Lost In Jail - A Girl's Story

In 1974, three weeks after giving birth to my precious daughter, I found myself sitting in a Boston Superior Court going through a trial with my husband. My husband who was arrested for an armed robbery, that to this day, he swears he did not commit the crime. As I sat through the daily trial, and the evening visits at jail, I could only wonder what all this would mean to me and my young baby and what was going to happen to us? When the judge sentenced him to ten years - that's right ten years, I remember my stomach dropping and me crying out "but what about me - what is going to happen to me?" Somehow I had come to believe that he and I would be together forever and jail was not in that plan. As I walked out of the courtroom that day, my entire life had changed and it would never be the same. My thoughts were cloudy and all I wanted to do was made the reality of it all to just go way. At the bottom of it all, all I knew was there was a hole in my soul and I was in a daze that would last me some years to work through. I never wanted to be a single parent. I never wanted to spend my days writing letters, visiting jails ... no I never wanted to do any of that and I was only 17. At 17, I lost the love of my life and for all intensive purposes I lost my life (so I thought). I lost the dreams of the present and surely lost the future I would have. My baby would never know her father outside of prison walls, Guards, strip searches, long bus rides, collect telephones and visits through glass petitions - this would be my life. This would change everything.

What happen for me has happened for many a young woman who started out with the loveliest of plans with their first love. Plans that included good things, marriages, church, houses, cars and someone who would love them for them not for all the people needed or wanted them to be.

Since he was my first love, he knew me before I knew how to put make up on good. He knew me when I was learning how to type, and admonished me to go to school - because I was the book smart one. He knew my mom and them and love me any way (smile). All of my dreams in one day - in one decision - was gone. For me, it would take almost 13 years before I accepted that I lost my love that day in the court room and the young man that I loved had died when he entered into that adult facility. One of the youngest men in the history of the state to go the notorious adult prison. He died. His innocence gone and it never would return. Today, as I pray and speak with my daughters who are losing men to murder - I understand. He didn't die physically but it more than a certainty that he died spiritually. They took something from him that he would never get back and by the same token, they took something from me and my baby that we would never have again. They took my husband, her daddy, my friend and my future... they took it all that day. I spent the next two decades after that sentencing, attempting to regain that relationship that I lost that day in that courtroom so many years ago but to no avail. I had to accept, eventually, that I would never have that -- not like that ever again for me. There are days that I thank God profusely for that day and there are others I can only mourn the love I lost to jail.

So, as I comfort those that mourn their lost - to the streets, to the jail and/or to murder I would never tell them that what they are feeling is not valid. Dreams shattered are real. Our men making bad choices that directly affect us is real. To attempt to regain something that we lost is only natural - but we can never have it ... I will never get that time back or get back what I lost that infamous day that my love was lost in jail.

Leaving 2010 - Getting Busy With 2011

As we end this year and look back over the experiences of the year , we've learned some lessons, taught some lessons, lived some lessons and continue to have unfinished lessons we have to learn. We've lost people in our experience, we were given other people in our lives, we may have thought that our life should not change without first seeking our counsel - but life doesn't do that. We have learned to accept life as it is or in the alternative, we have deceived ourselves and chose to view the world the way we want it to be. There is a gentle balance between the two. What is imperative for our belief system, our survival and our peace of mind is our ability to hope in spite of hope. To believe for our very best in the face of all the signs that scream we are doomed. This has to become our conviction that no matter what life shows up with, through tears, through prayers, through doctor's appointments, court dates, unemployment lines and all the other boogie men that arise, we must know that our lives are in the capable hand of God. And though we walk through the shadows of the valley of death, we will fear no evil for God is with us. So we pick up our things and we journey into 2011, expecting the best, praying for the best and living the best life ever because we made it. Through whatever last year brought us through, we made it! Applaud yourself but not too long because you don't have long to revile in the events of yesterday, you have got too much to do today!