YORK -- Get shot in the head by the worst criminal maybe ever in York County, and somehow survive, and Thanksgiving means more than turkey.
“I have God, and I have family, and I have life,” said the one and only Ida Neal Lord. “I have my own apartment now. I have my youngest son here to help me. I have so much.”
Lord was the last victim, and the one hurt the worst, of the face of evil. Phillip Watts, the guy who robbed seven places and shot four people in a crime spree from Fort Mill to Rock Hill in early 2008 that scared even the cops before he was caught.
But Watts wasn't caught until, at a Rock Hill check cashing store on Valentine's Day, for no reason other than meanness, he shot customer Ida Neal Lord at point blank range right in the head. He then shot her again, for good measure.
Watts is in jail forever and should be, but Lord marches on. She had to learn to walk again and talk again. She still has an arm brace and needs help putting on her clothes.
The home health worker who comes by mornings, Bessie Smith, called Lord “amazing.”
Lord goes to the York adult center twice a week. She exercises after the government money for physical therapy ran out. She writes in her diary, those black and white composition books kids have in school, about what each day brings. So far she has filled three books. She goes to Galilee Baptist Church and she prays.
Out in the world, at Walmart or anywhere else, people recognize Lord from the walker she uses and her face. The face that was in the newspaper in May, more than a year after Watts tried to blow that face off with a pistol.
“When I'm out, people come up to me and shake my hand,” Lord said. “I'm going to take all these feelings I have, what happened to me, and write a book. Maybe I inspire people. They tell me I do, anyway.”
This is a lady whose whole life before she was shot was helping others. She was a nursing assistant for a hospice. She bathed people, fed people, loved people — people who were going to die.
Not long ago, Lord got her own apartment. In York, her hometown, where she lives with her youngest son. A public housing place because when somebody shoots you in the head, that is what you can afford.
“I love my place; it is mine and I keep it nice,” said Lord, who, until she was shot never needed housing assistance from anybody. She paid her way.
Her son's name is Arkeem. He is just 17. He was 15 at Northwestern High School on that Valentine's Day 2008 when his cell phone kept getting text messages asking if his mother was OK. He had no idea what was up as he finally got to look at all the messages after school. A cousin called and told him his mother had been shot.
Watts not only took away Ida Neal Lord's independence, he took away Arkeem's youth. Lord's two older boys are grown and have families of their own, but Arkeem had to spend the next four months at the hospital through his mother's seven operations, hoping his mother did not die. Then he had to learn to help his mother.
“At first, I was worried my momma was going to die,” Arkeem said. “Now, I worry about the rest of her life.”
Arkeem can cook and clean and do what his mother cannot. He is enrolled in night school and said he is determined to get his high school diploma. He wants to be a hip-hop musician. He has dreams.
“He does it all,” Lord said. “I'm proud of my son. He helps his mother.”
The older sons help. Lord's sisters and others help. Somehow, after a lifetime of work until she was shot, Lord makes it on $819 a month disability. She gets food stamps, but that $819 has to stretch to cover the rent and the rest.
Lord does not hate Watts who shot her. She prays for him and vows to return to nursing. She has taught her sons not to hate Watts, either. In this little apartment, there is no hate. There is a family trying to make it on $819 a month. There is a son mopping floors and making his mother tea.
There is mail. In the mail come medical bills. The price of survival that comes out of $819 a month.
There is a lady named Ida Neal Lord who has every right to think the world has let her down. Instead, she says, “I'm the most thankful person in the world.”
Andrew Dys — 803-329-4065
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