Are you registered for the next "Shabbat Beineinu"? 11.13.15
5:00pm - Special Tot Shabbat (challah and grape juice provided)
6:30pm - Musical service followed by a really delicious dinner. All Angels Church - 80th/Broadway - Everyone is welcome. Bring friends!
It's been a few months and I thought it was time for a "Jen F." update. A little background to make sure everyone is up to speed. Jen is a relatively new friend. We met last March. She is 34, and a mother of two daughters, 19 and 17. Jen is smart, beautiful, courageous, funny and studying towards a BA. She is also serving 25 to life at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. I visit Jen once a month.
On my last visit, it took over an hour from processing me to sitting with Jen. I am all alone waiting in the visitor's lobby. After about 20 minutes, the loud speaker bellows "next"! It's my turn to enter the processing room. The guard checking me in is not in a good mood. She challenges the purpose of my visit and remarks; "she's not really Jewish you know". A second guard watches me remove my shoes and walk through the xray machine (like the airport). He isn't in a good mood either. He scrutinizes the contents of my small ziplock bag making sure I don't violate any rules. I actually do, by accidentally leaving the business card for the taxi service inside the plastic bag. He doesn't let me leave it there or throw it away. I have to throw it away back in the visitor's lobby or put it back in my locker. Really! I want to shout. But, I say nothing. I put my shoes back on. I go back out to the waiting area. I put the business card back in my locker. I do (exactly) as I'm told (even though I really want to say something). I go back to the processing room. I remove my shoes, again. I go through the xray machine, again. The guard pads down my arms, legs and back. He stamps the top of my right hand (always the top of my right hand). I am now fully processed. There isn't any warmth or exchange of pleasantries.
I make my way through the three steel doors and enter the main building with the visitor's room. This guard, who needs to confirm that I have been authorized to enter, is also in a mood, and it's not a good one. "It's winter. Put on pants." she says. It was close to 75 degrees that day. I am wearing leggings and a tunic with an open cardigan. "Does it button?" She snaps. And there it is, again. That uneasy, nauseous feeling I always get at some point during my visit. "Have I done something wrong? Have I committed a crime? Is this the time that they decide not to let me leave?" It's not rational or logical. The guard calls to let "them" know; "Fecu has a visitor". I always wonder why they don't make this call when they first start processing me? It feels like I am being processed, like deli meat; measured, sliced, packaged and stamped. I don't say anything (even though I really want to). I wonder what happened to these people to make them so bitter? I want to believe they started in this profession because they believed people deserve a second chance, even when they do something really terrible. But I am finding it harder and harder to maintain that narrative. I'm finally in the visitor's room. Picture a school cafeteria.
Jen finally enters. Her smile extends all the way back across the room. We embrace and start chatting like old friends who are just out, meeting for lunch. Some of our time together is spent talking about clothing and hair. She thought mine was a perm. But most of the conversation is heavy and deep. Jen is really struggling with her inability to be a mom to her kids. She worries about them and is desperate to be in touch with them. Any relationship with them is completely dependent on her own mom. Jen is frustrated and we start reviewing the tools she has to cope with all of the feelings she is experiencing; meditation, journaling, affirmations - many of the same tools I use to cope with all of the emotions I am juggling. Jen has been working hard in each of her college courses and she continues to spend her "free" time fighting for improvements in the prison system. She is trying to get the hourly pay rate increased. It's currently less than $1.
We take a break to purchase food. Jen is hungry. She is always hungry. She "orders", two cheeseburgers, Greek yogurt, iced tea, a Hershey bar with Almonds and a Snickers. Remember, she can't touch the money, the machines or the microwave. She stands behind the black tape and points as I make the selections for her. We return back to our table. Jen has sits facing the guard. She has to. I can sit across from her or next to her. But, I choose to have my back to the guard because I am still frustrated with the experiences I had from when I was being processed.
Each time I visit, Jen shares more about her past, more about her family and the traumas she experienced as a child. She tells me about the time she saw her father knock out her mother's front teeth. Somehow she gets to school. Jen starts frantically running around the classroom yelling "Someone help my mommy. Someone help my mommy." Jen is five. When I was five, my dad played "fort" with us in our family room. Jen's hysterics at school, end up saving her mommy. That same day, Jen, her mom, sister and brother move into a shelter. A few weeks later, somehow they make their way to New York to live in one of the many housing facilities in Hell's Kitchen. Jen thinks her grandmother, her Jewish, white grandmother made all of the arrangements. Jen hasn't seen her father since. The rest of this story will have to wait for another time.
We have been talking for close to three hours and I have to start getting ready to leave. Jen tells me she is reading the newly published "Between the World and Me", by Ta-NeHisi Coates. She asks if I would read it with her. It's a letter from Ta-Nehisi to his son about being Black in a White world. Of course I say "Yes".
We hug. This time, a little bit longer than when we first see each other. I say "Shabbat Shalom" and tell her I will be back next month. I walk towards the exit. Jen walks in the other direction, towards the door that leads to the room where she will be strip searched before she returns to her cell. Each time I visit, each time I leave, each time Jen leaves the visitor's room, she is strip searched. I want to take her with me.
I do not condone the behavior that received "25 to life". And, I can't help wondering, believing, that if we had real systems in place to provide quality living and learning environments - food, shelter and education, it's highly unlikely, at least less likely that Jen would be known as #04G0854 (her inmate number).
Mekor Ha'Chayiim, Source of Life, as we move into Shabbat, may we take one of the 25 hours and consciously acknowledge the freedom and privilege of our lives. May we take another one of the 25 hours to dedicate being generous and compassionate towards the other. May we take one more of the 25 hours and commit to doing one thing that honors the narrative from our Creation story, that everyone is created B'tzelem Elohim - in the image of God, in the image of whatever is greater than the self, greater than all of the selves together.
Shabbat shalom u'mevorach,
Laurie
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