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What Happens When Your Family Members Die and You’re in Prison?
Sadly, it’s just another day for the most part.
Since I’ve been in prison, the man I was raised believing was my father (he’s actually my uncle) died (around 2 months ago) as did my half-sister about a month ago. There was no fanfare, no special circumstances where I could go to a funeral. To be honest, the only thing that happened to mark the occasions came about when I learned of my uncle’s passing.
I haven’t spoken to my family since about a week after I went to jail following accepting my plea deal. When you first enter the system, you go through the county jail and remain there for an unspecified amount of time, typically until they have enough inmates gathered to bus to the closest reception center (prison) to process you. I was there for a little over a month, then was sent to the processing center.
My mother was briefly in contact with me while I was in county through the messaging service and one letter. The letter was typical of having an in-person conversation with her, full of woe-is-me content, and complaints about how much she was suffering with the situation at hand, as if my being in prison was a sentence for her instead of me.
I decided right then, I had dealt with that enough of my life, that there were a lot of…
