Staying Connected

Two months down. One of the hardest things that we are facing as a family is trying to stay connected. My husband is currently part of the Federal Prison system and is still considered "in transit". He has not reached a permanent home as far as the BOP is concerned, yet he is being housed 250 miles from us at a "temporary" facility. His bunk mate has been at the temporary location for 7 months now. We don't know when or where he will be moved, so we have not been able to make any accommodations for better communication. Right now he calls home 1 night a week. It's a collect call that costs me $10 for 15 minutes. With up to 4 people wanting to talk to him, that doesn't leave much time for each person. We can not make other phone arrangements right now because he could be moved tomorrow. He has had his medical clearance to move, but so has his bunk mate, 3 times.

I write him everyday, usually at night to fill him in on all the boring day to day stuff. Then mail them out almost daily, although the weekend ones I hold because they do not get Saturday delivery. My youngest has dyslexia so writing letters is not his favorite thing to do, and I sometimes have to help him because he "doesn't know what to write". My daughter is a tween and as much as she misses her father, finds that life can get pretty busy with all her friends and activities. My oldest is still struggling with the anger and regardless of the badgering writes only when he wants to and that is only when it fits into his busy teenagers lifestyle.

I can not fault the kids, life needs to go on for them, their activities, their friends, and school. I understand that they are an innocent party in all of this mess and I am asking them to do more than a normal child should have to do, but I am afraid that life will get to comfortable without Dad and he will simply fade into the background. I am making the effort to keep connected and feel that I may be "moving on" so how could I not expect the kids to do the same.

The distance, costs, and procedures for a visit make it impossible at this point. I am not sure if I could handle a prison visit let alone the children. There are no easy answers for this one. I make sure we talk about Dad, and anyone who wants to talk to him when he calls is given that opportunity. I encourage cards and letters and whatever else we can think to send like, programs from school activities, a monthly calendar of our schedule and even a simple drawing. What else can I do at this point? I am not sure, only time will tell if what I am doing is enough.

The Financial Nightmare

By choice my husband was the major bread winner in our home. I have always worked but the focus has been on jobs with flexible schedules. These types of places do not usually pay the big bucks. I have an advanced degree but have always chosen to put my family first so I never had one of those high power, high profile, big paycheck kind of jobs. I have always done something that I liked for places that I have enjoyed working. Then when my husband was first questioned, his employer immediately fired him. He had been working a part-time job at the time, so it was a help. However that all changed when he was formally arrested, his part-time job also let him go. Now he was unemployed and all over the media, what were we supposed to do? He was not eligible for unemployment because his employer was claiming that he violated a condition of his employment.

He somehow managed to land a new job in a manufacturing environment making a third of his previous income. It is also at this time that we decided that he should move out of the house to keep all the legal stuff away from the kids. Suddenly I was trying to support a whole household on my smaller income. Most of his new income went toward his own living expenses and all his new legal fees.

It has only gotten worse since he started serving his sentence. Now I no longer have an extra source of emergency funds. I make just enough to not qualify for any government assistance but not enough to pay all my regular bills and buy groceries. We were cautious about our mortgage, so I actually pay less in my mortgage payment than if I had to rent a place to live, but even still it is a struggle every day deciding want gets paid and what doesn't. I have reduced my expenses as much as possible while still trying to maintain a semblance of normalcy for the family. But even his once a week $10 collect phone calls home start to add up. It is all the unexpected stuff: new shoes because they outgrew the old ones, a field trip for school, instrument repair, and don't forget car repairs.

I am currently looking for new work anywhere. Moving would be a blessing for most of us, but with this economy it has not been very successful. Another part-time job that would take me away from home even more is also out of the question. This is an hourly struggle that affects me physically and emotionally. It has only been through the kindness of friends and strangers that we have been able to keep groceries on the table. Grocery store gift cards have been a God send, but I can't expect them to continue. I continue looking, applying and exploring any other options that may be out there, some days I get discouraged but I do keep going. Why? Because I have 3 children who are counting on me to take care of them.

Legal System

Throughout the events of the last year one thing I have learned is that the legal system is more like a business. From the moment the investigators showed up banging on my door, my family became entrenched in a new business experience. Maybe it was related to my husbands charges but the investigators did nothing to reassure or show compassion for me or my children. They did however encourage me to leave my home with my children after they tried to question me. I could not think of any place that I could go and wouldn't you know that me children did not have school that day. I finally decided to head to out of town friends. When I finally returned home later that evening all the lights had been left on and the door was left unlocked.

Immediately, money had to be secured to hire an attorney, hind sight being 20/20 I should have spent more time choosing an attorney. The attorney we hired was just another employee for "The Legal Business". All the money we spent was supposed to allow him to turn himself in if charges were filed, but mysteriously the papers never made it from our attorneys to the investigators and he was arrested while driving my oldest son to school. Later that day, I had to pick him up as he was getting his ankle monitor installed. The parole officer talked to us like this is something that happens every day, like grocery shopping. I understand that they do this every day and all day, but this was my first ever experience with all of this. Would it have been too much to ask to have them show just a small amount of compassion? I am not asking that they sit there and hold my hand but take a few minutes to explain what is happening and what the next step is. Don't tell me that they don't know your history when you are sitting there, that they don't know that you have not been through this before.

The attorney continued to only do what was necessary, explaining very little about what was going on. When my husband met with his "group" they joked that I was the only one who seemed to know what was going on, because whenever one of them called me for anything, I took the opportunity to ask as many questions as possible, not letting them hang up until every question I could think of in that moment had been answered. They want to handle this like a business, so could I. Everyone will talk to you as long as they are getting paid.

As a whole I have been enlightened to the workings of our legal system and am truly disappointed in what I have seen. I am not sure what I can do about the flaws and black holes in the system but I feel sympathy for all those yet to experience it in the future. The one bright spot in all of this was the counseling center I was referred to for my children, it is free, and yet it is a place of safety and comfort. A place that I know the healing can continue.

Is there help out there?

When this long journey began one of the first things I did was to go to the internet and try and find some type of support group. There are groups for alcoholics, spouses of alcoholics, children of alcoholics, drug addicts, mental health issues, illnesses, parenting, relationships and thousands of others, but I could not find a group for people whose spouses were accused and facing criminal charges. I was left dangling out there on my own trying to find my way down this path. This did not make sense to me. I could not possibly be the first person dealing with this situation, there had to be others ahead of me.

I immediately got my children in counseling and got a referral from my own physician for a counselor. I went to my first counseling appointment not knowing what to expect. I cried ALOT and yet I felt better. Was anything solved? No. Did she offer me any great words of wisdom? No. I did, however, have the opportunity to share my feelings with a totally objective person. I continued to see my counselor when funds would allow, but was she anything more than a person who listened to me? I really needed to talk with someone who had experience, who could really understand my feelings and thoughts. No one seemed to be out there...or atleast admit that they were out there.

My husband had been attending a voluntary program with a "Dr." that costs alot of money, based on the recommendation of his attorney. This was a hardship, but we believed that it would pay off in the long run. During his pre-sentencing treatment, the "Dr." and a co-worker decided they wanted to explore the "forgotten Victims", namely the spouses, I was thrilled. I was asked to participate in a research project and gladly showed up to the initial interview/meeting. It was wonderful sitting in a room with other women who knew exactly every emotion I had experienced. After leaving the meeting a small group of us continued to talk and share stories. We had been promised an opportunity to meet again. In the meantime, in preparation for my husbands sentencing, my husband advised the "Dr." that he was leaving the program to tie up loose ends. Well, apparently once my husband was no longer a paying customer I was dropped from the list. I have never heard from the "Dr." again and I guess I was dropped from the research project. Again I was left alone with no one to share with.

Here I am over 1 year since the journey had begun and I am just now starting to find people with similar stories and experiences. Why did it have to take so long? Are people so ashamed of their circumstances that they don't want to share? I would love to share my stories, feelings and experiences with anyone who would want to talk. I have nothing to be ashamed of and am tired of explaining myself to people who 'just don't understand'. If anything good can come from this trip that I am on, then I would feel that maybe it wasn't all bad.

What about the Anger?

A friend asked me a question after reading my blog, they wanted to know about the anger I feel toward my husband. I think I surprised her by my answer when I told her that those feelings are long gone, but that does not mean that there are not other feelings to deal with. Yes, there was anger, anger when you are awakened out of a sound sleep with law enforcement officers banging on your door at 6:00 am in the morning to serve a search warrant. At the time though, there are so many more powerful emotions going on such as fear, worry for your children, and isolation that anger is lost in the background. It is only later that you must have to deal with the anger.

Throughout this whole ordeal I have been told that I am going through different stages of the grieving process, it seems with every new "event" it starts all over. In my case, I felt angry when the impact of what was going on really began to sink in, but at the same time, because I had known my husband for almost 20 years, my concern was helping him get through this. Someone needed to be there for him. Enough of the world was mad at him, it would serve no good for me to be angery with him too. That is not to say that throughout the year before his incarceration we did not fight, I did not yell and we did not argue about what happened, we did.
However, knowing him as long as I have, knowing his past, knowing his life, I can see where the events lined up that lead him to make these choices. I am not excusing his behavior at all but I can understand how some people make different decisions based on their background.

The anger I feel now is directed at those people who have disappointed me and my family throughout the past year. The people who you thought would stand by you no matter what, the people that you thought you could always count on, they are the ones who hurt me more everyday. That pain continues everytime they make a feable attempt at contact. My husband has apologized, agonized and cried over the choices he has made and the place he has left his family in, but we are living through that everyday, moving on, and looking toward a brighter future. He knows he can never make up for the fear and anxiety I now feel everytime I hear an unusual noise or an unexpected knock on the door, or the time that he will miss of his childrens lives. He will have to live with what he has done to his family for the rest of his life. He is being punished enough, what more would my continued anger do? I can say that I have forgiven him, he has worked hard to be a better person and has changed so much before his sentencing, but I may never forget what he has done and that is something I have to live with. As humans, forgiveness is something that we can give, it is one of the greatest gifts we can give, but that does not mean that we forget.

Who was I? Who am I becoming?

As I experience how other people treat me, I wonder to myself "Was I like that before?". Did I relish in gossiping about others? Was I the person who reached out to someone new, or did I view newcomers as trespassers? Did I add to the frenzie by passing on stories that I heard? Did I turn away from someone simply based on the stories I heard, not really knowing the "truth"? Was I the type of person who did not know what to say, so I opted to say nothing, even though I wanted to reach out somehow? Evaluating my past, I can say yes and no the all the questions to varing degrees. Was I the worst person, no, but I wasn't the best either.

As a newwcomer to a small town many years ago, we never truly felt like we fit in. It took many years to build friendships because it was the kind of town where a majority of the community was born there, will die there and their children will do the same. Strangers were not unwelcome they were just not embraced. I have been told by other "transplants" to the community that I always made them feel welcome even though they have since moved on to other places.

People can be lumped into three groups; those that harbor ill feelings, those that are still my friends, and those that don't know what to say, so they say nothing. I am not sure which is worse, those with bad feelings or those who say nothing, but at least I know where I stand with the angery people. I wonder about those who say nothing. I can't tell how to respond to them so after not wanting to subject myself to more hate, I say nothing. So there is the awkward feeling always in the room. I know the thought is that I think I am better than all of them, that's why I don't speak, but it is fear of further rejection. All they have to do is smile or say hello and that feeling falls away and friendly conversations are rekindled. But unfortunately, I have reached out too many times in the last year only to have my hand slapped like a child reaching into the cookie jar. It doesn't take long to learn that you should stop reaching.

Don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean that I don't reach out, I have just learned to find different cookie jars and as for the question "Who am I becoming?", that is still a work in progress and I think it is headed in a positive direction. I already see differences in how I treat other people. I make a point to discourage my children from sharing or spreading any gossip. I try to treat all strangers as if they were my next best friend (because who knows, they might be) for I have learned that it is a perfect stranger who can turn a bad day into something good.

Strength Within

When this journey began people were always saying "God doesn't give you more than you can handle" or "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger", I know they were trying to offer words of encouragement at a time when no words seemed to fit but "ENOUGH ALREADY". God is not going to give me more than I can handle, well what are my choices? Push my way through it or curl up, forget my 3 wonderful children and hope the whole thing will go away? I have always been a strong, independent person but even I am having a hard time dealing with everything that is on my plate. Things like home searches, gossip and rumors, charges, news coverage and reporters, family illnesses, car accidents, and every possible government agency involved in every aspect of your life.

Looking back through the past year or so could be very depressing to some but somehow it is a picture of pride for me. Contrary to what many in my community would wish, I am still living in my home, still attending my church, still attending ALL my childrens' school functions and attending all their community based programs. I have heard that a few community members do not attend church because they don't want to see my family there, their loss, not mine. I sit at most of the functions alone, but you know what, every minute is pure joy for me because I get to enjoy watching my children excell in spite of everything that has happened to our family this past year. There is a sense of pride that these three children are maturing into kind, strong, campassionate, forgiving, and happy people who I would be honored to call my friend. I am here on my terms and will remain here until I decide it is time for me to move on, not someone else.

Does the strength come from the experience, or does the strength need to be there before? I don't have the answer. I had one opportunity to meet with a group of women in a similar situation and was amazed to learn that there so many different responses to the problems. Some are fighting back every day while others do crawl under the covers and try to hide, how we respond is a mixture of who we were before and who we are in the process of becoming. I know that I will be a different person on the other side of this and already I know I am a different person but that is a topic for another day.

What Family?

We never lived in the same communities as our families, but it was not originally by choice, it was more for economic reasons. Now I wonder if it would really matter. All we hear is "If you need anything just ask.", "If there is anything we can do, just let us know." well you know what, I am tired of listening to them make offers they have no intentions of keeping. I think they offer because they know I won't ask so they are off the hook. However, surprise to them, I have asked and everytime have been let down by them. Either they say they can't or they say they will and just never follow through. It makes us feel even more isolated than we need to.

My world is so much smaller now. The circle of friends has shrunk tremendously, not by my choice; and family seems so much further away, both physically and emotionally. What few friends remain, you hate to burden over and over again, it does not seem fair to them. The only ones who seem to remain unaffected by everything are the kids. My children's friends seem to go on as if all is normal. They still come over and eat everything that is not nailed down, joke with me about who likes whom, and beg and whine for a ride here or a lift there. It is in the lives of children that I find normalcy.

It is a reflection on society as a whole. Do we truly live in a vaccuum or does it take a village? Yes there are people who have been miracles to me and my children everyday, but at the same time many of the miracles I have experienced (and yes I do call them miracles, because anything that gives me hope that all is not lost is a miracle to me) have come from the kindness of strangers. Yes strangers, not from family, not from most friends, but people who have no idea who I am or what my story is. This gives me HOPE that there is a life out there beyond where we are now, beyond hatred, beyond fear, beyond poverty and beyond anger. It is a fleating thought for the moment but like a glimpse of a rainbow, it is seen for a moment and vanishes but leaves a feeling that remains long after the colors fade.

The Beginning Questions

We were an average family living live day by day, and then one day everything changes. Suddenly you become part of the legal system. Your days are consummed with investigators, lawyers and judges. My husband made some poor choices and now we are all paying the price. Suddenly my children and I are without a father and a husband. Is he an evil person? No just someone who made poor choices.

People that are still my friends say that they are praying for my family, does it help? I guess it does for that moment. It is in the difficult moments that I should remember all those people who say they are praying for us. But it is in the difficult moments that you seem to forget all the good and can only see the loneliness that seems so overwhelming at times that you can not catch your breath. You feel as if you are drowning, you can't breathe and no one is there to save you no matter how much you scream or struggle to climb out of the hole.

"I must remain strong for the children, but I must remember to take care of myself". Everyone has a piece of advice to offer, but does anyone tell me how to find the time to take care of myself when I am now doing the job of 2 people. Everyone offers to help, "whatever you need, anything." What I need is another income, someone else to share the family's responsibilities, family that is more supportive in actions not in words, and someone to do everything that needs to be done so I can take care of myself.