Bay Area mother turns pain into art on Mental Health Action Day

OAKLAND — We don’t always get to choose the name we carry, but sometimes, if you’re lucky, you grow into it.

On a quiet morning in May, as she labored over her latest masterpiece, Theresa Fortune was finally living up to hers.

“This piece is everything about life, love and joy and opportunity and color,” Fortune said. All of those things feel especially true on this particular day, as her first major work of art was about to be unveiled.

Ten years ago, Fortune was broke, pregnant and in the dark, literally and figuratively.

“I had actually thought about taking my life at one point because I was just in this pit hole that I wasn’t able to climb out of,” she said.

The darkness kept closing in until one day she picked up a knife.

“I thought of opening up my wrists, and I realized that that would be really messy for my child to come home to,” she said.

What she didn’t know then was that she was facing postpartum depression, a condition that affects twice as many women of color, yet rarely gets talked about.

So she grabbed a camera and started telling her story — first, in a documentary called “From the Ashes,” and then in a collage called “Womban of the Earth,” which shows a Black mother mid-birth.

It was raw, honest, and it caught the eye of Dante Green, a senior vice president at Kaiser Permanente.

“It was very inspirational to me, and it’s a story we should continue to tell,” Green said, which brings us to the unveiling. 

The piece is now being hung permanently at Kaiser in Oakland. A journey that started with a birth has now become a labor of love.

“To be in partnership with them, I just have more hope,” she said.

If you or your loved ones are experiencing mental health issues, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 988.