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Sparkle (1)
I am serving time.
No, I’m not a felon. I’ve never committed a misdemeanor. In fact, my last petty crime was over 37 years ago for a Milky Way bar, aisle 4, in a Safeway. Even though I was never caught, time has caught up with me, indirectly. My oldest son, who just made 24 years old, is serving his fourth term for crimes for which the penalties are devastatingly severe, not only to himself, but to our entire family. As the mother of a convicted felon, I am serving time.
As we are entering his last 100 days (God willing), I find myself introspective as I think of the past 7 years that have been affected by my oldest male child. As a mother, sometimes these situations can become emotional, testy, laborious, and downright heartbreaking, as you choose to view these young men ONLY with your loving eye—sometimes coddling them, and feeling sorry for them, even though they have clearly done wrong. I plead guilty both counts. As mothers, our walk thru this quagmire of life, lessons, and legacies is much different than what fathers experience. Often we fall short and fail in coming to accept truth right away regarding our flesh and blood.
My son has always been my heart, I’ll admit it. Our relationship began with a bang as he was my "surprise birth-control child." He entered the world loud. With 8 months of colic with him at the helm, it was a time of heightened feelings and exhaustion. Yes, it was frustrating, but this child of mine tapped into something deep within me; I think I felt sorry for him, and with that something extra, I fiercely became his “overprotector." Dad couldn’t handle the noise, or the upheaval, and I couldn’t take the unrest, so I strapped my son to my breast, often 14 hours a day to keep him soothed, and to keep my home…quiet.
As my son grew, he revealed himself to be timid with a gentle soul. Lanky in stature, he blossomed into a confident, athletic, oftentimes cocky young man who was always trying to figure how to "get over, get thru or get past" a situation. He was clever, charismatic and kooky, and managed to become a pied piper for his peers and siblings. I knew he had a gentle heart, but as time passed, his heart and soul began searching, struggling and striving to define himself apart from his father—mainly (and most expeditiously) from his Islamic upbringing.
Needless to say, in his quest to "fit in" with others outside our family, he made choices that changed the trajectory of his existence. Before the ink dried on his diploma, he was assigned a number, an orange suit, a job, and a bunk. He was now a convicted felon with time on his hands, but also a lack of maturity that kept him from seeing his wrongs in full view. My son was in an ego-driven denial. He lied when he was released on his first bid, and chose not to let us know he was released. But within 30 days he was reincarcerated, this time facing 8 years for a violent crime.
My heart achingly took in all of his scrambled-up humanness, his sad eyes, his confused mind, his passive boy-like self crying quietly within for help, all the while handcuffed and shackled to a hardwood courtroom chair. It was desperate sights like these that broke my heart and broke me in, leaving me to question the "justice" of the situation, because that was my baby, right?
As time crooked from one year to the next, I found myself attempting to mother from outside the bars. I questioned whether I was being ‘fair’ to him. How could I see him for who I knew he was but also for the immoral person he had become? How do I love him without judging him? Did we do something that led him astray? Would he still love us, his parents? I questioned everything I thought I knew and carried a burden in my heart. I believed he needed to be punished, but would languishing in a jail cell bring him back to a moral center? All I could think of was all the prison shows I’d seen on television and sob. It was exasperating to wonder about these questions, daily.
To assuage the guilt I felt was mine, I attempted to send the comforts of home, hoping that packaged meats and noodles and soap,
