We in America seem to observe Mother's Day in different ways. Some give their own mother a card (like I did a few days earlier since I was able to see her twice in one week and give her the card on one of those visits). Others call their moms or take them out to Sunday brunch. But as I write this reflecting on the Mother's Day just past, I am required to look at it from a totally different vantage point.
This year, I in a sense observed two Mother's Days - one of them with my own mother who has been a very faithful ally, staunch supporter, and loving person throughout all of the years of my earthly existence. And the other, you ask? That one was spent giving special gifts to mothers of another kind - to the spouses, mothers, grandparents, and other family members of men who are incarcerated in the two state prison facilities located across the road from a family visitor center that used to serve as the office of a once-thriving cotton gin.
It's sad in one sense to see a place where cotton and other agricultural crops were once grown, processed, sold, and shipped to various places throughout the world just fifteen years ago as a point that is now just another cog in one of the largest prison systems in the world. It's sad to have to see people drive all night from halfway across this great state for stints going up to six to eight hours straight just so they might be able to go with their loved ones for a prison church service which lasts, at the most, an hour and a half and then spend whatever little precious time they can for a visit with their loved one and then have to drive all the way back home so that they can be on time for whatever activities await them the next morning.
And it's even sadder to have to see the kids of those prisoners who can't even see their dads because the prison system will not allow people under the age of 18 to even enter into the front gates. It breaks my heart to have to hear the taunts of one sibling to another about "if you're bad, they'll throw you in jail." All because of a situation that these individuals could not in any way directly control - is that a way that anyone in his or her right mind would wish to spend Mother's Day? I definitely would think not. Do you want to know who some of the most innocent victims of someone's else crime really are? I can tell you this - that I saw some of them up close and personal a couple of weeks ago. And the surprising thing about it is this - in the entire criminal justice system, the families of these prisoners are the ones who are usually the most forgotten and who get so easily lost in the shuffle.
