Friday, March 12, 2010

#89 Prison books and Mother's Day (retro)

Prison Books and Mother’s Day

Today is a cloudy rainy day here, which to me is kinda nice. I like cloudy days because they are a little more relaxed than sunny days. Not that I have something against sunshine, but every day…and during the summer…well, I’m no big fan of that.

Before I continue, I want to encourage you guys to continue to support my writing if you feel that is has been helpful to you. I am not asking this to somebody who just stumbled across it today or reads this casually, because it may not have any real meaning to you.

But if you have been following my writings and appreciate my efforts, then by all means feel free to support me or purchase some of my “Grades of Honor” books. I will be sending out copies late next week and early the week after. So I am shooting for about May 15-19th or so, give or take a day. During that time I will be sending out all ordered copies, so if you have not requested one, let me know so I can get an idea on what to set up.

Yesterday I was printing up my third “Grades of Honor” book for a reader and ran into several problems while doing it. My printer does not seem to like to take more than one page at a time; many times it takes 2 or 3, which really screws up printing when you are doing double sided printing. I had to resolve to do just one at a time.

Then the color ink ran out and I had to use a new one.

Then the paper got jammed in the printer and I had to fix it.

But because the paper got jammed, it actually did something to my color ink cartridge and the colors were off. Instead of printing the green text for my “pauses”, it was printing maroon. I was so frustrated that I wanted to stop for the day.

I was wondering why I was having so many problems on this because usually it was never a problem. But I was determined to finish this project, and resolved to just add some extra stuff with this book to make up for the printing errors. I could not start over because that is wasted money, and I needed to use what I had.

For that reason I am very grateful to those of you who have helped support my writings…that is why I have the color ink cartridge and a black ink cartridge ready, as well as the paper it takes to print. Trust me, it came in handy.

So I pressed on and kept printing and got the project done. I then followed by printing some prison encouragement certificates, and worked on my prison blog book as well. I’d say I got a few things done, even though I didn’t blog yesterday.

Today I put up two previous blogs before this one, so if you get a chance jump back and check them out. If you do, I advise jumping back TWO, not one, because it is a two-parter. It’s a Mother’s Day story I wrote last year and posted on several sites.

I actually wrote it the very day of Mother’s Day and put it on several prison support sites (before I got kicked out of many of them). If you have been following my writings for about a year or so, then you know I actually wrote several short stories on prison issues. I think I wrote about 6 or so of them, which allowed me to be creative while still talking about prison issues.

With Mother’s Day coming, I knew this would be something important to share, because often times people think that every inmate in prison is a cold, heartless monster. That’s what society teaches us to believe, so we do. Hey, I know I did. To me, even if you spent a day in jail for jaywalking, you were evil…nobody ever told me otherwise.

And so we grow up thinking that every man in prison is some big dude with a scraggly beard and 75 tattoos with mangled hair that lives in a single cell, plotting his escape from prison so he can “settle the score” with the cop that arrested him, or the lawyer that did a poor job representing him, or the witness that turned him in.

Isn’t that what you think? Either in part or in whole?

Come on, stop watching so much television!

Yes, prison has some guys like that, and some other undesirables, but it is also filled with guys who made a big mistake, and can’t take it back. Many of them just want to do their time and go home. Those that have much longer sentences just want to make do with the life they now have. Not every inmate is in there to start trouble. But every one of them has a mom…or had one.

This is why Mother’s Day is important even for guys in prison. I can guarantee you that not every inmate in prison has a wife or girlfriend…but I can equally guarantee you that every person in prison has a mom…and to that you will all say, “duh”.

But some guys see it in different ways. Some inmates have moms that they no longer talk to because they burned their bridges. Some have moms that abandoned them. Some were raised by grandmothers or other relatives; some were adopted. Sadly, some have moms that are no longer living. But we all have, or had, a mom.

This day has a particular meaning to every single one of us, bonded or free.

I hope when you read this that you understand that there are guys that know they did wrong, and accept that, but they are still human, and as such many desire to make amends with many people, but the first one they will always want to start with is their mother.

If you are going to visit your loved one this weekend, remember that he needs your encouragement and forgiveness more than every. We celebrate this day for every mom out there, but it becomes more personal when we think about our own, and how much support moms give us. This is echoed 100 times louder in prison, because for many of those guys, their mom is all they have left.

Society will run away from flawed men and women and cast large stones at their glass homes, but for many of those inmates, it is MOM who will be the last one (or only one) that will stand by their son (or daughter’s) side.

So for those wonderful women, you have my greatest thanks for being there for them. I cannot speak for them, but I also know that there are many that understand what I am saying. Much of my earlier writing was based on writing for mothers with sons or daughters in prison, so I spent a lot of time in that genre. So many moms worried about their children in prison that I knew I had to try to help. That is a big reason why I write as much as I do…and why I wrote that short story.

So check it out if you can, and feel free to email me at derf4000 (at) embarqmail (dot) com. Happy Mother’s Day.

No comments:

Post a Comment