Just feeling kind of down today. I know everyone goes through ups and downs in this long road to release, but how long before the gaping hole in your life is bearable? I try to keep it in perspective (I can still talk to my son and look forward to one day touching him again) but some days it just plain hurts inside and out. Rationality has no part in the emotional side of all this.

Hi
Sorry to hear that you're feeling down. All I can say is to remind you that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger-that's true for you and you're son.
Try not to think how much it hurts now. Focus on how exhilerhating his freedom will be when it finally happens. He is learning not to take any thing for granted, even the small pleasures in life-so no doubt he will enjoy life to a greater extent than most people because he will have that perspective on it.

Take care

Lisa,
so sorry to hear you are feeling down, I guess we all feel that way. When I think of my boy (several times a day) it makes me sad. I so want to go back to when he was just a small boy, hold him tight and make it all go away. It crushes our hearts as Mothers to watch this happen to our children, I don't know what to say but that I feel your pain. Stay strong and Feel the hug I am about to give you (((((big hug))))
Take care,
Lisa

I have to take it one day at a time. I miss my niece so, so much. Sometimes I hear her laughter in this house and I look out of the kitchen expecting her to be coming up the stairs for her favority chocolate. I too can still talk to her and even hug her on a visit, but it is so, so hard for me to hear those doors again that I cannot make myself visit, yet I do. Holly may never come home, but she will always have a home, right here where she belongs.

One day at a time, not expecting anything out of today, or tomorrow, but cherishing the time I have with her when I can overcome the fear and see her. And always loving her like all my children, after all she may be my sister's daughter by birth, but she chose me as her mother when Jane could not be.

I have to try, and I have to overcome the fear, and I do for Holly and we face it together as we always have and always will.

Hugs Lisa I don't have an answer for you I just know your pain, and like you get through it any way I can.

One day at a time......

Hugs,

Patti

Thank you all for your encouragement. I know that every word is true and can step back most times to keep the perspective, but it's just been "one of those days" all month long. I suppose we will forever find ourselves in situations where a sight, sound or scent will make us pause and want to share it so badly it causes real pain. I suppose that one day we will be able to do just that, but that "one day" seems impossibly far away at the moment. I almost begrudge my clients' releases from jail when I feel they are far worse individuals than my son and deserve to have his sentence and he theirs. And, that!, is just wrong! Maybe part of all this is my son telling me he didn't want pictures of his nephews and news of the family. He likened the pictures to being a man in the Sahara and shown a glass of water he could not have. I can understand that. His rationale for not wanting news is that the people I write about could tell him themselves, but evidently do not want to. Ah, he has a point but I haven't figured out yet how to tell the family what he said with the expletives deleted. I ache, literally, to hug him. When I think of him being released, though, I feel fear. What will he think of himself? What will he think of his ability to live successfully on the outside? It may be 2040 before he's released! That is over half his lifetime and so much will change. Will he believe in himself and his capability? Will I be around to help him? I fear that most of all. I've made my daughter promise to help him if I am not here, which causes her to fear that I won't be and creates a whole new set of anxieties for her and myself. My son and I are very close as most sons and mothers are, but we have a special bond that anyone who has ever been around us recognized. I guess that comes from having to live through hell for so long with his father. I try to get him to work on his "mental state" which, so far, has only caused him to be adamant about NOT working on it. My husband (not his father) says to leave it alone, he's in a place where he needs to not be vulnerable and tearing down those walls would leave him very vulnerable. I suppose he has a point, but it seems wrong somehow. I know he cannot get the psychological support he needs where he is - they just cook them with meds to keep them complacent. Frustrating. Maybe all this recent emotional turmoil comes from being put on hormones!! Hmm. I never had the mood swings, just wanted to stop having hot flashes!! The Peter/Paul tradeoff? At any rate, thank you all for being there to listen to my rantings and rattlings. It does feel better to get it out. I don't want to unload all this on my son, he feels enough guilt as it is. I love PTO and all of you.
~Lisa.

lisa,

i just want you to know that my heart and prayers are with you. this is so hard for any of us, but you especially because it could be a very long time before your son is home. i do think, however, that he will get to wear brown soon! take heart.

i also want to tell you that in the two years i've been on PTO, i have watched you help just about every single person who came to the military forum looking for help. your son's incarceration has indirectly been a gigantic blessing to many! i hope you can find some comfort in that. also, because of your giving spirit, you have encouraged me to help others, too, and you can see by the informational nature of many of my posts that you were successful!

when i daydream about the day my love walks out of the DB (it could be in a few months or a few years--this is MILITARY prison), i know that every conversation, every smile, every touch and tear and chuckle and every kiss will mean SO much more to us than those shared between couples who have never been through something like this. i have also learned to take the blessings as they come--the helpful attitude of the parole analyst, the kindness of the visitation clerk, the desire of the treatment program director to get everyone in his program as soon as possible... we are waiting on something, but it isn't for our life. this IS our life, and we just have to live it the best way we know how. every day is one day closer to freedom, and one more opportunity to tell our inmates we love them. you're doing an outstanding job, lisa, and we all look forward, alongside you, to the day you finally get to hug your son, and then the day he goes to the TU, and then the day he walks out of prison for the last time. we will rejoice with you.

until then, let's lean on each other, and call on God for strength. He will surely give it.

love to all of you,
k

skm,
thank you for your beautiful insight and words of encouragement. My husband tells me often (for various reasons) that "one door does not close but that another opens." I've told myself from the beginning of this there had to be a reason (other than my son's lapse in judgment) all of this happened. Surely it wasn't to encourage me to help others, but if I have, I am grateful for the opportunity. We are all in this together somehow and I am a firm believer in "pay it forward." Again, thank you for listening and taking the time to send your kind words my way. We'll all hang in there, lean on each other and God, and will, eventually, all rejoice together.

~Lisa.