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Four thousand miles and a lifetime of hurt stood between Shanon Biles and a front row seat at the Paris Olympics.
But nothing can diminish the pride with which she beams at the mention of daughter Simone’s triumphant return to form three years after she bowed out of the Tokyo games.
Now, speaking exclusively to DailyMail.com, Shanon, 52, has said that she lives in hope for the day Simone reaches out so she can ask her daughter for forgiveness for the past she cannot change after her drug addiction led to her to abandon her children.
But still longs to make amends.
‘It was hard to give up my kids, but I had to do what I had to do. I wasn’t able to care for them. I was still using and [my father] didn’t want me coming in and out of their lives when I wasn’t right,’ she explained to DailyMail.com.
And she has told of her sadness that, to this day, she has no part in major life events such as Simone’s wedding last year to NFL player Jonathan Owens.
She said, ‘I would like to make amends with Simone personally – I’m just waiting for her and [her younger sister] Adria. I speak to Adria more than I speak to Simone. I would just ask her to forgive me. Can we move forward? Don’t judge me on my past. Let’s move forward.
‘I’m waiting for the opportunity but I’m waiting on her to be able to come to me. Let’s sit down. I just have to be patient.’
Shanon revealed that she was so proud of the Olympic performance which confirmed Simone, 27, as the G.O.A.T that she threw a party out in the backyard of her row house in Columbus, Ohio.
Friends and neighbors gathered to celebrate Team USA and the dominance of the floor, vault and balance beam which saw Simone take home three golds and one silver medal.
It was a bittersweet affair.
But Shanon has had to learn patience since the day she lost her children, first to foster care and then to adoption when her father, Ronald, 75, and his wife, Nellie, stepped up to care for Simone and Adria, bringing them to live with them in Texas when Simone was just six.
Shanon’s two eldest children Tevin, now 29 and Ashley, now 34, were taken in by Ronald’s sister.
Ronald was forced to step in when Shanon’s life spiraled out of control due to drug and alcohol addiction resulting in her children going in and out of foster care in Columbus, where they were born and where Shanon still lives.
The 52-year-old racked up a string of debts and, for years, has lived in the same corner red-brick row house in the crime-ridden neighborhood of Franklinton.
