After the Knock on the Door: Some of us visit someone in prison or jail (especially if your "offender" is your son or grandson or a husband who takes responsibility for what he's done, or if you have children who still need to resolve issues with the person who took advantage of them)

Even deciding to keep in touch is complicated. Many "offenders" face long sentences and the shock of visiting can be almost as great as the chaos we experience after the initial arrest. 

I wrote the post below to comfort and encourage a woman whose son is in jail awaiting sentencing and who is trying desperately to keep her connection with her son alive because in spite of everything she loves him.

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I don't know how old you are or how much other family you have to help you through this but as I get older, I'm not thrilled at the inevitabilitys I'm facing as I age. I for one, can't think of much worse than to outlive everyone I care about and end up alone among strangers when I am old and can't fend for myself.  

I don't know what kind of sentence your son faces but he sees the old guys on the yard and the graying couple/ mothers in visiting and it's like looking fate in the face. 

Your son faces the prospect of (perhaps) quite a long time in prison and the loss of not only a lot of his productive years but perhaps the loss of his mother who, it sounds like is his life line during this time. 

If he calls you a couple of times a day from jail he needs to hear your voice and know you are still alive as much as you sound like you need to hear his voice and know he's still alive and relatively safe. So what if you sit in silence during visits? Just try to make it's a companionable silence when you visit. As long as you can hug him and see his face? What you say to each other doesn't matter nearly as much as that you don't take all this hurt and anger and betrayal out on each other and make a bad situation worse. Don't cut each other off. There is a lot to work through and it takes time to let go of negative emotions that have power to corrode life long after the initial harm has been done.

There is a verse in Job that matters to me: "There is this of a tree, if it be cut down the tender branch there of shall rise again." Stop focusing on loss. Talk to your son about how both of you will (eventually) find ways to rise again. There are useful things he can find to do inside. That verse applies to us all. 

For now, maybe ask him what music he wants to hear and see if you can play a few minutes of a favorite song for him next time he calls you. Tell him you are in for the long haul. Tell him you aren't goi ng away any time soon.    Tell him what they/ we too are going through  too not as a way to guilt him but as a way to include him as you and your family grow past the huts.  Read comments or comment on sites like this or on sites like Daily Strength Families of sex Offenders  and discuss how we/ they handle what they're going through in visiting and on the outside. Ask his opinion. Tell him what others say about their situations how they handle this and other stuff that comes up because we are you and he are all in this together now.  

See what he thinks about what you read. About what others go through and how they handle things.  Ask him how he thinks you (both) could handle this, or ask him if he has a suggestion to offer someone about how they might handle something they are going through and post his ideas and tell him what the response was. 

Include him in this life.

Grow a better, more honest life between the two of you so you will have a better more honest life in the future with all the people you love and who love you. If you decide to make the attempt to grow past this make him part of it as he grows. He needs you and you need him and we all need each other. And if there are children involved they already have too much to deal with. They don't need more secrets, more unresolved guilt.  We all need people who understand the joys and sorrows of this life after the Knock on the door.  Listen and then do something to make your life and his ( and your children's lives) better. 

I suggest you find a way to let go of your anger and be glad you can still hear the sound of his voice. Be glad you can visit often. Even if you visit so often that you sometimes run out of things to say to each other. Decide to be glad you are both alive. Decide to make the most of the time you have together and apart. 

Do things on purpose. Take care of yourself. Get up and go read all the funny greeting cards on the wrack at the grocery store. Send him the funniest card. Write I love you inside the card. Then go get your hair cut. Some people search the internet not only other women like us so they will know they are not so alone in making hard decisions but they look for jokes and funny jokes/ pictures to print off and send in (cheaper than a card)  Shop the thrift stores and find something "new" in a pretty color.  Watch a comedy and if that doesn't cheer you up watch another one! 

Make a list of what makes you feel better and actually get up and do it and then you'll have something to talk about.

Get on with constructing your new life. Include him if you decide it best for you not to cut him off.  A woman recently posted on Not the Life who said after two years she has decided to participate in therapy with her husband. She doesn't know if she'll ever be able to trust him again, but sometimes it's worth finding the answer to that question because all of us need / have to make the same decision, if not with him, at least down the road with someone else....

Take Care, Janet Mackie.