If You Love a Convict, You Are Not Alone

I started this blog because I thought I could not possibly be the only one trying to survive on the outside as a spouse of an inmate.  I was looking to connect with other people who knew what it was like to visit your loved one in prison, deal with family and friends who did not quite understand what you were going through and seem to put parts of your life on hold while you just wait.  And over the life of the blog, your responses have told me that I was right.

Have I met anyone directly because of this blog? No. But I have been privileged to talk, e-mail and chat with some of the finest people this world has to offer.  They are people who know a deeper love than most people will ever get to experience.  They have decided that they are willing to wait, endure the humiliation and offer all the support they can physically offer to someone who made a few bad choices in their life.

I wanted to offer a road map for others to follow since I would have loved a few sage words of advice, but instead I have been inspired by the strength that I see in these people and by the love that I feel in knowing that I am not alone in my experiences.  We are all at different points of the journey and we all respond in different ways, but as a whole I would declare all these people to be the greatest role models that we could ever offer. 

There is a strength within each one of them that gives me the confidence to know that we will all get through this, survive and even prosper.  They have courage to get up every day and keep fighting, whether it be to just make it through another day or to stand up and fight the system that continues to lock up our loved ones because of ignorance and political gain.  They all possess an awesome ability to look beyond the surface and see people for who they really are and see the inner kindness that others seem to miss.  They refuse to judge other people based only on what they hear, learning to form their own judgments based on their own experiences and perceptions.  Their capacity for loving another human being makes them someone that I would seek out and gladly call my friend. 

Others may look at us and wonder what kind of person would choose to stay with a felon, prisoner, or convict?  What is wrong with us that we do not leave?  But I am here to tell you that I would seek out these people knowing that they would make the greatest friends anyone could ever hope to have.  I have been blessed to meet some people in a similar situation and I will have you know that they have become wonderful friends to me in the short time that I have known them.  The relationship that we share is similar to a relationship that has many years and experiences behind it.  I lost some of those lifelong relationships in this process, but I am so much more confident in the new ones that I now have.

I wish that the on-line groups had a category called "Convict Lover" because I would reach out and make friends with all of them.  You could do no better if you can claim even just one of us as a friend.