Monday morning, I am out of bed, dressed, ready for the day by 7am. On my way to the chapel, and I am singing, “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood” as heard on the Mr. Rogers television show from back in the day. Chaplain Hostler has his door open and as I get closer, I hear him say, “Mornin’ neighbor”, and my day begins.
He lets me into the chapel through his office, I prepare the sign-in sheets for the afternoon services. I grab the “red-head sweeper”, as I call it, and I do a quick sweep of the chapel floor.
Today is visit day.
Dad is coming by, I can’t wait.
By 9am, Chaplain Hostler tells me, “You don’t have to be here, head back to the unit if you want to wait for your visit”. I thank him, and do just that.
Once back in the unit, I grab a cup of coffee, and call to find out around what time should I expect him to be arriving so I am alert for when the officer looks for me.
It’s a little after 10am, one of the guys from my unit returns from visit, and I ask about the vending machines, and he responds, “They are empty, so you should eat before you go”.
I rush over to my room, one pack of white tuna, and one pack of tuna steaks with Thai chili sauce, and mix them together. Then I sit to eat it with a few saltine crackers. This should hold me off for a few hours. I head to the restroom, brush my teeth, and make sure my hair is “decent”. I hear the officer call shout someone’s name, “Lorenzo!!!”. That is my buddy so I head out of the Glasshouse and into the main dayroom floor. From across the way I see the officer go back into his office, and I start heading his way. As I do, he exits his office, looks at me approaching him, and I ask him, “Valdes?”, to which he replies, “yea, Valdes, how did you know?”, “I just knew I guess” was my reply, and he tells me to head out. I jog on out of the dorm, and catch up with Mr. Lorenzo, and for whatever reason begin singing, “he knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows when you’ve been bad or good…” and Mr. Lorenzo joins me to finish the next part, “…so be good for goodness sake”. Then he laughs and asks me, “what was that all about?”. I tell him, “No idea, just happy I guess”.
Mr. Lorenzo and I walk side-by-side down the walkway, by the lake, waving at the few Jews sitting with the Rabbi Chaplain in the Sukkah tent to our left. We arrive at the visit entrance door, and thankfully it is open and the officer is waiting for us. We are searched for any possible contraband, and then walked into the visiting room. Mr. Lorenzo meets with his sister, and gives her a big hug, I say hello and continue on over to where my dad is sitting. He stands as I approach him, and gives me a tremendous hug. I smell the cologne he is wearing, and it brought me back to those days when we worked together in Lima, Peru.
The guy was right on point. There were no sandwiches in the vending machines, only junk food and sodas. My dad and I talked and talked, and I will say it was an excellent and productive visit, but by 1pm it was time for him to leave, as he had to get back to work, and I had to get to the chapel for the class at 2pm.
I get back to my unit, change out of my “visit” shirt, remove my boots and put on sneakers, and head to the chapel to prepare. Chaplain Estrin is here, as well as Chaplain Kulungu and Chaplain Hostler. At 2pm, the guys in the Embracing Interfaith Cooperation class start arriving, I check them off in the attendance sheet, separate the Spanish guys over into the “small chapel”, and pass out the documents provided by the chaplain.
Right before 3:30pm lockdown, I head to Mr. Rivero’s room, and let him know I will not be going to the dining room for dinner, and will be heading to the chapel at 5pm and will be there until 7pm. He asks me to bring him my large bowl and nothing else. I run over to my room, grab my large bowl, one pack of tuna, two packs of mackerel, and one ramen soup, and take it to Mr. Rivero. He is laying down when I get to his room; I place the bowl on his table, he looks over to it, and shakes his head after seeing everything I put with the bowl. I say goodbye and head back to the Glasshouse before they lock the door. Time to read my daily devotionals. I finished reading the Bible from Genesis to Revelations yesterday after a few months of reading a minimum of two chapters a day. Today I started again, but this time using a guide that will put me through the stories of the Bible which will help me understand it better than the first time I read it, I can’t wait.
Count clears as I am reading, and all of a sudden Mr. Rivero’s roommate shows up at my room and tells me, “he says you can go now if you want”. I look at him confused, because I had mentioned to Mr. Rivero that I would snack on something and eat when I return at 7pm. I head over to his room, and find that he already prepared the food and it was in the large bowl, sealed, sitting in the sink under hot running water to maintain warm. I told him he misunderstood me, to which he replied, “With all you do for me, and always taking care of me, I was not going to let you go to work for two hours on an empty stomach”. Deep down I was a little frustrated because I had snacked on something during count, so I wasn’t as hungry, but I thanked him over and over. I am so grateful to have him here. I was happy to take care of him when he arrived in my unit over a year ago back in the Federal Detention Center, and have been caring for him since he arrived here at FCI Miami in September 2023. It’s going to be a sad day when he leaves here, but I will be so happy for him when he does because as I said before, it will be one step closer to being home with his family.
I’m done eating. Mr. Rivero tells me to leave the bowl and go to work, he will wash it. He is awesome. I head to the phone, to call dad but no reply, he must be on a call. On my way to the chapel I go. A quick knock on Chaplain Estrin’s door, and I enter. He asks if I need anything, and I tell him, “Yes, please open the attic and allow me to get the water hose so I could clean the air conditioner filters”. Chaplain Estrin gets me what I need and I get to work. Up into the attic I go, I shut off the a/c handler, and pull out the six washable, metal framed filters. I put them on a cart, take them outside with me, connect the hose, and wash them thoroughly.
Back into the attic I go, place the filters back into the unit, turn on the system, and climb down the attic’s ladder. “Chaplain, I’m done, could you please come close the attic entrance and the storage room”. We walk together and make sure everything is locked up. We should have the Islam study tonight, so I set out the sign-in sheet. Chaplain Kulungu says he has a group joining us for the study, so I have everything ready. The 6pm move is called and one from the Muslim community arrives. The study is cancelled, but thankfully that one person helps me stack up all 97 chairs off to the side so that tomorrow I could buff and clean the main floor of the chapel. The 7pm move is called, and as I am turning lights off and checking the chapel, I hear a loud “thud” on the windows, and see a bird on the floor flapping his wings. I quickly put on some disposable gloves and head outside the chapel to help the bird. He looks to have “broken his neck”, if that is possible on a bird? I pick him up and try to keep him still. I head to the Sukkah tent where Rabbi Chaplain Estrin is and sit with him while I try to keep the little bird alive.
It was so sad, feeling this little bird take his last breath and close his eyes. I did not know what to do with him, and in my position, I don’t have many options from here. The chaplain tells me we should take him to the lake, and he will do a Jewish funeral prayer, and we will place him in the lake, so that we did. I remove my gloves, grab my water bottle, say goodnight to the chaplain and head to my unit.
I make a phone call home, eat the leftovers from Mr. Rivero, shower and sit down to watch the rest of “The Voice” and now I will go to sleep early, to wake up bright and early to do a good cleaning in that chapel. All in all, it was a great day today, except for the evening tragedy with the bird, but things happen for a reason, and I tried what I could to help him.
Thank you Father God that you fulfill all your promises. Thank you God for this day. Dear Lord, be first in my mindset. Please Father, I want to rely on you first before falling into any doubt. Come into my heart so I could seek self-control before I worry about losing control of any situation that may come my way. Please help me keep a positive lifestyle going forward. Please Lord watch over my family and loved ones. Amen.
Eduardo L Valdes
02499-506
October 21, 2024
23:26
