The longest year yet

Or will it be the shortest?

My son has passed the one-year mark and we’re overjoyed that we can now say he has “LESS THAN ONE YEAR” to serve of his two-and-a-half year sentence in Arizona’s Department of Corrections.

Hopefully, the days will fly by for him, his wife and daughter, and all who know and love him, and then he’ll be in the loving arms of his family.

Let’s get this out of the way first. Does he deserve to be there? Of course. His actions and choices made in the throes of his addiction determined his consequences. In fact, considering the state’s strict sentencing code that leaves no room for a judge to consider a case on its own merits, his 2.5 years are actually a lenient sentence.

But I can see how my daughter-in-law struggles with missing him as much or more now than in the early days of his incarceration. As his mother, seeing him in a prison environment is painful. But seeing what his 3-year-old daughter is feeling is far more painful.

She was just 18 months old when he went away, so she couldn’t verbalize her feelings at that time. Now she can.

At our last prison visit earlier this month, she asked, “Daddy, can you come home with me today?”

Her mom said she knows all the kids’ fathers at the day care center and wonders why her daddy can’t be there with her.

Thinking back to the early days, when I knew there was a problem but didn’t know what to do about it, I’d still like to strangle our neighborhood drug dealer.

Am I totally nuts or have you ever felt this way? When does that pain ease?

And there’s an even bigger concern. Will my son--could he--ever relapse again? Let me know about your own experiences and pain.

Finding freedom in prison

What happened to February? It’s a real blur to me. The cross-country move during January, in a U-Haul and towing my car, went off without a hitch. We were blessed with fair weather and no mechanical problems all 2,300 miles—phew!

Then things went sideways. Just one day after arriving, my son was to have been taken into custody to begin serving time for his involvement in unlawful activity about a year ago. We thought, then everyone will be able to get on with life.

But as often happens in the justice system, a delay occurred and he had the opportunity to be “free” for another month.

That took us deep into the pit of his addiction. I was ready to dial 911 more than once. I had to choose: would I be the one to determine which day would be his last day of "freedom"?

The drama dragged on. Living under the same roof, I set my boundaries, went to a Nar-anon meeting and read literature that helped me keep my priorities straight. Harder to accept than the damaged walls and broken possessions was seeing my son imprisoned by the drug that had captured his mind and body.

Today, he’s in protective custody—in a cell 23 hours of the day, sometimes with cellmates and sometimes not. For the past ten days he’s been detoxing, reading, thinking. I could hear the difference in his voice over the phone, and then I visited with him yesterday.

Today, he is free. Without the drug, his body may be imprisoned but his mind is now free to move ahead to the future. Envisioning the kind of husband and father he wants desperately to be for his family. The kind of committed, diligent employee and future business owner he sees himself to be.

Overcoming addiction isn’t usually an easy process. It may not be an easy transition.

But I’m grateful, proud and hopeful that he is taking the first steps. Steps he’s never really taken before. As he put it, he is going to change all the things he needs to in order to become a different person and he’s going to ask God to change the rest.

That’s my prayer today too.


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