Thirty Second Visit To Taft

Last week was the first time in a while that I've driven to Taft alone. Most of the summer I've enjoyed the company of my new friend Carole, but since she has moved to Santa Barbara I'm driving solo for the time being. I miss bouncing ideas off her, hearing stories about her experiences in the system and speculating on how our visits will go.

This particular Friday our son David also came to visit Ron. We enjoy his company so much and Ron looks forward to his monthly (at least) visits with great anticipation. Friday David came in and told us that a conversation Ron had with Michael Santos was the topic of Michael's latest blog. You can check out Michael's blog at www.michaelsantos.net. I have written about Michael before. He has been in the prison system longer than anyone else at Taft, yet he is upbeat and anxiously looking forward to his future. I admire greatly his attitude and hard work. Anyway, his most recent blog talks about the importance of balance in one's life. After 24 years in prison, Michael is focused on his career and success. Ron told him that when he was younger he had a similar attitude and that he had missed so much during the early years of our marriage. Travel and business forced him to miss many family dinners and evenings with the children. Ron's goal after his release is to spend the remaining years of his life making me happy and continuing to improve our marriage. Michael was interested to hear all this and feels that he came away from the conversation with a much more balanced idea about work and marriage. Knowing Michael and Carole I am sure they will be able to balance both.

Usually the time spent with David, Ron and myself is full of funny stories and jokes, but for some reason this week the conversation got more serious. Ron mentioned to David that he would only be coming to Taft about 9 more times, and the three of us got into a conversation about how we all like to count. I know I've talked about this before, but here I go again. Ron was saying that when he gets in the shower one of the things he does is count. He counts how many more showers he will take at Taft, how many more visits from me he will receive, how many more holidays he will be separated from his family. So David starts telling us how he counts Ron's time. How many more phone calls will he get from his Dad and how many more holidays will he be gone for. I chimed in with how I count. How many more miles will I drive, how many more weeks will I be visiting, how many more hours will I spend in the car driving to and from Taft and how many more crappy meals will I have in the visiting room. It's a game we all play with ourselves. It doesn't make time go any faster, but somehow it feels good to do.

So this visit was a good one. We talked about loneliness and how we both deal with that, but I will put that discussion off for another week. I'm getting ready to drive home tonight and count the jelly beans in my jar. That's another way I count the days. I have the exact number of jelly beans in the jar to last until Ron returns and I remove one each day. Last time David came to visit he ate two jelly beans, so I've got to check the number. I love to count!