posted by Carole
My good friend Linda sent me this link to an excerpt from one of Deepak Chopra’s books. It couldn’t have come at a better time because I often spend entire days and weeks projecting my thoughts into the future, focused on the day that Michael will be released and living at home with me. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve spent considerable time reflecting on the simple message in the article I read: be present in the moment, experience what it offers right now. It’s so easy to forget that now is really all we have. Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. Use each moment wisely.
Sometimes the difficulties that prison brings into families can feel overwhelming and suffocating. For a prison family, anxiety about the past and the future, living in flux, experiencing change, acknowledging mistakes of the past and accepting responsibility, confronting challenges and embracing them…these things come without an invitation. Although Michael was 15 years into his sentence and had long been deeply committed to his path of redemption and personal growth when I joined my life to his, there are still aspects of the prison experience that create anxiety for us. We’re constantly striving to prepare for his release, and sometimes it feels like a race against the clock. We don’t know when he’s coming home, but we know it’s soon. Every day I look back and I look forward—I feel as though I didn’t do enough, and that I should be doing more. The prison system has uprooted our family numerous times with unexpected transfers so there is always a feeling of impermanence, of wondering when the next transfer will come. For us, it’s not a matter of if, it’s the question of when? And we don’t know the answer.
It’s not easy to live with one foot in the world and the other in a system we don’t understand but in which our loved one must exist. Sometimes it feels like the only way to get through is to forget about the past, ignore the present, and focus on the future. Family unity is often shattered, even in the best of situations. A prison wife has a unique, frequently solitary existence in society—not a criminal, but serving time just the same. As I consider the difficulties our prison family has endured and the struggles we’ve overcome to get through hard days, what I know is this: my husband loves me wholly, passionately, actively, magnificently. He expresses his love in myriad ways despite the limitations of prison, and I want his love, exactly the way he gives it, for the rest of my life. That means I must find ways to cope with prison and embrace the challenges while I wait for him to come home.
Reflecting on the words of Deepak Chopra made me think of ways I’ve been misusing time, and how I can “take to heart” his suggestion that I shift my attention to the present. It’s an easy answer for me: Michael is the center of my life. I want our now to be open and clear. When he walks through that door into the visiting room, I need to forget about the difficulties of my life in the world without him and the difficulties that prison inflicts on our life, the long drive to see him and the hassles of being processed into the crowded, noisy room…all of it. By consciously focusing my attention on him, and only him, I am present with him. What’s important is the pleasure of simply holding his hand, of feeling him touch my face, of listening to his voice as he shares his plans and dreams with me. It’s how I want to have a relationship with him, even when prison is no longer a part of our daily life.
Deepak Chopra was right; it is absorbing, completely peaceful, and totally satisfying.
Michael ran 10 miles / 5,082 miles over 570 days
Monday, 5 July 2010
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