“EVERY FAMILY HAS ONE.” The saying has a double meaning. People say every family has one, to point out that homosexuality is common, though not openly acknowledged.
 
People also say it to call out the falseness of straight society, where you are expected to deny your own family members. It is a sort of coercion based on shame, a way to pressure others to deny themselves. …
 
Until the others begin to name themselves. We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.
 
American families are harboring another secret member – coerced by shame into silence, denial and seeming isolation. We don’t talk about a relative in prison.
 
Many families have one, or more than one.  With the prison population at 2.1 million and growing, what are the chances you don’t know anyone dealing with incarceration in their lives?
 
 
CLOSETS ARE DARK AND LONELY.  In some parts of the country, gay couples are “out” at work, where photos deck the desks and partners are welcome in social settings off the job.
 
Ask yourself – Who is the father with the locked-up son? Or the woman with a husband working out of town, who never calls her at the office? You may be unaware, but you know one of these people, or you know someone else who knows them.
 
Don’t kid yourself. The American preoccupation with putting people behind bars is having its impact somewhere very close by.
 
 
 
IF YOU SAW US, YOU MIGHT KNOW US. People have all sorts of notions, such as:
 
* It is right for the moms and kids to suffer because the fear of the shame of making your mom and kids suffer will keep you from being a criminal.  In this way, the community is served by the power of example.

 
* A woman with a husband or boyfriend who gets sent away is automatically an “ex” -- is that a widow or a divorcee?

 
* Looking after a prisoner is a one-sided burden, done grudgingly by a conscientious friend or relative; or stupidly by a co-dependent partner; or divinely by a volunteer.

 
* Children with a dad in prison are growing up fatherless.

 
 
MOTHER’S DAY. (for Linda). You’ve led an ordinary life, raised your children. Maybe your family didn’t have every break that would have been nice; maybe it did. You find yourself on a weekday away from work, in a bewildering place, a courthouse, in a courtroom with your grown son in the dock.
 
You consider what they say he did. OK, wrong; against the law. You do wonder if you failed somewhere, until the man in the suit opens his mouth and says your kid is the worst in the world, and however minor his misdeed it’s the worst thing anyone ever did. And the judge apparently agrees and he raps down a sentence, you can hardly believe your ears as you watch them take your son out a side door, looking over his shoulder at you.
 
You can barely breathe, everything inside is motionless, except for the math you are doing in your head – will you even be alive when they let him out?
 
How did this happen? Now you are pretty sure you didn’t bring this on yourself, and any tingling bit of shame you might have had is a dead speck under shock and seizing pain. Who did this to you? Not your son, no.
 
Note to the social engineers: Think of any neighborhood and imagine every third house with a mother like this in it. Do you really think entire communities bring this devastation on themselves? Do you imagine these mothers all think so too?
 
In my life, I have been afraid of crime sometimes. But I’ve been harmed by the criminal justice system.
 
 
GANGSTA MOLL. It was the second, not the first, time I saw her. Understanding dawns on me and deepens very gradually after this, but it started with a sudden recognition, about a woman, looking like a million dollars, bringing her whole self into this place – a woman with a purpose, to see her guy. Not sad, not dutiful, not doing someone a favor. With red toenails in high-heel mules, she was moving through steel walls toward a certain kiss.
 
 
AMERICAN SATURDAY.  In the shopping malls, at the toll plazas, on the soccer fields, in church basements, and at home – it’s the same in prison visiting rooms.  Except there at 10 am an authority calls out; the people in khaki stop what they’re doing, separate themselves against a wall and get counted. There’s a moment of quiet, then a collective shrug, and Saturday resumes.
 
A teenage girl gets a lecture from her parents; two feet away a man holds his new baby or his grandchild. Another inmate swallows pain and bad news from home; someone’s kids can’t sit still, someone else’s can’t let go. A man looks helpless while his wife chews him out. A young couple is breaking up; an older pair has plans to discuss.
 
Every human feeling could thrive this day, above all love and loyalty.
 
 
MISSING. Have a gentle thought and a kind word for the mother whose son won’t see her anymore because he can’t stand what it does to her; and for another mother who has made this decision for herself; for the young woman who really doesn’t have what it takes and has given up, torn apart; the child taken in by relatives who won’t make the trip; those who could pay for the gas or a cheap motel but not both; who can’t get off work or find a ride; who are afraid to leave the City for a weekend in white central Pennsylvania; for the wife/boyfriend/brother /cousin doing time somewhere else; for the friend turned away at the gate on the wrong day; for the lawyers at their desks, still trying.
 
 
SECRET SOCIETY. An accomplished physician in a prestigious setting is taking my history; he asks if I’m married, if my husband is waiting to take me home. I evade, he probes, I blurt it out – my husband is in prison (any more questions?). He does have another question – “Oh really? Which one? I have a friend in ********. An accountant. He got caught up in those scandals a few years back. I write to him.”
 
I am visiting a friend I haven’t seen in years; we have time to talk and catch up, and we do. I give her the long story short. She is interested and supportive. She tells me her uncle got into some sort of trouble and he got two years on a plea. Her aunt and her cousins go to see him. My friend says she thinks a lot about what to tell her children when her uncle gets back.
 
It’s a party after work at a friend’s place. Behind me above the buzz I hear someone I know making an introduction. “This is So-and-So. He just got out of prison.” It’s obvious they are joking around, but I think it would be nice if it were true - someone I could talk to at this party, more proof that every family has one.
 
 
Lisa Foley Stand
April 2005