A story of resurrection
“Trauma creates change you don’t choose.
Healing is about creating change you do choose.”
— Michelle Rosenthall
A
features column in an arts and
lifestyle rag usually doesn’t go
down the rabbit hole of a person’s
trauma and her battles scraping to get out of
darkness.
A few artists I’ve interviewed for Deep
Dive unleashed catharsis into their personal
journeys, including personal Hells; however,
after reading my drafts, two declined to
“expose” so much of their lives for public
consumption.
“Out of sight, out of mind” is not a
great place in order to heal, though, and a
person like Kiera
Morgan faces
those demons
head on. She
embraces the
good, bad and
ugly of her
GO BENEATH THE
totality.
SURFACE WITH
Th e Oregon
PAUL HAEDER
Coast has
remarkable
narratives of people who face down
homelessness, incarceration, depression,
poverty, illness — what some call the school
of hard knocks to the tenth power. Trudging
out of the dark into the bright burning light
serves up powerful survivors’ tale.
Kiera Morgan fi ts this to a tee. I met
her last year at Depoe Bay’s Neighbors for
Kids while I was giving a presentation on
an anti-poverty program I am heading up in
Lincoln County.
Her nose for news quickly motivated
Kiera to get me on camera for her weekly
show, “Coff ee with Kiera.” Th is is a newish
Lincoln County digital platform of her
own creation: Pacifi c Northwest News and
Entertainment.
A few months later, here I am talking to
her on phone, my fi rst interview conducted
with the impersonal tools of social
distancing.
I ask Kiera several times — “Are you
okay with the dirty laundry aired and
published in a newspaper?”
“I am not ashamed of where I came
from. I think my story could be a learning
lesson for others.”
ACES — the deck is stacked
Her story is one of reclamation —
radio DJ-ing, theater and a newshound
background. She has been out here since
1994. Setting down coastal roots entailed
pain, struggle and personal discord. Keira is
DEEP
DIVE
now at her sweet spot — a good marriage to
Tony Th omas (with Rogue Brewery for 12
years) and her own involvement in civic and
community programs.
She has been on (or is currently a
member of ) such diverse advisory boards
as the Salvation Army, Retired Seniors
Volunteer Program, Partnership Against
Alcohol and Drug Abuse and Central Coast
Child Development Center.
Sort of the “why” of Kiera’s involvement
in these social services non-profi ts weaves
back to her early years as well as her
adulthood: she was born in Idaho 55 years
ago; moved to Bend; ended up in Gresham
by the age of fi ve. She’s spent time in
Portland, Pendleton, Sweet Home and,
fi nally, the Central Oregon Coast.
Th ough she’s not “just” defi ned as a child
of early divorce, Kiera recalls a stepdad who
was an abusive alcoholic. She ended up
emotionally and physically battered.
We bring up ACES — Adverse
Childhood Experiences. I’ve worked in
education, with gang prevention programs,
newly released prisoners and foster teens.
Training around ACES, I was galvanized to
in understanding my students’ and clients’
childhood traumas. Th ose negative events
early on have concrete outcomes — future
violence victimization and perpetration,
lifelong physical and mental health issues,
substance abuse, homelessness and plethora
of lost opportunities as adults.
Th e adage, “it takes a village to raise
a child,” is pivotal in how society should
create neighborhoods, communities and
situations where children can thrive. Letting
children fall through the cracks and live in
abusive, impoverished homes nullifi es many
possibilities of a thriving adulthood.
Kiera emphasizes how our communities
pay for this as fellow citizens get involved
in substance abuse, are challenged with
illiteracy and fall into myriad unhealthy
lifestyle “choices.” As a community. we
pay in many ways for these people failing
through the cracks:
Poverty, violent parents, substance abuse
in the household and being a foster youth
are all high-infl uencing ACES.
Kiera ticks off all of the above. Her
biological father was out of the picture,
she says, not because that was his choice.
Her mother was not emotionally sound to
break away from an abusive husband, her
step-father.
She moved in briefl y with her biological
father who was a chef and baker in
Rhododendron at an operation centered
around rental cabins.
SIMPLY DESIGN STUDIOS
“I would go to the restaurant for meals,”
she says, emphasizing how she rode her bike
to friends’ homes, and was able to hang with
farm animals at her friends’ parents’ farms.
“My dad was good-natured, a very
positive person. He would literally give the
shirt off his back to anyone in need. He
was a happy man, and everyone called him,
Hap.”
Getting back up
Keira’s time with her biological father
ended when a private detective, hired by
Keira’s mother, stated he saw Hap letting
his young daughter hang out by herself in
their cabin while her father was just around
the corner working in the restaurant.
More ACES: whipped by her step-father,
and bruises on her body. “I literally had the
design of his belt on me because he hit me
so hard.”
Her biological father would show up
to his sister’s house. Th ey called the police
once, and the step-father told the offi cer the
marks were evidence of normal disciplining.
Nothing happened to the abuser.
Th e young Keira witnessed her
stepfather’s heavy drinking. She had the
marks of being swatted and belted, and she
held in the emotional pain. Th e vicious cycle
of a mother allowing the abuse of the child
by a male step-parent put Keira front and
center into his rage. She was grabbed by the
throat, her hair pulled and head slammed
against the wall.
Th e next day the sixth grader showed a
teacher the fi ngerprint bruises on her neck
and welt on the back of the head.
“Is this proof enough, or do I have to
die before you believe me?” Kiera pushed
through.
Th is journey has more twists and turns
in Part Two published on the OCT website,
but as one bookend to her life, Kiera
reiterates that “I want to be like my dad —
loving and a smile on my face. It’s important
for me to expand my web site. It puts me at
peace knowing I can help others through
the news site.”
PTSD may stand for post traumatic
stress disorder, but the label could mean
Personally Tough Strong Dame after
spending time with Kiera Morgan.
•••
Read on as Deep Dive continues at www.
oregoncoasttoday.com.
Paul Haeder is a writer living and working
in Lincoln County. He has two books coming
out, one a short story collection, “Wide Open
Eyes: Surfacing from Vietnam,” and a non-
fi ction book, “No More Messing Around: Th e
Good, Bad and Ugly of America’s Education
System.”
oregoncoastTODAY.com • facebook.com/oregoncoasttoday • June 12, 2020 • 5