This is a Secret Subject Swap blogging challenge. Each month a group of bloggers is given a secret challenge to interpret in their own way. The challenges are just that -- to make you step out of your comfort zone and share your thoughts about that subject in a new way.
My challenge this month gripped my heart. It would take a book to be able to answer it but then again, that is why I wrote my memoir. Battered Hope was written about so many traumas in my own life so other people would be able to relate to me on a variety of levels.
Here is the question posed to me this month and my answer is in the form of other questions:
Has
there ever been a time in your life where, in the heat of the moment,
you would have literally sold your soul for a different outcome if it
was an actual possibility and not just a phrase?
The gavel came down! "Five years!" How did my husband land in jail? I didn’t know any criminals. He was NOT a miscreant. I didn’t even know people who lived on the edge. What were we going to do?
I had no income and the lawyer informed us that Paul would be paid forty-nine cents a day during his incarceration. Actually, I didn't expect he would get anything, but, forty-nine cents a day? That was only $15 a month to pay for things like his toothpaste, chocolate bars, etc. Paul said he would send his entire check home to me. I laughed and cried at the same time. I did not know if I would cash it or frame it.
They sent him to Oakalla Prison. I knew he was going to jail but I had no idea it would be to such a hard-core place. Even so, I expected some form of cleanliness and order. I expected to see some normal looking people. I was so wrong! On the way to the prison, Paul's mother and I were confronted with a sign on the wall explaining what to expect.
It stated that a physical search of all visitors would be made by patting the body with the hands and often by exploring bodily orifices in an attempt to find concealed weapons, explosives, drugs or other contraband.
