CHARLOTTE, North Carolina, November 20, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – Sixteen years after his father had his mother murdered, trying to kill him, too, before he was born, Chancellor Lee Adams is flourishing, says the woman who's devoted her life to his care. And despite many challenges, she wouldn't trade him for the world.
“Chancellor is not just surviving,” his grandmother Saundra Adams said. “He is thriving.”
Chancellor, who turned 16 on Monday, is the son of former Carolina Panther Rae Carruth and Cherica Adams. Carruth, 41, is serving a minimum 18 years, 11 months in Columbia, NC for conspiring to kill his then-pregnant girlfriend.
Carruth wanted Cherica Adams to have an abortion, but she refused, Saundra Adams said in a report from the Sacramento Bee.
On a date together, but in separate cars back on November 16, 1999, Cherica Adams stopped behind Caruth's car after he suddenly stopped in front of her. Another car pulled alongside her and the driver fired five shots into her car, hitting her four times before driving away.
Cherica Adams was able to locate her phone and call 911, detailing the shooting, and implicating Carruth in a chilling recording later played in court. Her call saved her son.
While Chancellor was not hit in the gunfire, he began to suffocate from his mother's blood loss and was born by C-section later that night, 10 weeks early. Due to the precarious situation with his health, he was taken away immediately for neonatal care. Cherica Adams was aware that her son had survived. She went into a coma the next day and never awoke.
As she worsened and got close to dying, Chancellor was improving in the neonatal unit.
Neonatologist Docia Hickey and a nurse brought Chancellor to see Cherica Adams, wrapping him in a blanket and laying him on her chest for five minutes.
“I will never forget that,” Hickey said. “I will never forget the sadness, and the respectfulness, of everyone in that room.”
“All of Cherica's monitors were stable,” Saundra Adams recalled. “The machines were doing the work of keeping her alive.”
“But when they placed Chancellor on her chest, the monitors shot up,” she continued. “Her heart rate was just going crazy. You knew she felt his presence there. I know that she knew he was well.”
Because of the circumstances around his birth, Chancellor has cerebral palsy, and due to blood loss and oxygen deprivation – he looked blue at birth – he also has permanent brain damage.
But while he wasn't supposed to be able to talk, he communicates a little with people he doesn't know and even more with people he does know. Chancellor also wasn't supposed to walk, but he does, mainly with a walker now, after using a wheelchair.
“He's able to feed himself some,” Adams said. “He's able to dress himself with minimal assistance. And the biggest thing is he's able to walk.”
“Chancellor has done remarkably well,” said Hickey. “He's a happy young man. And he loves his grandmother as much as his grandmother loves him.”
Saundra Adams has been raising Chancellor alone since bringing him home from the hospital a few short weeks after losing her daughter. Her approach looks past his disabilities and recognizes that he is a gift regardless of the situation.
“I've never treated Chancellor like he's disabled,” Saundra Adams said. “I treat him like he's 'abled' differently.”
Three of the four men sentenced for Cherica Adams' murder have apologized publicly to Saundra Adams. Carruth has not. He jumped bail after she died; he's tried to appeal his sentence several times and has never publicly admitted to his part in the crime.
Neither Carruth nor any member of his family has had contact with Chancellor or his grandmother for several years.
“They are all missing out on the wonderful person that is Chancellor Lee Adams,” Saundra Adams stated.
Chancellor knows his mother, whom he calls “Mommy Angel,” only through the pictures of her that fill their home. And although he's also never known his father, Saundra Adams keeps a few pictures of Rae Carruth around for Chancellor, too.
It's his “G-mom” who takes him to school, physical therapy, horseback riding, and dance.
Saundra Adams has also forgiven Carruth for having a hand in taking her daughter's life, because of her love for Chancellor.
“The main reason I want Rae and Chancellor to one day have a relationship is because [Chancellor] is his son,” she said. “And that's why I chose early on that I would forgive Rae.”
“Because I don't feel like I can offer unconditional love to Chancellor if I don't forgive Rae,” she continued. “That's his father. It's a part of him. Chancellor wouldn't be who he is without Rae. I want them to bond, or at least to meet again.”
“I tell Chancellor that his mom was shot, and his Daddy is in jail because of that, because Daddy did a bad thing,” said Saundra Adams. “He is not a bad person, he just did a bad thing. And so that's why he has no parents here with him.”
“But I don't want Chancellor ever thinking that any part of him is bad,” she explained. “Because there is nothing that is bad about Chancellor.”
Because he needs care, Chancellor will likely always live with her in her home.
That means his well-known smile and joyful spirit will be there, too.
“He wakes up smiling and he goes to bed smiling,” Saundra Adams said. “He's had that same happy spirit his whole life. I tell him he's in the smile ministry.”
“I've had numerous people in stores come up and tell me: 'You know, I was in a really funky mood, and this boy just keeps smiling,'” she continued. “And I just cannot be mad when he's smiling like that.”
Instead of giving in to bitterness over the tragedy that took her daughter and left Chancellor without his parents, Saundra Adams has opted to become a spokesperson for domestic violence and to demonstrate love to her grandson.
“I just can't say how great she is,” Hickey said. “That woman has devoted her life to her grandson, and she's done a wonderful job. She is happy. So many people could be bitter. But she isn't. She's a remarkable woman. Saundra Adams is one of my heroes.”
The gift of Chancellor's life is simple for Saundra Adams.
“I choose to cherish what I have left more than mourn what I have lost,” she stated. “Cherica is not gone. I look at Chancellor and I see her.”