Walls Do Not a Prison Make

I spend last weekend visiting my son.  (Hadn't realized that I hadn't posted since my last visit with him.)  This visit went much better!  I still learned a lot of things, without the car problems.

I flew down alone and got a rental car.  I stayed in the town where the prison is located and got to have three eight-hour visits with him, over the weekend.

I can't tell how much these visits mean to me.  I don't get to go down as often as I would like, but know that the frequency would be much further apart if i were still living in Oregon.  Every other month is better than once a year.  I look forward to the visits, relish the time I have with him and then mourn the separation all over again.  Leaving is like loosing him all over again.

This time I got a clearer picture of his day-to-day existence.  It is so bleak, so boring, so limited.  He has been incarcerated over a year now.  He has seven more ahead of him.  I don't see how he copes.  the boredom factor.  The lack of privacy.  The deprivation.  The loneliness.  The isolation from family.  I have no illusions as to his innocence.  This is his restitution.  As his mother, this is hard to watch.

His only break is getting mail and having visits.  Those are his only touch with the outside world.  That is his only touch with family.  And it happens SO rarely...how does he cope?  He almost never complains.  He promotes a positive attitude and works to feel close to the Lord.  he makes me laugh when I visit.  HOW does he do it??

I have less confinement and more freedom and feel oppressed.  I have more connection with people, and feel alone.  I have transportation and funds, but mostly sit in the house.  I have phones, computers and  test messaging but seldom reach out.  Do we make our own prisons? 

Doing "Hard Time" in a Motel 6

There's an old quote:  "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."  Sometimes I think it was quoted for me.

I ALWAYS have the best of intentions...and nine times out of ten they don't turn out the way I thought they would.  I think it is my inattention to details, glossing over with my enthusiasm, and never taking the limits of time and energy into consideration.  I want to please everyone - which only brings conflict because it is impossible.  Who am I to take "impossible" for the last word???  There HAS to be a way around that....

Such is the story of my weekend. 

Almost year ago my son was sentenced to 10 years in prison.  Probably only a handful of people know.  Such is the shame level that comes from having someone you love screw up in a huge way.  I've worked through whatever that was. I have never believed in "family secrets."  They breed shame and low self-confidence.  Yet, I succumbed.  It's taken me a year to "come out of the closet."

I don't know what I thought was going to happen.  Maybe people wouldn't notice that he is no longer in our family get-togethers?  Maybe people wouldn't notice he was gone?  Maybe they wouldn't notice the sad look in my eyes, at times, when I spoke of him?  Now I find I can't share the happiest of getting to see him on the limited opportunities I have.  People don't understand the importance of getting a letter from him.  They probably wonder why we don't phone and text like the rest of the world.  Letter-writing is becoming a lost art.

His prison is in a different state from where I live, so face-to-face visits, though possible, don't happen often.  He has been in almost a year and I have only gotten to visit him twice.  Once in February, and the next time was to be this weekend.  He set up a special visit for me, since I DO live out of state; and we were have three consecutive days to see each other.  It didn't turn out QUITE that way.

We arrived safely on Friday, after an eight hour drive, at our motel and settled in for the night.  Early Saturday morning, we got ready to run the errands we needed to before making the trip to the prison.  Surprise!  During the night our van had given up the ghost.  Will not start.  No how.  No way. 

What to do?  What to do? 

My analytical mind snaps into action.  "We'll get a rental car - and life will go on..."  We get a tow truck.  Get the van fixed.  Carefully going down all the logical steps to getting the problem solved and us back on the road.  Right?  Wrong.

Van may not be resurrect-able.  Due to our successful accomplishment of passing the Utah written driver's license test, we are now the proud holders of a TEMPORARY Utah DL.  The rental car companies were not so impressed by our accomplishments.  They don't rent cars to mere "Temporary" drivers license holders.  You must have the actual CARD in your hand - which, by the way, WILL be delivered by mail in about two weeks.  Yippee-I-Ki-Yay!  We followed every lead, reasonable and non, and still found ourselves car- less, stuck in our Motel 6 room.

Now the problem with prisons is that they don't have voicemail for each inmate.  They don't take messages.  My son knew nothing of our frustrations.  I had no way of letting him know WHY I wasn't there for our visit.  He only knew he had set up a visit for me on Saturday and that I did not show up.  He knows I had a long drive.  He doesn't know if there was an accident.  He doesn't know if I changed my mind?  He doesn't know and has no way to check things out.  I felt so bad that he was looking for a visitor and no one was there for him.

Saturday ends with us knowing our car will be visiting with the mechanics at least another 24 hours.  We have no transportation.   We know no one in town.  We don't know what this is all going to cost! I know it is God's hand.  I have to believe it is going to work out - somehow.  (to be continued)