PARENTS OF CHILD IN PRISON

The call began with a mother’s soft voice, a bit hesitant about sharing the hurtful events in her life. Self-disclosure to a stranger takes a lot of courage. This mom had surrendered her burdens to God and said almost in a whisper, “We just take it one day at a time”
“I read about what your are doing and wondered if you are still in the area passing out angel pins. I need a team of angels here in South Carolina.”
She shared some of the hardships her family has experienced including the isolation, estrangement and alienation of her twin daughters, who, in the midst of a teenage rebellion, ran away.
The FBI had investigated her one daughter’s arrest for prostitution and drug dealing, and her twenty-year old daughter, Flossie was now serving prison time, her husband has panic attacks and her own bouts with anxiety have escalated. Add her child’s bipolar disorder, her own mother battling the final stages of lung cancer, and an unplanned child to raise –it was almost unimaginable.
“I don’t know what happened – we didn’t raise her that way” - the shame of the less than perfect home-sweet-home for a Christian family. .
Alex and Ann are fifty-five year old parents who thought their childrearing days were over. Ann thought that her days of cleaning the house daily and running to the store for baby supplies were behind her. She thought she had moved on to the stage of moving a daughter into a college dorm. God had other plans.
They are now raising Flossie’s daughter’s baby, born right before her sentencing hearing for a serious crime. Flossie’s term in federal prison is 45 years.
“Our daughter’s two year old son is the light of our lives now but the sad part is that my daughter will never get to raise him. I take pictures every day and send them to her and I am keeping a scrapbook.”
Once a week, Flossie is allowed to make a collect call for three minutes. The first two minutes, the grandmother and her daughter talk and the last minute she puts the phone up to the little boy’s so he will know his mother’s voice.”
They began searching for help for Flossie when she was eighteen; there was a lot of tension in the house when Flossie decided that she didn’t want to take her bipolar medication anymore. She began to hang out with a group of kids who were experimenting with drugs and alcohol. She ran off with them and although the parents did everything they could to catch up with her – because they loved her so much – she was always one step ahead of them. They even contacted Adult Protective Services because they had hit rock bottom with their fears for her safety while she was not on her medication.
“I felt like I was going to blow up and then melt down…and never be able to get up again,” her mother recalled.
When Flossie called after almost a year’s absence, her mother hoped that her wayward daughter wanted to come home.
“Mom, I am about to have a baby and I am in prison. She asked her mother to come and get the baby…and raise it. Ann couldn’t make such a decision without consulting her husband who was out of town on business.
His response “There is money in the bank from our income tax…. go make yourself a nursery.”
“And how is your daughter now?” I asked.
“She has good days and bad days. Three days a week she has counseling to reduce stress and anxiety and attends an in-prison recovery group meeting. The other days, she is depressed. She says ‘Mom, I dream every night that I am lost in a deep forest or that I fell into an empty swimming pool and I can’t climb out. I keep slipping on wet leaves ”
My heart ached. I could clearly feel the daughter’s terror of being lost in the forest, no chance of seeing the light of the blue sky, no chance of raising her little boy in the light blue overalls. No chance of walking in the park and pointing out the sun to the little boy with the clear blue eyes.
I sent the mom a lot of angel pins. Since Flossie is not allowed to have sharp objects like the lapel pins, I mailed lots of bookmarks with the poem:

A TEAM OF ANGELS FOR THE OVERWHELMED
I need a team of angels, Lord
I don’t think one will do
Please send me all the help from high
For what I’m going through

Guardians to watch over me
And help my soul to cope
I’ll do the best I can to pray
And cherish gifts of faith and hope

“And what has changed in your life now, Ann?”
“Everything,” she responded to my question. “We have had to embrace change, pray more, rely on God and we feel so much joy. Our little surprise grandson has made our family closer. I have so much compassion for my daughter who feels defeated and confused. My church friends and I pray constantly for God to be with her every second of the day. I am praying for a miracle.”
Let’s all pray for Flossie’s miracle too.