“Pops loved me sending letters from his cell/trying to get my ma and grandma to help put up his bail/had a better chance of finding water in hell/he send me lessons and I send him back pictures through the mail”
Those are the opening lines of a song I recorded late 2007 called “Pops Loved Me”. Since I was about 4 years old my dad spent close to 20 of the 25 years of my life in prison. Graduations, birthdays, holidays, weddings, funerals, new born babies and an extended list of a million more things were among what he missed during that time. This past Memorial Day weekend was the first chance I got see him as a free man in 8 years. It was the first time I ever fired up the bbq grill with him. First time I ever drove him somewhere in my car. And it was the first time he ever heard one of the half dozen songs that I had written inspired by him and my childhood.
People ask me if it was awkward, uncomfortable, or weird being around him after so long. To me it wasn’t at all. It was a lot more awkward being patted down and searched, escorted into a guarded room with steel doors, and sitting at a round table that he wasn’t’ allowed to get up from without asking an officer in the visiting room. I felt more uncomfortable those times I said something about my dad to a stranger, a friend, or girlfriend knowing they have no idea who he is. It was more weird sending him letters instead of calling him or going over to the house and talking to him whenever I felt like it. Unlike a lot of kids who grew up without their fathers, I was fortunate enough to still have some kind of relationship with him that taught me a lot at a young age. You always hear “learn from the mistakes of others” and learning from his mistakes played a big role in the things I decided to do and not to do.
The thing about it is if you look at this picture, or talk to my dad in person it wouldn’t be anything that says “hmmm that guy strikes me as a convicted felon.” That’s because he is no different from you or me in a lot of ways. People who end up incarcerated are fathers, brothers, sons, mothers, daughters, lawyers, doctors, thieves, murders, and innocent bystanders. For a lot of people who go in to places like Stateville, Logan, Taylorville, Pontiac, and Menard its a matter of making one wrong choice. Its a matter of having one friend talking them into one bad decision. Or a matter of them thinking “this is my only choice” to get even, to get money, to get respect, or to just to get by. If you ever have known someone who has been/is locked up, let them be your example to learn from.
-Erik
Real Talk 