So the day has finally come for my son to be introduced to his father! After several telephone calls explaining his features and “first moments”, you know the first babble, the first table food experience, the first steps, the first day at daycare, first potty training attempts he finally gets to see him in person. No, this is not at all what I envisioned for my son, but we just have to make the best of it.
Once we arrive, I go through the normal visitation screening, walk by all the other inmates and their visitors talking to each other by phone and staring at each other through that foggy nasty glass until I arrive at my fiance’s partition. The look on his face as he sees his son for the first time is still etched in my mind although it’s somewhat indescribable. Right at that moment, I wish I knew the exact thought that went through his head. As I picked up the phone to speak, I watched him study all the features I tried to vividly explain over those phone calls.
I think he was amazed at the mini him he saw sitting in front of him. At that time, my son was a few months old so most of our time was spent talking about him while they gazed at each other. I know my son won’t remember his first intro, but I will always remember. It was a bittersweet moment. Bitter in that he wasn’t there when he was born and we only had thirty minutes through a glass. He couldn’t even touch him. Sweet in that, he was able to see finally see his son and I got a chance to witness their moment.
Unfortunately, this has become the norm for a lot of families. To visit jails and prisons and see the many children that come to see their fathers knowing they will return home without their fathers is heart breaking. No, I don’t know the crimes that they all have committed, however, I do know there must be consequences. Nevertheless, the crime of family divisiveness is being committed by the justice system. The justice system I believe is serving the point it intended to serve, to break the family unit especially in African American communities. Why not truly rehabilitate the incarcerated?
One Less Thought,
Real Wife
I to know the look a man gives his child Through the Looking-Glass the moment stop as he holds the phone with his shoulder and chin as he is standing with a smile that I have never seen on him before. Before I can pick up the other receiver my husband is already moving his lips telling my son Richard that he loves him more then life it’s self. My husband gets out in mid October my son will be eleven months. My husband has never held my son and has missed out on so much. The system needs to help families build up while one spouse is incarcerated. Family are being torn apart and children are in the middle of all of this. We need more family programs in our prisons.
I agree, families are being torn apart. Thankfully, your husband will be out next month and get the opportunity to hold his son! Solid family programs are what’s needed to help reduce the recidivism rate. So many go in with family and return to no family, no place to go. I wish you the best!