Small Things

Whenever possible, Someone calls twice a day.  We write each other several times a week, and Sprout and I go visit him once a week.  We're lucky to have that contact that we do - plenty of people over at the jail have no family, or at least no one who keeps in touch.

I think it's awfully important to maintain contact as much as possible, to remind the person in that strange and horrible pocket reality that there is this world out here and people in it who love and value them.  Every time Someone calls or receives a letter or sees us, it helps him remember himself and his connection to us.  In the jail is it far too easy for people to lose...lose themselves, lose their families, lose hope, lose touch with anything but the walls, the windows, the fear, the anger the unhappiness...

I miss him here at the Casa.  It's chillier in the house, quieter, less...vital...

It's funny, there aren't any great big things I miss, but rather a collection of small details that mean he's with us.

I miss waking in the morning when Sprout crawls in the bed with us and wedges herself between us.  I miss hearing him get up, shower, shave, dress for work.  I miss the sound of coffee beans pouring into the grinder, and Sprout's excited egress from the bed as she scampers into the kitchen to help her Papa make coffee - she like to run the grinder and help him dump the grounds into the filter - and then the smell of the hot beverage wafting through the house.

I miss sleepy morning greetings, the kiss as he leaves for work, the occasional call telling me he'll be home for lunch, hunting for his coffee cup (my goodness, but the man can find all kinds of places to put it down and forget it!).

The sound of him breathing in his sleep, and the sound of his heart as I lie with my head on his chest, drifting.

How warm he is.

The smell of him.

Sharing funny stories or bits of news, moving about the house in tandem, watching a movie together.

Sprout's giggles and squeals when he grabs her and hugs her or tickles her with his beard, and her excited exclamations over going outside and riding bikes with him, or playing tee-ball or soccer, or raking leaves, or gardening.

Most relationships cannot survive incarceration.  We've every intention of bucking the trend.  I don't give up on people.  Jail...it changes things.  It's not just the one incarcerated who is held captive.

We'll be here when he gets out, ready to continue piecing together the mosaic of our lives one little detail at a time.  Meanwhile, I am doing my best to keep it together in the here and now.