I finish my small morning workout, pushing for that one more rep within my new daily routine. I make a coffee and return to my bunk. I see the pictures of my family, laying in my locker, smiling at me. I long to go home and be with them, finally, for the first time in my life. It is sad to say, but it is true. I’ve never, really, been with my family. My family was not the priority in my life, my addictions were. I would like to lie and say otherwise, but I can’t and my family knows this.
On the outside of prison, I had a grandiosity of an ego. I valued myself by what material possessions I had. I was a shallow man with no depth, now that I look back on myself. I needed to control everything and everyone around me. I used to tell people that this was my game board and if you want to play then you have to play by my rules. I laugh at who I was back then. I didn’t have a game board, I had only a small box. A box only, barely, big enough for myself and whatever I possessed to fit in. ( I picture this as a small box with two eye holes cut-out for me to look out thru) If you wanted anything I had you had to come inside my box so I could control you. Drugs and, some, money was mainly all that I ever had and so you can imagine the types of people that would come into my box. (broken arrows as myself) Not my wife or children, I picture them standing on the outside of the box talking to me, trying to give me hugs and showing me their love, but it was totally impossible. They, themselves, could see and feel the barrier of my addictions, but I couldn’t.
My youngest son Casey fell into drugs. That was somewhat difficult for me to acknowledge back then, but is totally heartbreaking for me now to think about. To know and see one of my children fall into an addiction, and for me, his father, a life line that is suppose to be there for him to pull him to safety is not there for him. But instead, my drug-induced ego is thinking ‘well he wants to be like me’ How totally stupid is that to think?
Now, it’s to late for me to help my son Casey. He passed six weeks before I was arrested by the U.S. Marshalls.
I remember at Casey’s funeral, my son Nathan sharing his tears of grief with me, but also , I see now, trying to tell me something thru the eye holes in my box. He said ‘ dad we don’t care about your money or anything else, we just want you’. I remember my daughter telling me the same thing at one time. But I couldn’t feel their words thru my box. My wife, 43 years of holding on and praying for me, still stands waiting for me to come home. For me to come out of my box.
My wife has said to me that Casey used to express his fears for what I was getting myself into. I could never see, until now, That Casey just wanted the father he never experienced. The same as my wife and my other children. I now look can look at the pictures of my family, and their smiling faces, and feel more love than I ever had thru my box. 🙂
“broken arrows–allow HIM into your storm”
