A Change I was not ready for...

When in a Prison relationship, there are things that you know may happen and then there are things you have no idea will happen and there isn't anything you can do about it. This is where you really learn to be patient with the DOC and start to learn that they don't make things easy for you just because your loved one is in their Prison.

It was a planned surprise weekend for L. I had plans to bring my daughter to the Priosn to visit him for the first time and we were going to stay for the weekend. It was his birthday and I couldn't think of a better surprise for him. I was going to ride up with another friend of mine who had a brother in the same Prison. We would leave around 2am that Saturday morning and get there around 8am. My friend was going to rent a car for the weekend and we would share the expenses of everything. I had me and my daughters bad packed that Wednesday before the trip and we were excited. That Friday while I was at work, I got a phone call on my cell. It was from a number that I didn't recognize. So, since I was working I let it go to voicemail. I usually don't ever check my voicemail but when I went to my lunch break, curiousity got the best of me and I checked to see if the person who called left a message. I was not expecting to hear what I had heard.

It was L, and he was telling me not to come to visit for the weekend. He didn't go into detail as to why or anything but just told me that eventually he would explain everything to me. I instantly began to cry. I was upset with myself because I didn't answer the phone. It scared me that he called from a regular phone and not through the phones where the calls are either prepaid or collect. A million and three things were going through my mind and I couldn't control myself. I was having an anxiety attack and didn't even know it. I called my friend to see if her brother had called her thinking maybe the prison is on lockdown. But she called the Prison and they advised her that there was no lockdown and that her brother could receive visits. I was too emotional to make the call myself, so I called L's sister to find out what she could. She called and all they would tell her was that we should wait until L called before visiting. That did not calm me down. I started to think that maybe L could have gotten into some trouble. Another friend of mine made sense when she told me that she would doubt they would have let L make a call if he was going to the hole. That calmed me down a lot but I was still worried. I called L's parents when I was on my way home from work and agreed to go visit them for the weekend. I was glad they asked me to, because I don't think it would have been a good idea for me to stay home in the condition I was in.

So me and my daughter got on the Amtrak train and headed to his parents house. I let them listen to the message on my phone. They cheered me up and got my mind off of the worrying for the weekend. Then on Sunday morning, something told me to check the Pennsylvania Inmate Locator online. I put in all of L's information and it came up that L was in a different Prison. My heart sank. What the heck was going on? The prison he was currently at was only a hour away from the Prison that he was previously at, so why the transfer? It was just weird to me. I knew that I couldn't call and find out anything because they wouldn't tell me anything over the phone. I went home that night after thanking L's family for letting me come for the weekend and I went to work that Monday morning. I began to be obsessed with the inmate locator and checking L's location status almost every hour. Nothing had changed but I figured something had to change because this transfer to this facility just did not make any real sense.

I still wrote to L every day, only I held on to the letters and didn't mail them until I was sure of where L was. Thank goodness that I did, because Tuesday morning when I checked the inmate locator this time it said "N/A". I was even more confused then I was on Sunday with the first location change. Not knowing anything was killing me. I kept my phone glued to me because I knew that L would call me with information as soon as he could. It was hard to keep my composure while at work until I was inside my home. I cried every night. I cried while I wrote to him begging him in my letters to call me because I was worried sick about him. The only letters I was receiving were letters that he wrote before he was transfered. That Tuesday night I came home and had to make myself eat something. While I sat with my daughter eating our dinner, my phone rang. Again it was a number that I did not recognize but this time I was answering it. (Sigh) It was a woman whose brother was at a prison and he had asked her to call me for L. She connected the call so that L and I could talk for a couple of minutes. My heart sank when I heard that it was him. Joy filled my heart that he was okay and not in any trouble. But what happened next, I was not expecting at all.

L told me that he was in Michigan. Yes, Michigan. I felt myself getting upset all over again. Pennsylvania prisons were starting to get over crowded and the Doc started to transfer level one and two prisoners to Michigan. Me and L had this conversation before about him going to Michigan but we had thought they weren't doing any more transfers there. While some prisoners were transfered there against their will, L actually asked to be transfered there because he had heard that the time goes by a little smoother there. We never spoke of it anymore after that. But now here he was, in Michigan. He gave me his DOC number so that I could start sending his letters there. I felt better knowing that he was okay and not in any harm, but my heart hurt because I knew that I wouldn't see L as often anymore. I was use to seeing him at least once a month. That would be impossible now. I knew I had to think of something fast.

For the next two to three weeks, it took lots of adjustment for me to get back to normal. This prison in Michigan was rather slow with doing everything. I wrote to L every day just as I did when he was in Pennsylvania. Only now his letters took almost a full week for them to get to him. When L wrote to me, it took almost the same amount of time. Even if I used Jpay it was slow. When L was in Pa, if I wrote a jpay letter he woudl get it the next day. In Michigan, it took them two to three days to give it to him. During those two to three weeks, I also hadn't talked to him over the phone. I was back to having anxiety attacks. Crying myself to sleep. I had gotten so use to getting his letters and hearing his voice that I wasn't allowing myself to remain calm knowing that he was okay.

By the end of the three weeks of horror, me and L had finally gotten some order to everything. I had set us up a phone account and it actually was better then when he was in Pa. We were now able to talk to each other at least once a day. For some reason, it was cheaper for him to call me from Michigan. Go figure. I had gotten use to the time it took them to process and give him my mail. Now all we had to do was figure out how I was going to get out there to visit him. L was adoment about me not spending an arm and a leg to come out there. He didn't want me to come see him at a inconvience. Honestly, I didn't have it like that anyway, so I knew that if I was going to go there to visit him, it would have to be at a clearance rate.

First, I looked up airfare hotel and car rental. Lets just say that all of that was defniately not in the budget. For a weekend and only one person traveling, I really didn't want the trip to go over $500.00. L still thought that was too much to spend to come see him. While he fought with me about the cost of traveling to see him, I got on the computer and thought about different ways people traveled to other states. After lots of online googling, I came up with the idea to travel on the Greyhound Bus. The cost of a roundtrip ticket was less then half of a one way plane ticket to Michigan. The only problem with that was, it would be a 21 hour bus ride to get there. Yes, your reaction right now is just what my reaction was at that time. But at that moment I was also thinking of the price of the bus ride. Then came the car rental. I would have to catch a ride from the bus station to the airport to get a rental. And the cost for the rental would have been about 150.00 if I used their insurance. I contimplated not using their insurance and getting the rental for a bargain price of $55.00, but then I thought about the cost I would pay had I been in a car accident. I am a good driver but with me not knowing where I was going, I didn't want to take a chance. So then I came up with the idea of getting a hotel near the Prison and catching a cab to and from the Prison. So, I went online and found a hotel that was only about 4 miles from the Prison and got a quote. I added that plus a guess of how much I would pay for a cab ride and it ended up being cheaper then with me just having a rental car. So I booked the hotel and bus ticket. I wasn't going to tell L how I was getting there because I was sure that he would tell me no because of the long bus ride. I couldn't keep it a secret that long. When I told him, of course he was worried and not sure if he wanted me to take the ride. I explained the cost and that I would be driving through other cities like Cleveland and Detroit and I would be able to take pics and see other cities that I had never been to. After about a week of going back and forth with him, he finally was on my side with everything.

I will tell you on the next blog how my trip went. This blog shows you just how patient you have to be when your loved one is in Prison. You can't go into it thinking that everything will always go as planned. Nothing is on your time. Its the DOC's time and they move as fast or as slow as they want. They don't do things that will benefit you all the time. They do what is convienant for them. I had to learn that the hard way. I look back now and I pray that if another transfer happens, that I am able to take the experience from this transfer and apply it then. I don't want to be how I was back then. I hope to be stronger and better prepared emotionally for anything that comes along this journey.