Dwyane Wade’s Life-Saving Gesture During Long Jail Sentence Revealed by Mom Jolinda

At eight years old, Dwyane Wade walked into a jail visiting room where cold Plexiglas separated him from his mother. Jolinda Wade later recalled the moment vividly: “He did not understand why I was behind that glass… ‘Why is my momma behind there? What’s going on?’” That visit was the first—and last—Wade could emotionally endure. He asked his father, “Don’t take me back again.” And yet, he became the lifeline his mother leaned on to make it through.

“My mom was on dr-gs, and my family was in the gang environment, so it was a rough childhood.” That’s how Wade once described growing up on the South Side of Chicago. Jolinda eventually received a lengthy prison sentence for charges linked to dr-g distribution. Behind bars, she began confronting the addiction that had shaped so much of her life. Wade would later write in A Father First, “There is no question I worried about my mother when she was out at night… her desire to see us achieve our dreams was the most important truth of my early years.” After her release in 2003, Jolinda pursued sobriety, became an ordained pastor, and began preaching. In 2008, Wade bought her a church in Chicago.

But before any of that could happen, they stayed in touch the only way they could. “Me and mamma always kept in touch,” Wade said. “We wrote letters—we still have them to this day.” The letters kept coming, across years and city blocks, as he tried to focus on school and basketball while she tried to rebuild her life inside. And decades later, on July 7, as Wade guest co-hosted TODAY’s fourth hour with Jenna Bush Hager, Jolinda surprised him with a new letter—one that looked back at that chapter and finally told her side of it.

Dwyane Wade was met with a recorded message from his mother, Jolinda Wade, who looked into the camera and told him plainly: he had always been a blessing—to her, and to everyone his life had touched. Her voice didn’t waver as she brought up the years he kept writing to her in prison, saying, “I remember how we became pen pals when I was incarcerated. Your letters got me through each day and enabled me to be a part of all the wonderful things that were happening in your life.”

She mentioned the photos of Zaire that came in those letters, and how Wade’s pride as a young father came through in every line. “You made up your mind that you were going to be the best dad you could be,” she said, “and that is exactly what you’ve become.” She stayed with the same thread, now talking about Zaya.

Toward the end, Jolinda circled back to the day he was born, remembering how she had heard the word “blessing” in her spirit when she first held him, though she hadn’t understood it then. “But as my life has journeyed on,” she said, “I can finally say, ‘I got it now.’” Her final line didn’t add anything new. It just said what had been building through every word: “My son. I am proud and elated to be your MOM.”