Opinion - Columns - Julie Lynem

Published: Sunday, Jun. 21, 2009

Julie Lynem: The joy and pain of seeing dad in prison

Comments (0) |

For four hours on Friday, a select group of inmates at the California Men’s Colony were more than prisoners serving time. They were dads catching up, playing games and eating lunch with their kids.

The annual Father’s Day visit was part of “Get on the Bus,” a program that connects incarcerated fathers and mothers with their children. The event, funded primarily through private donations, was started a decade ago after Sister Suzanne Jabro, who worked in the prison ministry with women inmates at Chowchilla, brought 17 people there.

This year, more than 50 buses transported about 1,500 children and their caregivers free of charge to prisons throughout California to see their parents (the Mother’s Day program was postponed until next Friday because of concerns about swine flu).

In San Luis Obispo County, local coordinators, with the help of hundreds of community volunteers, provided breakfast to the more than 500 riders on 11 buses, and hosted a reception and dinner after the trip. Children also received a teddy bear, T-shirt, photograph and a travel bag with donated goodies.

Every year, the stories of reunification are as joyful as they are painful. Some of the visitors scheduled on this trip were teens meeting their dads for the first time, a 35-year-old woman who had not seen her father since she was an infant, and three young adult children whose father is dying.

Local families who have lived in the county for years because of an incarcerated loved one also attended, sharing their common experience with others, said Sister Theresa Harpin of Nativity of Our Lady Catholic Church, regional coordinator for the Central Coast.

“It’s a very strong bond, and you can’t break that,’’ she said. “It’s not the best of circumstances (seeing a father in prison), but it may be the only circumstances.’’

My older brother, who spent five years in a correctional facility in Michigan, recently shared how he looked forward to his children’s monthly visits. On occasion, I would make the long trip to Lakeland Correctional Facility in Coldwater with my niece and nephew.

Under careful watch of the guards, we would sit with him in the prison yard, eat snacks from the vending machine and take Polaroid snapshots. I remember how difficult it was for him to leave us after the hourlong visit was over, and how he waved goodbye through the chain-link fence.

“It was heartbreaking,’’ said my brother, who eventually reunited with his family. “You know you might not see them for another month, and it’s like being torn apart. The birthdays roll around, and you get pictures, and then Christmas comes, and it just goes on and on.”

Many of the other prisoners weren’t as fortunate, he recalled. Some families would just stop coming after several years; other men didn’t want their kids to see them behind bars.

As difficult as it was, at least for him, staying in touch with his children was one of the only reasons he had to hope and dream about the future.

After all, dads and moms in prison are human, too.