Don't just do something, stand there!

I’m writing this blog in the wee hours of the morning on April 30^th (probably to the dismay of my roommate, who has to listen to my keys clicking in the dark before she can fall asleep again after I woke her up by opening the door to our room and letting all the brightness in because I had to go to the bathroom…) But I feel like I need to write it right now... because tomorrow I’m going to punish Kara by making her read some of my blog, and I wanted to be current.

So, feeling justified, I begin.

This blog was going to be about my experience in Washington County Jail last evening, but I’m not sure how to describe it… I thought I had all of these beautiful and profound things to say.

I should have written down everything they said right after I left, but it was almost too painful – I avoided it, I think. We went and got ice cream. Ice cream. I waltz out of there cracking jokes and get myself a freaking fudge sundae…

And, right now, she’s probably sitting there in block G, freezing, uncomfortable, unable to sleep. Thinking about her daughter - about the reality that her 22 year old child has been sentenced to 10+ years in federal prison, and all she can do is lay in her bunk and try not to break into lots of small pieces.

They don’t get to choose what to wear, or when to go to bed, or when to shower, or what they’re going to listen to, or where they’re going to go, or what they’re going to do with their kids today, or any of that…

They don’t get to know what time it is.

When they ask, the guards reply, “There is no time in Washington County Jail.”

And there really isn’t. For me, the time in Washington County Jail is an hour – punctuated by a car ride to Fayetteville and a hot fudge sundae.

“I’m not going to sleep tonight… not like this. Now that I know what’s going to happen to her…”

“I go to bed… I don’t go to sleep. Shit, there’s no way to sleep in here – have you heard the doors slamming? So when you can’t sleep, you can just come over to my bunk and sit there. I promise, I won’t be asleep, either.”

“Ok.”

And I can flip around my Bible and say things like, “God doesn’t fix our problems right away, but He is present with us in our pain,” all night, but I can’t say anything like that… but I do get to listen.