Helpless, Scared, Lost
It's weighing so heavily on my mind; it's all that I can think about, and I'm sure he's picked up on it. Because I've seen what it's like to be on the other side. Because we have submitted official change of address forms five times, and he's told them his new address while on record twice, and they still can't seem to get a single one of those god damn secretaries to take two seconds and actually change it. And you go to the window and try to plead with them, don't you understand that he considers his life to be forfeit! and the only emotion they ever muster to greet you with is something so awful and ugly that you can't even use words to describe it.
We have sat in that dismal hallway in Sandusky for a total of 23 hours waiting for him to see a judge. Twenty three hours. Seven trips out there. There are always scads of other people waiting, and the lawyers and prosecuter walk in and out of doors like an old Scooby Doo chase scene. You never really know what's being done behind those doors, because they hardly ever call anyone in. TWENTY THREE HOURS! One of his probation requirements is to have full-time employment. How many jobs would be so gracious as to allow an employee to leave randomly and often, for hours at a time, so that they can wait for their court appearance? Six of the seven trips have ended with continuances because they just couldn't get to him. This last time he finally saw the judge, and no one had actually read his file or completed the PSI, so he got another continuance... but not without a lecture from the judge, not without the threat of prison, not without them calling up the deputy who laughed at him the time before, when he was in so much pain that he couldn't even sit. We walked out of the building like two corpses.
And so the 13th is the next and probably the last appearance, and who knows whether the judge will really read the testimonials from his PO and boss and caseworker or not? "I'll end my life if I have to go back to jail," he tells me. "You will never, ever be able to imagine how absolutely horrifying and chaotic it is in there. I would be a wild animal, what's left of me will be torn asunder, I will never be the same guy, the guy you know. I can't go back there, I can't do that to my self." He got sick in there. He was in such pain for two weeks that he couldn't stand -- it was only until he was lying on the floor next to his own vomit that a nurse came. And they gave him advil.
How is that helpful for anyone involved, for the prisoner, for the society outside, for the victims? I can't even think about it, I can't even entertain the thought that this is all going to be torn away from me, this life that I absolutely adore. I am finally beginning to understand what it's like, to know that you could spend your entire life with just one other person. And were you damned to be somplace that I was not, that self were hell to me.
Let my grace pass to him. Let the judge find mercy in his soul on the 13th, let them see with clear heads all of the work and effort that he has put into turning his life around. And if you pray, beg God to not tear the very breath from my lungs.
We have sat in that dismal hallway in Sandusky for a total of 23 hours waiting for him to see a judge. Twenty three hours. Seven trips out there. There are always scads of other people waiting, and the lawyers and prosecuter walk in and out of doors like an old Scooby Doo chase scene. You never really know what's being done behind those doors, because they hardly ever call anyone in. TWENTY THREE HOURS! One of his probation requirements is to have full-time employment. How many jobs would be so gracious as to allow an employee to leave randomly and often, for hours at a time, so that they can wait for their court appearance? Six of the seven trips have ended with continuances because they just couldn't get to him. This last time he finally saw the judge, and no one had actually read his file or completed the PSI, so he got another continuance... but not without a lecture from the judge, not without the threat of prison, not without them calling up the deputy who laughed at him the time before, when he was in so much pain that he couldn't even sit. We walked out of the building like two corpses.
And so the 13th is the next and probably the last appearance, and who knows whether the judge will really read the testimonials from his PO and boss and caseworker or not? "I'll end my life if I have to go back to jail," he tells me. "You will never, ever be able to imagine how absolutely horrifying and chaotic it is in there. I would be a wild animal, what's left of me will be torn asunder, I will never be the same guy, the guy you know. I can't go back there, I can't do that to my self." He got sick in there. He was in such pain for two weeks that he couldn't stand -- it was only until he was lying on the floor next to his own vomit that a nurse came. And they gave him advil.
How is that helpful for anyone involved, for the prisoner, for the society outside, for the victims? I can't even think about it, I can't even entertain the thought that this is all going to be torn away from me, this life that I absolutely adore. I am finally beginning to understand what it's like, to know that you could spend your entire life with just one other person. And were you damned to be somplace that I was not, that self were hell to me.
Let my grace pass to him. Let the judge find mercy in his soul on the 13th, let them see with clear heads all of the work and effort that he has put into turning his life around. And if you pray, beg God to not tear the very breath from my lungs.
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