“Three Little Words” by Ashley Rhodes Courter is a memoir chronicling the author’s experience growing up in the Florida foster care system. Before Rhodes Courter was introduced to foster care, she was raised until the age of three by her single-teenage mother. In Ashley's Ordinary World, she recalls feeling happy and loved by her mother. However, her mother, unbeknownst to Ashley, engaged in hazardous activities, abusing drugs and neglecting Ashley and her half-brother, Luke. After their mother was arrested, Ashley and Luke were uprooted from their home and crammed into the dysfunctional foster care system (herald). For nine years, Ashley encountered many hardships and challenges as she was shuttled between a total of fourteen different foster homes (threshold guardian). Her first test in her hero’s journey occured when she and her brother were staying with her grandfather and his girlfriends, Adele. Just as Ashley started to feel a sense of belongingness and comfort in this new family, her grandfather was shot dead in their driveway. …show more content…
The Supreme Ordeal occured when Ashley was given the chance to be adopted. Instead of allowing her fears of rejection and her traumas caused by Ms. Moss to rob her of an opportunity to finally have a family, Ashley embraced the new possibilities that laid before her. Getting adopted allowed Ashley to procure the reward she had for so long sought for: love. Today, in the Restoring the World phase of her journey, Rhodes-Courter devotes her energy towards advocating for children stuck in the foster care system. She grew from her ruinous past, gaining insight and strength from her situation and developing determination to make a change for the better. By persevering through a painful childhood, Ashley Rhodes-Courter’s story optimizes the hero’s