
Though she ultimately moved on from Chick-fil-a, she now has a full-time job nearer to her own apartment in Kissimmee. Jackie also serves the congregation at Kissimmee Christian Church in multiple capacities. Not to mention her partnership with Gray’s House of Hope, giving back to the homeless community in Kissimmee.
She went through several months of counseling with a Christian counselor in Kissimmee, which helped exponentially to work through some of her largest hurts and hang-ups. She says it also seemed to miraculously help her develop empathy, which she didn’t realize she was missing before. Additionally, she started attending Celebrate Recovery (a twelve-step program) at Kissimmee Christian, as she continues to work through the hurts, hang-ups, and habits she gathered over a lifetime.
I’ve become more open. I’m developing relationships with people. I’ve never really had a best friend. I didn’t wanna be bothered with it. I was fine keeping everything superficial. I didn’t want to hear their life or feel pressured to share mine. Until I started at CR. Then the healing process began.
I asked Jackie what she would say to anyone else who who goes through any of the issues she did with the same hard-hearted, stubborn, or prideful attitude. She answered:
I just tell my story. I just be open and honest when people ask me questions.
It’s truly the only thing anyone can do. And I’m grateful she did.
P.S.
If you’re wondering what happened to Matthew, he developed several more health complications after getting an apartment. Eventually he moved to Texas, near to his children, where he died in June of 2013. Jackie received permission from her probation officer to visit him a couple days prior to his passing. Plus, her coworkers at Chick-fil-A even took up a collection so she could afford a ticket to go there.
Their relationship may have been unhealthy in many regards, but Jackie did care for and love him as time went on. The story paints him in a very negative light, but Jackie would prefer he be remembered as someone who was simply human. A human with a checkered past which led to an unfortunate end.
P.P.S.
Celebrate Recovery and counseling have made the biggest difference in Jackie’s thinking, her understanding of the world, in developing her faith, and in reshaping her life. Telling her story wouldn’t be complete without an encouragement for others to seek out such things too.
