As I waited for the 8:30am count to clear, I looked through the notes I had taken last week to see if there were specific people I needed to make sure to see or if there were other odds and ends to take care of. One of the other chaplain interns told me to check in on a woman she had met from my building. It looked like it was going to be a pretty busy Monday.
I spent most of the morning in two of the ranges in F Building. I got to talk to several women I hadn’t yet met, and I also checked in with some I already knew. One woman in particular I talked to for quite a while. She had been in prison for eight years and has twelve more to go – yikes! She has children and, naturally, misses them terribly. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be in prison for eight years and know I wasn’t even halfway done. I asked her how she is able to get up each morning, how she finds hope. She said there are good days and bad days, and sometimes she thinks she can’t go on. But she said she just takes things one day at a time; if she tries to look to ahead in advance, her remaining time at Metro seems impossible. She said she also tries very hard to help out other women who are having a tough time in prison. She likes to make the women laugh and keep the spirits high. Only when she’s in her bed at night does she allow herself to cry. I admire her greatly for trying to be positive and help out the other women and not just dwell on her own problems – I know I’d be more selfish if I were in her place.
First thing after lunch I headed over to D Building to check on the A range ladies. I was disappointed to see the woman who has now been there for over 60 days was still there. She cried as she voiced her frustrations to me over still being there in lockdown. According to her, nobody was giving her any answers as to why she was still down there. I didn’t know what to do to help her – I felt as frustrated as she was! I told her I’d try my best to seek out her mental health counselor and try and find some information. She was grateful for this, and after we had talked a good long while, she seemed to be in a better mood.
Also on DA is a woman who is very well-known on the prison grounds. She’s a very large woman who basically has the mind of a three-year-old. She has a very high mental health level, and she constantly has to be in lockdown because she’s too unstable. If she likes you, that’s great, but if she doesn’t, look out! She has a huge temper, and almost anything can set her off screaming and having a tantrum. I heard about her before I ever met her, and when I found out she was living on my range in D Building, I was both excited and apprehensive to meet her. For the first week or so, every time I went down to DA, she would be sleeping. Last week, however, she was awake, so I decided to introduce myself to her. I put a big smile on my face and told her who I was. Her response was to stare at me and shake her head, and I immediately said something like, “Well okay then! I’ll stop by another time!” and got out of there as soon as I could.
Well, this afternoon I decided to try again with this woman, so after making sure I had a bright smile on my face and a greeting ready to say, I went up to her room door and peered into the small window. What I saw was definitely not what I was expecting. She was sitting on her bed, completely naked, knitting.
Well, at least I initially thought she was knitting, but I suppose someone in lockdown wouldn’t be allowed to have knitting needles. But I definitely saw her working on something involving yarn. And yes, she really was naked. She was concentrating hard on her string project, and as soon as my mind registered what I was seeing, I left immediately. I don’t think she saw me, which is good, though to be honest, I don’t know that she’d really care if someone saw her naked.
After that interesting time in DA, I decided I had just enough time to get to one more range in F Building before the 4pm count. I checked in on the woman who is serving her husband’s sentence that I talked about last week. She thanked me again for the call and talked to me for awhile about what her life was like before she was in prison. I like asking the women what they did before prison; it always seems to brighten them up to remember a better life. One woman was telling me about her five children that are currently living with her mother. I asked of the kids’ father was involved with them at all. She said no, then added that there were two different fathers, and that one of them died. I assumed it would be some reason like a shooting or being stabbed or something gruesome, but she said it was because he was old. She went on to say one of his and her daughters was born when he was seventy, and that she named her daughter Olivia because her father was an old man. Great was to choose a name for your kid, right? (Just to be clear, in case you can’t tell, I definitely don’t think it’s great.)
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