Filing into the prison visiting room with the rest of the ABE students, I found a seat and dropped into it. It was September 2016, and the quarterly education meeting was about to begin. The visiting room furniture had been re-arranged. Now blue plastic chairs faced a projection screen and podium. Students from every class filled the room to receive awards.

Mr. Frye, a math teacher, and Ms. Schaibley, my boss, co-hosted the event. “We’re going to have a spelling bee six weeks from now,” Ms. Schaibley announced as the room settled. “If you’d like to participate, we’ll have sign-up forms in your classroom.” The room rumbled with voices, excited students whispering to each other. “Everyone will be permitted to attend,” Ms. Schaibley continued, “and prizes will be awarded.”

My co-worker Sylvia sat in her wheelchair nearby. A fellow inmate, she was 68 years old and a former English professor from a Boston University. We first met in the mental health unit in 2011. The years had seen her change from a very depressed and isolating woman to a helpful co-worker in the ABE English department. They had also ravaged her mind and body; dementia slowly claimed her brilliance and pain forced her into a wheelchair.

I appreciated her, although we couldn’t be more different politically or religiously. Sylvia was often my personal tutor as I drafted and polished essays for my college classes. I respected her immensely.

Do you have mentors who invested themselves in you despite personal difficulties or differences? Have you invested yourself in others who were different from you, even when it was challenging?

“Giggles had begun and I struggled to keep a straight face”

The laughter helped ease the stress I felt in the face of the looming trial. Soon I’d be fighting in court to keep my parental rights with my youngest son Tim. The trial would come just days after my daughter’s 10^th birthday. I hadn’t spoken with her in a year and half, didn’t even know where she was.

I think of 2016 as the most devastating year of my life while simultaneously being the best year of my life. The trial of my parental rights wasn’t a singular bad event. It was rather the climax of many. The months leading up to it brought intensity to past conflicts I’d tried to forget.

“Mom, Tim’s caseworker said if I lose my parental rights, you will also lose the ability to have any contact with Tim,” I explained. I wanted to make sure everyone understood the possible outcomes of this trial. I’d been told if I lost no one in my family would be allowed contact with Tim.

Ignoring my assertion, she replied, “We are retired. This is our special time. We want to enjoy it. This is our time!” Silence followed. She had not addressed the issue I raised, leaving me confused. Over the next several months, despite my repeated attempts to share this information, I was always met with silence.

I began to wonder if my family knew something I didn’t. To this day, I don’t know the answer to that. Were they told something different? Did they wish to keep it a secret? Or did they not care one way or the other? I have no idea.

I pictured finding Tim a home in Minnesota as rescue from his difficult foster care experiences.  I also saw it as a path for Tim to learning about God through godly caretakers, which is desirable.

It was during this year, 2016, that God had begun a new work in me. An important part of that work was in my relationships with others, especially my parents. I became committed to honoring and respecting them. I began to ask God frequently for help in doing this. I think Satan hated it.

The situation heated up, as if Satan wanted to remind me of every reason to disobey this command.

“You know your mom likes to tell everyone how awful you are, don’t you?” my cousin asked me.

In fact, I did not. In my late twenties at the time, I thought teenage days of conflict with my parents were long past. My face must have shown it, so she explained, “I was at a baby shower and your mom was there. She pulled a letter out of her purse she said you’d written when you were 15 years old. She passed the letter around and said it demonstrated how horrible a daughter you are.”

I couldn’t remember writing the letter. I had no idea what it contained. I was hurt. I did not understand, but things didn’t improve.

Years later, when I was in jail, my husband came alone with my daughter, 3 years old at the time, for a special visit.

Vivianne’s beautiful blonde hair had grown into beautiful long curls. By the age of three she had never experienced a haircut. Her long hair was precious, cherubic. I waited at the video visiting booth, phone in hand so we could talk. The screen lit up and I gasped. Vivianne’s hair had been chopped off into a very unflattering bob with bangs. I burst into tears.

“What happened?!?” I choked out, upset. My husband explained that my mother had agreed to watch Vivianne recently. When he returned to pick her up, he found Vivi with a new haircut. I felt sick, weak, hurt. Tears continued to flow as I tried to understand.

I felt terrible as poor Vivi, who was not having a nice special visit with me, watched as I cried and cried. The challenges of living in jail had left me with little emotional resources to deal with this type of betrayal. I ended the visit shortly after it began, unable to rebound.

Calling my mother afterwards I asked her about this. She stiffly rebuffed my question with the retort, “Well if someone has to watch her, we shouldn’t have to comb that long hair of hers.”

“Why didn’t you ask me first?” I asked.

My mom choked out a laugh that wasn’t a laugh at all, as if I were ridiculous. More – as if I were irrelevant. While I cried her hostility was palpable over the phone.

Things got worse.

After I was sent to prison my dad reassured me that they would care for my children.

“There’s no running water! No heat, no electricity!” I stammered out, utterly shocked.

“He cannot take them! My restraining order is still in effect.” I rushed out.

“I don’t believe you, I don’t believe that’s true,” my dad responded.

“It is true,” I countered, “and it would be illegal to give them to him,” I finished. I waited for a reply. I was shocked by its force.

“Well if he can’t have them, they will have to go somewhere else, because we don’t want them here. In fact, you had better find a new home for them immediately. I don’t want them here even another day,” my dad stormed angrily.

Frantic, I asked the prison for help, and was put in touch with a staff member whose job was to help incarcerated mothers. Entering her office in an area of the prison I’d never seen, she allowed me to use the phone to call social services.

“I am in prison and need a foster home for my children,” I told her.

“Where are they now?” she asked, to which I explained they were with my parents.

“We only put children in foster care who don’t have a place to stay,” she responded slowly, clearly confused. “Why do you want them in foster care if they stay with your parents?”

“I don’t want them in foster care,” I stated forcefully, trying not to cry. “My parents want them in foster care,” I stressed. “My parents don’t want them.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” she answered. I didn’t blame her. I could not convince this caseworker to understand this bizarre situation and act. I gave up, defeated.

The next day, Friday, my parents refused to pick my children up from school. The school principal called the police for help, who in turn called social services. Police and social workers from two different counties arrived. They began to argue over who had jurisdiction, neither wanting responsibility. Finally they left without resolution, convinced it was not their problem. The principal was alone again with my children.

He called my parents for a second time and explained, “The school day has long ended, and I need to go home. You must come pick up these children.” My parents did so.

Frantic, I spent the remainder of the weekend talking to police and trying to convince my parents to obey the restraining order – which the police strongly explained to them was the legal thing to do. Monday found my parents giving my children to my husband, calling the police after he left. My parents would insist in the future that they “did the right thing,” and “did nothing wrong,” and that “it doesn’t matter anyway because it all turned out fine regardless.”

Recently I read an article about “Emotionally Immature Parenting” which hit home for me when it said, “It’s difficult to be vulnerable with them. They rarely introspect about the reasons behind their behaviors, and are dismissive of the emotional needs of others.” The article goes on to say, “An adult child of emotionally immature parents might end up an internalizer, a people-pleaser who self-sacrifices their own needs to take care of others. Or they might become an externalizer, who is reactive, looks to others to self-soothe and can be emotionally disruptive.”

“if someone tells us our behavior is hurting or angering them, and we continue to insist that we are right and entitled to treat them that way, then to me, that is emotional immaturity full-force.”

I also began to understand that I’d been relying too heavily on other human beings for needs only God can fully meet. God was allowing it to become painfully clear that He is the only Person Who can be fully relied upon, so that I would in my heart be certain of the fact. God hates idols, anyone or anything that we believe can meet our need fully other than Himself.

Now that I was learning these lessons about my family, He was about to take away my son.