From Dragonfly: It is Night in my Soul

I've mentioned Nurse before. She is 59 years old and was a health care administrator before finding herself assigned to Carswell for a crime she wasn't aware she was committing (she sent money to her son being a missionary in Darfur, not knowing that it was a crime to send money to help citizens of Darfur because it is seen as a country of terror... her son was working directly with people camps who had almost no food or water and horrible living conditions due to their government's policies. Her son died two years ago, this last week, from Malaria. He was beautiful!!). Anyway, Nurse has a strong personality (like me), and we talk a lot about the realities of this place. She has been here about a month and a half and her only medical issue is that she needs to eat a special diet due to her bariatric surgery that she chose to have to help control her diabetes. Her dietary needs have not been met - a fight she faces daily with the medical team and staff at Carswell. She is doing everything in her power to get transferred to a camp much closer to home, but if that ever happens, it would be a long ways down her sentence. Nothing happens quickly here.

Anyway, Nurse receives a special meal (that does not necessarily meet the "soft foods" diet she is supposed to be on) at every meal time. She walks up to a special line, where she is handed a hot or cold tray. This is put on an empty tray, so she can get something from the salad "bar" if she wants to enjoy our iceberg lettuce option. Since her arrival in early October, this has been her routine. Last night, some inmates were trying to cause a scene in order to sneak a bag of cheese out of the dining hall. I have no idea who these inmates were, but somehow they told the officer that Nurse (someone they don't know) took two trays of food (not allowed by DOP rules) and turned the C.O.'s attention in Nurse's direction (to distract him from seeing their sneaking of the cheese out of the hall). So, the officer starts yelling at Nurse and she has no idea what she's done wrong. She didn't have two trays of food, she just had the two trays handed to her by the "medical diets" line. Even medical diets stated this, when asked. So, the officer then decides that Nurse must have been the "decoy" for the cheese thieves to get their cheesy goods out of the chow hall. She didn't even know them and was sitting and eating with several of our mutual pals.

So, Nurse, who is not quite as passive as I am, tries to argue her truth (something that is forbidden here) and is taken to the lieutenant's office. She didn't get to fully eat her meal, which she must follow up with water, or it won't dissolve, due to her bariatric surgery, so she starts feeling ill. At the Lieutenant's office, The lieutenant does not allow Nurse to defend herself. He says that his officers tell the truth and inmates lie (we are all just inmates...) and gives her extra duty picking up garbage outside. It is under 30 degrees outside and freezing. Withing the first hour, she vomits (still not feeling well, since she did not properly eat her meal). The officer takes Nurse back to the lieutenant's office and the lieutenant tells her that he is writing her a shot (disciplinary paperwork) which would result in a severe penalty.

Nurse comes back to the unit and finds us and tells us what happened. Later, as we are all getting ready for count, Nurse's name is called and she is brought back to the lieutenant's office and has to "read" the paperwork. I know nothing of what the recourse will be. She was too distraught to come out of her room after count last night, and since she lives upstairs in our unit, I could not go to her. All I know is that she has been treated WRONG in this scenario. She did nothing wrong, but she is being punished anyway.

It reminds me of the day that a lieutenant screamed at me in the chow hall after I did nothing wrong. It was that moment that I realized that I don't have a "voice" in prison. As long as I wear the prison uniform, I am just the same as anyone else. If some inmates lie, we all lie. If some inmates are bad, we are all bad. If some inmates steal, we all steal. It is not the truth, but that's the way we are treated. When something bad happens, all the inmates are punished - either as a compound or as a unit. One inmate will cause trouble over a television and the televisions are cut off from the entire unit for days. One inmate leaves food in a microwave, and the microwave is taken away from everyone. One inmate doesn't go to the lieutenant's office on time and the entire compound is closed and all inmates have to stay in their units. That is how a large place like Carswell and control 1800 inmates. They just see us all as the same.

Anyway, on November 10th (2 weeks ago), Nurse went to her church service and then turned around and wrote something. I want to share it with you: "Since October 10th time has stood still for me here. The sun set on my soul and has not risen yet. The longest night presses on and the daylight has never come. I am learning patience but it is so difficult. I see women drop and hit concrete several times a day and night. We are tortured by punishing circumstances and stand for hours without chairs. Sleeping block cells on metal bunks 3 feet separating us and lights on at all times. I hear about punishment and pain and feel it deeply every moment I am here. It is night in our soul. Thank you for your prayers, .."Every link in the chain..." Romans 7:15-8:2 A chain is only as strong as its weakest link - and so our society - it's future - is at the mercy eventually of its worst members. I see these people every day, it's lowest moral standards, its most elemental cruelty. For human nature, like water, seeks it's lowest level. All without God. If it were not true, America would be emerging better, cleaner, finer - less violent, more loving than she was fifty year ago. After two hundred years of existence she would have by now nearly abolished crime, immortality, perversion, godlessness and all greed. Utopia would be within sight - for never in all of recorded history has a nation been so lavished with material and intellectual blessings. But this hasn't happened, Why? It is natural to blame the demise on the governing parties, economic indiscretion, international faux pas and various groups of society. But the fact remains that what we are experiencing today is the accumulation of the acts of millions of us imperfect people upon each other. Individual greed, selfishness, God-rebellion, immortality, and materialism, all multiplied thousands of times. Take yourself and multiply your weaknesses, your sins by the number of people in the U.S.; then by the number of people in the world, and you will have a picture of the quality of the chain by which we are all trying to life ourselves up. Pray for the sunrise to come. For me to get out of here and be kept safe while I am here. Pray for patience and understanding. Just one of you can make a difference. God's will in any circumstances is more far reaching than we dream. Make good decisions. Look at wikipedia for FMC Carswell and taste my daily/nightly life. Forgive and excuse my indifference by thinking I cannot be used by God. Thank him for your lives and your freedoms. Hug one another and continue to pray. Help us remember we are no better than another without God. Be faithful. Pray for me. I stand in the gap for you. I think of you all often. I wonder if this month has lasted as long for you. Where you think I am or what you think I look like now, having lost 100 pounds (9 this week). They do not give me any supplements, they feed us the worst spoiled foods with sick laughter. They take away prescriptions vital to our existence yet sustain us here to live out our punishment. Some around me are here for life, some for 6 months. Mothers and daughters, murderers, mafia, white collar. I am here too. In disbelief I wake every day and the sunrise has yet to come. There is no place else I can go. I don't know what this week will hold but I know that prayer changes things. Pray for relationships, for the old ones and the babies. Be blessed..." (NURSE).

Nurse and I may have different religions and be here for different crimes, but we all experience the same reality. There is so little good here. We become observers of obscenity, crime, disregard, pain, punishment, and greed every moment of every day. My thoughts are with Nurse at this moment. We all have our lowest moments here, and now it is her turn. There's nothing anyone can do. We can all just acknowledge the unfairness of the darkness in this place and support each other through the roughest patches. How hard it is to explain this to those on the outside. Those whose eyes have not seen such behavior and pain. It is not the worst in society - there are those trying to survive in places like Darfur or on the streets of any major city. There are those who survived the horrors of the Holocaust, and refuse to speak of their memories. Such memories are almost gone forever (except in writings, books, and movies). I write this so that there is record of these memories, here at Carswell. They are not like the horrors of WWII, but they are our own personal wars - wars within ourselves to stay strong and survive - to support each other and even laugh once in a while. For those who are here for life, I don't know how they survive, for the rest of us, we just count down the days and pray that somehow, our time will be shortened. I join Nurse in saying that it is "night in my soul." The darkness never retreats.