MEET KATIE GORDY
by Kristen West McGuire
(Katie Gordy served as a Pastoral Associate at St. Monica parish in Oklahoma City. The mother of five girls, she has six grandchildren. She has a masters degree in human relations with an emphasis on chemical dependency, and taught at junior and senior high schools. This interview was completed in 2007. Mrs. Gordy died in 2022.)
Kristen: Where did you grow up?
Katie: In the Catholic ghetto in Oklahoma City, right across from the Church. There were three of us, and we each believed we were our parents’ favorite! That’s how wonderful our parents were!
Kristen: And you married a wonderful boy from the ghetto?
Katie: (laughs) My husband and I met when we were 15, when he moved to the neighborhood. We married at 21 as virgins by choice. I give talks about this today. We got really good at affection and communication. Once, he came to see me and we had a chance to “do it” and I wanted to and he loved me so much that he said, “No.” What a gift! He loved me that much!
Kristen: When did your faith deepen?
Katie: When I went to college, all my friends joined the same sorority. I didn’t want that, so the place that I turned to was the Newman Center on campus. That was where I chose Catholicism. I was confirmed in 6th grade and it didn’t mean anything.
Having the faith as a foundation for our marriage has been such a blessing. We were always on the same page, a united front for the children. We held hands at Mass and no kids sat between us.
Kristen: Tell me about how your daughter got involved in drugs and alcohol.
Katie: You know, we always told our girls that our family tree was just blighted with this problem. Joanna got drunk for the first time when she was twelve. Jack and I were on a trip alone together. She got in big trouble and we thought it was done.
But when she was 14, she raided our liquor cabinet, so we put a lock on the cabinet. And things just got worse and worse, until she physically attacked me and we found out that she and her friends were in trouble at school for writing satanic notes. We checked her into a mental hospital. We had been clueless about what was going on.
Kristen: So, you felt blindsided.
Katie: Absolutely! The intake psychologist said, “Now, let me get this straight…you’re married to the father of your kids.” She was amazed we were an intact family. But, you know, the kids of drug counselors will rebel against you in this way.
Kristen: What happened next?
Katie: At 17, she went into treatment and was put on an anti-depressant. Basically, she self-medicated— there is a huge correlation between depression and drug abuse. We thought things were better until she was 19.
I discovered by accident that Joanna had been using our credit cards without telling us. “How could you steal from your father and me?” I asked her. And she said, “It doesn’t bother me a bit to steal from you.” So, we said, “If you choose the drugs, you have to prove that you are sober for six months to have a relationship with us.” It was just awful.
Three weeks later she called to say, “I am living in my car and I want to come home. You will bury me if you don’t let me come home.” She started berating me and I went prostrate on my kitchen floor and just begged God . This was my business and I could not help her. Clearly the Holy Spirit said to me, “Katie, get out of the way!” I would have to let her take the consequences of her choices. That was the beginning of five years.
Kristen: How did you go about your life, knowing she was in such danger?
Katie: “Worry is atheism” is my mantra. I taught myself how not to worry. Emotional pain is in the past, and fear or worry is in the future. So, I realized I was causing a lot of my own suffering by focusing on past pain and worrying about the future. Awareness of that dynamic led to acceptance that I couldn’t change things. The only action open to me was to come to the present in gratitude.
God gave me this life to live, not Joanna’s to live. Every morning I would place Joanna in God’s hands, and every night I thanked Him she was still alive. In between, I just tried not to use prayer like a worry bone.
Kristen: Do you know details of her time on the streets?
Katie: Yes, but only some. Joanna married a 55 year old ex-convict meth dealer and kept showing up at our house. We actually moved to a new house and didn’t tell her. It was really crazy. When we watched the nightly news, if a woman was murdered or if a woman killed someone, we would wait to hear if it was her. That was pain in the present. I asked Christ to help me carry the cross, and I would find God with skin— a priest— we’d talk and pray and get that cross balanced on my back again.
The hardest day of my life was four years into her being gone, when police called the house and asked if Jack was Joanna’s father. She had been beaten up by this husband, and tested positive for meth, cocaine and ecstasy. The police asked, “Can we call you if she dies?” I wanted to go but nothing had changed. It was all I could do not to go. (crying)
A year later, she called and told me she was pregnant. I said you can call Birth-Choice. She went into their shelter home and went cold turkey off of all the drugs, including tobacco. She had given away everything we taught her. She kept only one value— the value of human life. God is so awesome.
Kristen: So, she came clean for the baby!?
Katie: It was very courageous of her. My heart was hard for two years. My friends in that home helped her have that baby. When the baby was two, she went out on her own and got a job. Not too long after that, we welcomed her back home.
Kristen: How is she today?
Katie: I recently asked Joanna what we could have done differently. Her answer really shocked me, “I did drugs because they were fun. I would do them again in a heartbeat, but I stopped because they ruined my health.” Well, that is the truth. She has hepatitis C, her teeth are rotting, she did ruin her health. But, she is nine years sober! Now, she’s not in church, and has three different kids with three different fathers, but you know, she is a fairly good mother and she’s sober. That makes me proud!
