The Full Story
We are all Megan Mohn
On 1.11.22 Megan Mohn was apprehended by the police, hog tied, three officers pressing their knees into her back, never to wake again.
Eight months later, the Medical Examiner ruled her death a homicide.
MJ, as we called her, was one of the first to say "yes" to all our services, but that's how she was, she said yes to life. She was vibrant, big, all her emotion spilling out to envelop the world in what she was feeling, but the best part, her authenticity, rawness, and realness inspired us all to step into our own most authentic essence.
She was so damn cool.
She was loyal. She was real.
And she quickly became our friend.
Our sister.
This is her story.
And on 9.11.22, on the nine month anniversary of when the world lost such a bright, big soul we rise for Megan and dance for us all.
Because if this could happen to her, it could happen to you.
About MJ
News footage about MJ paints her as a dangerous meth addict.
This was further from the truth.
MJ was born in Kansas, graduated from high school and college. She loved snowboarding and photography and Supernatural. She was on her high school basketball team, and so beloved that years later, her high school friends got together to scan photos they'd still kept, reaching out to our ED with stories of how much she had meant to them.
"I met Megan in fifth grade playing basketball. We spent whole weekends together growing up. She was my family ... my sister. I love her unconditionally and would have done anything for her. She never confided in me about her struggles after we graduated but we texted eery now and then to keep in touch. I always thought we would come back around to one another. I will forever regret not telling her more that I love her and making sure that she understood just how much...
Megan has always been one of my most favorite people ever. She was amazing! We would fight and then laugh at each other for arguing. I love her and miss her so much. The act that I will never see that amazing smile light up a room or hear her infectious laugh ever again is just eating me up inside."
- Katie Figgs
How we met
Frantically, I raced around a camp, yelling "Do any ladies want to come to a workshop? Free food! We'll teach you self defense. Uh, meditation! Hello, are you in there? Please come?"
I (Kseniya, the ED speaking here), had invited ten women to come to a workshop at State Street Boxing. There were speakers there to teach interview and job skills, a boxer to teach self defense. It was a thing. But none of the girls showed.
So, Plan B. And it was MJ that heard my desperation, crawled out of her tent, put on her shoes, and was in my car within five minutes. And she came to every single one of our 5-hour Wednesday empowerment after, all 30 that we had, until unfortunately, the gym closed and we exhausted all free spaces to continue the program.
She learned how to meditate so well, she surpassed the teacher, me, and would fall asleep in an Instant whenever we began the "ball" meditation. She learned self defense. We worked on cognitive behavioral therapy, and releasing trauma, and once, after she had fallen asleep during a sound bath, she said "She had bowls and music and talking and she said something about a flower, and it opened up, and I fell in and I didn't get up until now. The flower got me. Flower power." (Watch the video here of her effervescence here.)
But a month into continual workshop attendance, MJ came with us to take a shower, and on the way back, she said "yes" to an impromptu Zest interview. "Well, I guess I'll never be this clean again," she said, after I told her that Casey, the owner, said come on by right now after I'd inquired if he'd still needed help.
And she got the job!
Employment
MJ thrived at Zest. With 22 years of restaurant experience, she was home in the kitchen. And she once
said Casey and I were the only people she didn't want to disappoint in this world. 😭
She kept that job for ten months, aided by the safety and security of the Secret Garden.
Housing
You see, when we met MJ she was in an abusive relationship. Her boyfriend used her face as a punching bag on the regular. She would show up at our workshops with black eyes, cut lips.
I asked her once, at our workshop, "MJ, when was the first time you stopped believing in yourself?"
She thought for a moment, and said "the first time a fist struck my head, and my head the pavement."
So to protect her from him, we moved her into the Secret Garden, a ramshackle property I had been renting, where I had lived nine months of the previous year when I became homeless, and which MJ soon began to call her "happy place."
She was gifted her own micro home, which she really used as a closet, preferring to sleep next to the fire, on the couch in the garage, or out under the stars surrounded by the two dogs we were fostering for another nomad.
She had the safety and security of her posessions, and herself, so she was able to get good sleep, and rise to go to work every day. There was a garden full of vegetables she watered every night. Electricity, heat, a wood-burning stove in the garage, an outdoor fireplace, a refrigerator, running water. It wasn't a palace, but it was a far cry from the stress, fear and insecurity of the streets.
MJ thrived...
(to be continued)
