I was standing at an archaic coffee vending machine, watching my reflection. I see myself in the reflection from the glossy front paneling of the machine. I’m wearing a high collared, buttoned down shirt, yoga pants and running shoes. And I am crying. I’m not crying because I just spent five minutes waiting in line for crappy coffee. No, the waiting didn’t make me cry.
I realize as I’m looking at my horrible looking crying face that I’m in a huge ongoing, never-ending, and under-funded social experiment.
Families and visitors being subjected to an invasive security screening procedure, sometimes being stripped of their basic human rights of pure dignity.
I was standing in front of the crappy coffee machine because my uncle requested a cup of coffee; I’ll pay the $2.00 for a cup of crappy coffee.
Every family is different and my family is definitely a product of circumstances, poor luck, and poor decision-making. My mother managed to isolate me and raise me as a single mother and used our circumstances (or consequences) of being a member of my family, to raise me to be stronger, more capable, and more accountable than if raised by a normal functioning family. My mother also raised me with love. My uncle, uncle FUD (favorite Uncle <insert D name here>) was part of my life structure, emotional support that kept me and my mother from going completely insane, wallowing in depression, self-pity and making us even more accountable to our life. Father figures were in my life, my biological father and I are still forging a shaky relationship, but FUD was the rock.
Uncle FUD deserved to be in prison based on the principles of “right and wrong” and the American court systems. Uncle FUD made some very poor decisions that changed the course of his future forever. Uncle FUD didn’t deserve to be in prison for 35+ years. The list of convictions that were placed to Uncle FUD’s name was extensive and inaccurate. The largest crime was his lack of defense attorney. Uncle FUD fell under the wonderful California law – 3 Strikes You’re Out. In the basic human nature way of defending me and what is mine, Uncle FUD did not kill anyone, harm anyone, rape or molest anyone. Uncle FUD made some very bad choices after declining and losing a long-time battle with drug and alcohol addiction.
My uncle died while incarcerated in an overcrowded and poorly maintained and managed prison system.
My uncle FUD died of liver disease, it’s complications, and the definite signs of undetected cancer mixed in for morbid good fun. The medical treatments and medications received while Uncle FUD was in prison was extensive (but always incomplete) and the list of complications resulting from his several medical issues was even longer.
So, I was visiting him for the last time, getting horrible coffee and realizing I’m experiencing a complicated social experiment. To most of the family members that make these weekly visits, these visits become ritual. It’s a ritual that keeps their families connected and provides them the hope to get them through to the next week. It’s a small blessing to be able to visit a family member incarcerated, undoubtedly a major inconvenience, but easily a weekly requirement.
To get in to visit in a California State Prison is comparable, if not more intrusive, than the procedures for getting thru any commercial airline boarding process. The only difference, when visiting a prison you don’t get a free beverage, a warm blanket, and the capability to move around within the space you have been assigned to exercise your basic human rights.
The last cup of crappy coffee became my most memorable cup of coffee. It was last one I would every buy for Uncle FUD. On this visit he had aged thirty years in two weeks. Uncle FUD has become immobile, but fortunately due to the friends he had acquired while incarcerated, he always had someone to push him around in his archaic, but smoothly functioning wheelchair. The friends and individuals that my Uncle FUD met while in prison were people my Uncle FUD cared about. There are movies, television shows, and books about prison, but they don’t tell you that the individuals incarcerated still yearn for relationships, friendly contact and conversation. There are jokes, but then there is reality. While we were sitting at our kindergarten style table (keeps all laps and hands above the table and in full view), several inmates who had families visiting or who worked the weekends cleaning the visitors area, came to Uncle FUD said how nice it was to see him out of the prison hospital able to see visitors. Shook his hand and told him they were watching his belongings and were waiting for him to get back to the “general public.” My Uncle FUD had made good connections, surviving the best he could for the 10+ years he had been in prison.
It was good visit, but a short visit. My Uncle FUD was more ill than we planned (or even imagined) and even though we all wanted the visit to be longer, the visit was wiping Uncle FUD of any energy he had saved up to make this visit. We cleaned up our small table, threw away the crappy coffee Uncle FUD was only able to drink a bit of, and said a long teary goodbye. As I hugged him for over five minutes, I could feel his bones protruding from his body and I think I knew at that moment the reality of his pending death. We left the prison grounds, went to the hotel, I packed my bag and flew home.
I received a call from my mom four days later that Uncle FUD died. He stopped all medications, medications that were keeping him alive in is rapidly aging and dying body. Uncle FUD made a choice and slowly died.
What do you do when a family member dies in prison? My mother coordinated the signing of paperwork. My mother coordinated the paperwork giving permission to cremate his remains. My mother provided an address to send the belongings of Uncle FUD to her care. My mother received assurances he died peacefully, in no pain, and “he’s in a better place.” Anything is better than being incarcerated in the California State Prison system, so yes, I agree. As I reflect, I have found I selfishly reflected that I would never, ever see Uncle FUD again.
This wasn’t my first death. This wasn’t the first death of a close family member. Part of my job at the time was dealing with death and it’s bodily remains. This was the death of Uncle FUD’s possibility of parole, relocating once released, and starting over. This has been the death of relationship I always had assumed would be restarted after Uncle FUD and I got our lives straight. This was loss of one of my fathers.
This death happened while a million other incarcerated men and women and their families undergo the same social experiment on a much grander scale everyday in the United States and the World.
Such a strange experience I had from a very one-sided point of view. A sad and very strange experience that the million of other incarcerated men and women’s families experience weekly and an experience they have incorporated in to their daily and weekly and yearly lives.
I’m completely unsure where I stand on several issues. Lack of rehabilitation (mental and physical) within the prison system, the death penalty, the American justice system, and the funding of prison systems; these are a few of the topics I’m heavily rethinking.
I know there are other issues in the world other than prison reform, but everyday I’m amazed at the treatment human beings are receiving in the prison systems, federal and state, around the United States. I wonder how people could treat human beings in such a degrading and pointless manner that installs more hate in the incarcerated individual, provides absolutely no rehabilitation that would change criminal behavior, and also deprives a human being of their sense of dignity. Some crimes committed are truly horrible, but as stated, I’m rethinking the gray area of this issue. There is a definite lack of black and white.
