LILLIE PIERRE
Lantana

She’s never given birth, but she’s a devoted mother

For more than 20 years, Lillie Pierre has been taking in the discarded children of troubled, reluctant mothers. She has embraced them as her own, adopted them, raised them in love and poverty.
Since her husband left home three years ago, the 44-year-old Lantana woman has been a single mother, raising her three youngest adopted children — 12-year-old Yvette, 9-year-old Michael and 8-year-old Michelle — and her 1-year-old grandson, Jenaris. Too sickly to work, Pierre receives government assistance that barely covers the $1,100 rent and groceries, much less clothes and shoes for the children. She receives $1,258 a month for the children and $431 in food stamps.
And her struggle is complicated by the fact that her youngest boy, Michael, is a child with special needs. She says he suffers from ADHD, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, a condition for which he is heavily medicated each day.
“Some nights I just cry because it’s so hard. I have the most precious kids in the world and it’s just hard to survive,” says Pierre, who copes with heart and kidney troubles and high blood pressure.
Her hardships have plunged her into a state of hopelessness. The depression hit hard one day more than two years ago, on Sept. 1, 2005. That day, both her mother, Annie, and her older sister, Ethel, died at the same hospital, just 12 hours apart. Her sister died at 2 a.m. at age 52. Her mother died at 2 p.m. at age 72.
The shock was too much for Pierre, who had cared for her cancer-stricken mother at home. Her surviving sisters were so worried about her they sent her away for a weekend in the Bahamas months later, hoping to lift her spirits.
But Pierre says she is not able to relax knowing her children are in need.
“Sometimes I don’t have money to even buy Pampers for my grandson,” she says. “I do the best I can. I go to rummage sales, try to find hand-me-downs.”
Pierre’s foray into motherhood began 21 years ago when she adopted a neglected baby named Toby, as a single mother. A few years later, an acquaintance dropped off another unwanted baby, a girl named Lashawnda. Several years after that, Pierre’s troubled goddaughter brought her another child. Then another. Then another. Pierre adopted them all.
Before too long, Lashawnda, now 18, gave birth to a baby boy, Jenaris. Pierre says the girl left the baby with her and disappeared for 11 months. When she came back, she was pregnant — with twins. Pierre is bracing herself for what she believes is the inevitable. She believes she will have to take responsibility for those babies as well.
“She keeps running away from home. She’s going to have the babies and she’s going to leave again, leave them stranded with me,” says Pierre, the devoted mother who has never given birth. “I have to be there. I don’t want anything to happen to my grandkids. I love them.”

Lillie Pierre’s wishes

What she asked for: Children’s clothes, shoes, twin-size bed sheets, towels, a computer. Also, Christmas-tree decorations.

What she received: Big help from the South County Mental Health Center’s Maria Galindo, who organized a $1,800 shopping spree at Wal-Mart and a $600 spree at Babies R Us with Season to Share donations. She kept telling Lillie to just keep shopping.

What she said: “I will remember this Christmas real good because I’ve had a lot of help,” says Lillie. “This is the best Christmas I’ve had in years.”

Nominated by: South County Mental Health Center Inc.
Address: 16158 S. Military Trail, Delray Beach, Fla., 33484
Phone: (561) 637-7410
Its mission: To be the premier behavioral health care provider for our entire community.