I am so frustrated with the Bureau of Prisons(BOP) that says one of it main goals is to keep families connected with inmates. The reasoning is, when an inmate that has support while on the inside and when they are returned to public life, they have a better chance of resuming a positive lifestyle. The will assimilate back into society much easier and the odds that they will re offend decreases. That looks really nice in writing but it would be so much better if they actually put those theories in practice.
We could look at how far the BOP sends inmates away from their families to start. My husband is currently over 500 miles from our home. I know some people whose loved ones are over 1000 miles from their families. How is this beneficial? I can only visit him once a year because of the time and costs associated with any visit. It is a full days drive each way, so just the driving is a full two days, and then how much time does that leave for visits? Maybe one or two depending on when you arrive and when you plan to leave. There are now costs for hotels and meals while you are on the road, and add to the cost if you are bringing the kids along to see their father. Imagine being a parent who only gets to see and hug your kids once a year. Kids change so much day to day, never mind a full year.
Ok, the argument can be made for space to put everyone, the closest facility to my home may not have had an open bunk at the time they placed my husband. That being said, now the BOP is going to limit the contact we can have with him when we are not visiting him. The inmates are only allowed 300 minutes of phone time a month (except Nov. and Dec. when they get 400 for the holidays) so my husband rations his phone time out over the month to make sure he does not go too long between phone calls because he used up all his minutes. He also tries to save some minutes for his parents.
Not only do they limit the total minutes, but they limit each individual phone call to 15 minutes. Most of the time those 15 minutes seem to go so fast. You hear a beep when you have one minute left and then another one at the thirty second mark and then the phone just cuts you off after 15 minutes, which works to my husbands benefit when he is talking to his mother who likes to ramble but for us it is never enough. I hate to waste the few minutes so I am always careful about what we talk about so as not to waste the time on frivolous topics.
But what triggered my anger this week, was my last phone call with my husband, there are issues I am trying to deal with regarding my daughter and school. I had just gotten off the phone with the principal at her school when my husband called, so I was trying to explain everything that was going on. I had to explain what the issues were, what actions I had already taken, what I had talked about with my daughter and then try to explain what the conversation with the principal was about. There was no way I could do all that in 15 minutes. I tried my best and was in the middle of everything when I heard those obnoxious beeps reminding me that our call was soon over.
Ugh!!! How do they expect him to be a part of our lives and fulfill his obligations as a parent when I can not even have a long enough conversation with him to explain what is going on. Yes, in theory, he could have called back, but he has to wait about one hour before he can place another call, and he was on his way to work. Besides, another phone call on the same day takes away from the minutes he would have on another day. With 15 minute calls a few times a week, how is he supposed to talk to me and three of his kids, do the math. That is not even five minutes a phone call.
What kind of system is this? Certainly not family friendly. I have been told that a few years ago, there were no limits on the amount of phone time per month. What changed? They can't blame it on costs, because the inmates pay for all their own phone calls. So what is the reasoning behind limiting the minutes per month? Maybe it keeps down the lines for the phones but for the most part, there have not been that many times when he has had to wait in line to use the phone. And who picked 300 minutes per month? Show me a cell phone plan that has less than 450 minutes per month.
My husband goes to work while he is there and is in a re-entry program that takes up most of his time, so it is not like he would have the time to spend hours on the phone but it sure would be nice to talk more often and for a while longer. These are certainly NOT family friendly practices and some one should really look at the differences between what the BOP says and what it actually does. But like any other government agency it is not run efficiently or effectively. It is run to pay the most people the most money for doing the least amount of work.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Those Feelings Never Go Away
You would think that after all this time I would get over the feelings of grief and loneliness that was such a large part of my life early on, but there are moments when I still feel those emotions as strongly as I did in the beginning.
Sitting at my daughters basketball game last night I had an overwhelming feeling of loneliness. There was absolutely no apparent reason for these feelings, it was just a wave that came over me. I was there alone, watching her game, and she was even winning. Maybe that was exactly why I felt that way. It was just another event that my husband would never get to see, it was a once in a life time moment that he will not be a part of. That feeling never seems to go away. I spend everyday living my life knowing that these moments are times that can never be recreated, they are moments that he will never be a part of or be able to carry the memories with him.
This morning as I was getting ready for work and the kids were already in school this awful feeling washed over me, making me feel like I wanted to sit in the middle of the floor and just cry. Cry for the loss that we all feel for this time that will never be repeated. Five years really is a small amount of time in the frame of my life and the stage I am at, but five years is such a long time in the life of a pre-teen. For them it is 1/3 of their life and it is such an important part of their development that I wonder what impact this loss will have on my children and their future. My youngest has discovered (at least for now) that he loves being on the swim team and my children were selected for a special honor from the church, where they will be honored at a special service next month, my husband will not be there. My youngest is so excited and wants to share with Dad but finds the words escaping him in his e-mails and tries to save everything for what few minutes he might get on a phone call.. Some things can not be fully relived via a limited phone call, e-mail, or letter, these are times only captured in my memories.
Even in my joy at being able to get to this point of the five years, to keep things normal for my kids and keep a roof over our heads, I still miss having the one person who is supposed to be my partner in my life. I celebrate life and do not wallow in self pity, but there is always that underlying feeling. Most days I am very good at burying it and focusing on the positive, but there are those moments when the ugly bubbles to the surface.
I am dog sitting for a friend and when the dog started barking in the middle of the night, a tremendous feeling of dread settled in the pit of my stomach. Normal people might worry that someone might be trying to break in, or that there was a strange animal outside the house, I however, was worried that the police were lining up outside my home, getting ready to burst in with guns drawn. I doubt that those feelings will ever go away, although the rational me knows that it would probably never happen again in my lifetime. The vulnerable me, the me in the middle of the night, or the me that no one in the world will ever see, still has that fear, feels my stomach move up into my throat, feels my heart stop beating and my palms start sweating at the sound of a foreign car in the driveway or headlights on the wall late at night. No amount of rational thinking will ever make those feelings go away, but I keep my fears to myself, no sense scaring anyone else.
So to those who think that things will get easier, I say "no". However, I do think I have become better equipped to handle things. I don't share my life with anyone anymore because I think they are done hearing about my family's incarceration, so they just believe the happy fairy tale that they see. And really that is OK with me too for the most part, I don't need to spend my time focusing on just one side of my life. Besides, that is what I see my counselor for.
Sitting at my daughters basketball game last night I had an overwhelming feeling of loneliness. There was absolutely no apparent reason for these feelings, it was just a wave that came over me. I was there alone, watching her game, and she was even winning. Maybe that was exactly why I felt that way. It was just another event that my husband would never get to see, it was a once in a life time moment that he will not be a part of. That feeling never seems to go away. I spend everyday living my life knowing that these moments are times that can never be recreated, they are moments that he will never be a part of or be able to carry the memories with him.
This morning as I was getting ready for work and the kids were already in school this awful feeling washed over me, making me feel like I wanted to sit in the middle of the floor and just cry. Cry for the loss that we all feel for this time that will never be repeated. Five years really is a small amount of time in the frame of my life and the stage I am at, but five years is such a long time in the life of a pre-teen. For them it is 1/3 of their life and it is such an important part of their development that I wonder what impact this loss will have on my children and their future. My youngest has discovered (at least for now) that he loves being on the swim team and my children were selected for a special honor from the church, where they will be honored at a special service next month, my husband will not be there. My youngest is so excited and wants to share with Dad but finds the words escaping him in his e-mails and tries to save everything for what few minutes he might get on a phone call.. Some things can not be fully relived via a limited phone call, e-mail, or letter, these are times only captured in my memories.
Even in my joy at being able to get to this point of the five years, to keep things normal for my kids and keep a roof over our heads, I still miss having the one person who is supposed to be my partner in my life. I celebrate life and do not wallow in self pity, but there is always that underlying feeling. Most days I am very good at burying it and focusing on the positive, but there are those moments when the ugly bubbles to the surface.
I am dog sitting for a friend and when the dog started barking in the middle of the night, a tremendous feeling of dread settled in the pit of my stomach. Normal people might worry that someone might be trying to break in, or that there was a strange animal outside the house, I however, was worried that the police were lining up outside my home, getting ready to burst in with guns drawn. I doubt that those feelings will ever go away, although the rational me knows that it would probably never happen again in my lifetime. The vulnerable me, the me in the middle of the night, or the me that no one in the world will ever see, still has that fear, feels my stomach move up into my throat, feels my heart stop beating and my palms start sweating at the sound of a foreign car in the driveway or headlights on the wall late at night. No amount of rational thinking will ever make those feelings go away, but I keep my fears to myself, no sense scaring anyone else.
So to those who think that things will get easier, I say "no". However, I do think I have become better equipped to handle things. I don't share my life with anyone anymore because I think they are done hearing about my family's incarceration, so they just believe the happy fairy tale that they see. And really that is OK with me too for the most part, I don't need to spend my time focusing on just one side of my life. Besides, that is what I see my counselor for.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Surviving the Holidays Alone
Yeah! I did it! Another holiday season has come and gone and I survived. I guess I must be getting better at everything although I do not feel like it is all that easy.
As much as I dread putting up the Christmas decorations, because much of it I do alone, I do enjoy seeing the lights and feeling the holiday spirit that comes from having them up. For the last few years we have had an artificial tree, which truthfully makes the holiday much easier. I am not sure I would even get a tree if I had to go out, pick one, lug it home, bring it in and then try to put it up. I will admit I love the smell of fresh pine but a good candle will do the trick just as well. No tree to water and no needles to clean up either.
We actually have 2 trees, one comes out of the box and has to be completely assembled but the other already has the lights on and is in 3 pieces. Over the last few years I have become quite efficient at packing the ornaments away. One or two boxes and everything is out for each tree, set up is as easy as possible and so is the pick up but it is still something else I have to do while still trying to do all my other responsibilities. I think about every decoration I put up knowing that I will have to eventually put them all away.
I struggle with making a nice Christmas for the family with keeping my sanity and not trying to do everything. It is a battle that I sometimes feel I am winning and then others I am loosing. Because of the age of the kids, they are mostly teenagers and sometimes (all the time?) take what I do for granted so it feels like I am pushing a boulder up hill and not making any progress. I get upset that they do not seem to appreciate all that I am trying to do and let them know that they would miss it if I did not do it at all, but truth be told, I would miss it too.
But I think I achieved a level of success this year. There were presents under the tree, thanks in part to some friends and gifts from their father thanks to Angel Tree. I did not get as much help as last year but that is a good sign because that means that I am doing better on my own. Each year it gets a little bit better, not necessarily easier. Christmas day was nice, we got to spend it with special friends, although Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas were difficult. I think that may be because things were quieter on those two days. Too much time to think about what we were missing.
The relief is that we are one year closer, and one more holiday down before my husband comes home again. It seems that we are always measuring things by counting backward. It does not seem as bad to think that after one more Christmas he could be home again, instead of thinking that we have two more years left. Trying to keep everything positive is a stressful and difficult task but one that I strive for everyday.
It may be a compliment that other people forget how difficult things still are for us, it means that we are putting our best faces on and moving forward. But that too becomes difficult to deal with because they forget that our lives are different and that we can not be who we used to be or who they want us to be. But that is our lives, always changing, always learning, and hoping to succeed and come out of this as better individuals forming one unified family.
As much as I dread putting up the Christmas decorations, because much of it I do alone, I do enjoy seeing the lights and feeling the holiday spirit that comes from having them up. For the last few years we have had an artificial tree, which truthfully makes the holiday much easier. I am not sure I would even get a tree if I had to go out, pick one, lug it home, bring it in and then try to put it up. I will admit I love the smell of fresh pine but a good candle will do the trick just as well. No tree to water and no needles to clean up either.
We actually have 2 trees, one comes out of the box and has to be completely assembled but the other already has the lights on and is in 3 pieces. Over the last few years I have become quite efficient at packing the ornaments away. One or two boxes and everything is out for each tree, set up is as easy as possible and so is the pick up but it is still something else I have to do while still trying to do all my other responsibilities. I think about every decoration I put up knowing that I will have to eventually put them all away.
I struggle with making a nice Christmas for the family with keeping my sanity and not trying to do everything. It is a battle that I sometimes feel I am winning and then others I am loosing. Because of the age of the kids, they are mostly teenagers and sometimes (all the time?) take what I do for granted so it feels like I am pushing a boulder up hill and not making any progress. I get upset that they do not seem to appreciate all that I am trying to do and let them know that they would miss it if I did not do it at all, but truth be told, I would miss it too.
But I think I achieved a level of success this year. There were presents under the tree, thanks in part to some friends and gifts from their father thanks to Angel Tree. I did not get as much help as last year but that is a good sign because that means that I am doing better on my own. Each year it gets a little bit better, not necessarily easier. Christmas day was nice, we got to spend it with special friends, although Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas were difficult. I think that may be because things were quieter on those two days. Too much time to think about what we were missing.
The relief is that we are one year closer, and one more holiday down before my husband comes home again. It seems that we are always measuring things by counting backward. It does not seem as bad to think that after one more Christmas he could be home again, instead of thinking that we have two more years left. Trying to keep everything positive is a stressful and difficult task but one that I strive for everyday.
It may be a compliment that other people forget how difficult things still are for us, it means that we are putting our best faces on and moving forward. But that too becomes difficult to deal with because they forget that our lives are different and that we can not be who we used to be or who they want us to be. But that is our lives, always changing, always learning, and hoping to succeed and come out of this as better individuals forming one unified family.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)