I’m just sitting down in my room after a shower last Sunday night… winding down from the day and setting up the menu for the week ahead when one of the “homeboys” walks into the room…. “I am a 15 minute Father”… he says as he sits down in the chair opposite me. “My son is starting High School tomorrow and I get 15 f*cking minutes to be a Father”… he mumbles seemingly to himself and stares off toward the ceiling in an attempt to hold back tears. I can physically feel his emotions… I don’t know if I have ever had an “empathetic experience” as powerful as what I was experiencing in that moment. I knew exactly how he felt… I knew the frustration… the anger at himself for being in here… the sadness… the longing to be able to immediately call his boy back and continue talking him through his first day but no… he has to wait 30 minutes before he can call for another 15 minutes and at that point… the moment has passed. It is heartbreaking.
I didn’t want to say too much so I let him talk but I told him that I know exactly where he is coming… albeit in a different light as my boys are much younger… but the desire to connect on a level deeper than what is possible in 15 minutes is certainly the same. We sat and talked until it was time for count but those first words he said to me have stuck with me throughout the week… “I am a 15 minute Father.”
I started thinking about the bigger picture of incarceration as it relates to parents and their children. I have been obsessed with this topic from the moment that I was sentenced… how am I going to maintain… nourish and grow my connection to my boys while I cannot physically be with them or (at this point) even virtually see them? I can only hear their voices and them hear mine for those precious 15 minutes… twice a week… that we get to spend with each other. And the bigger issue is not that I don’t have the ability to be with or see them… it is them not being able to be with or see me. I am an adult with a fully developed brain that has clear memories of my boys… I can close my eyes and feel my oldest sitting on my shoulders as we stand outside our house and watch the garbage trucks drive by. I can flawlessly picture holding my youngest in my arms in his room… giving him a bottle before bedtime and slowly walking back and forth in front of his crib as he falls asleep. But their brains are still very much developing and they do not have as many (if any) clear memories such as these to draw from when they miss me being around. And that is devastating. There have been multiple times over the past few years on the phone where my youngest will ask me… “Daddy. Do you know what I look like?”. My heart breaks and I tell him that my entire locker is full of pictures of him and his brother that I look at every single day but we both know that doesn’t cut it. There should be an outlet for incarcerated parents to connect with their children on a deeper level. There should be video calls in all prisons… not just women’s prisons. There should be family days in all prisons. There should be resources for our children out there to feel the love of their incarcerated parent because they are completely innocent victims of our crimes.
I am on a mission to find a way or create a way to allow for deeper connections between parents and children during this excruciatingly difficult time in both of our lives. Us khaki suits made decisions that led to us living behind these walls but our children did not… and as much as we deserve and must own our sentences… we must also find a way to lessen the collateral damage of theirs out in the real world.
But… as with the rest of life in here… our lack of control is a reality that we must work within. So as we work to “better” the system… we must do every single thing in our power to be the most present “15 minute Father” that we can possibly be until we are able to change our circumstances and be there for our boys and girls in the way that they deserve.
Stay Healthy. Stay Active.
Keep Calling… Keep writing… Keep telling them you love them… They hear you.