Tag: prison

Another brush stroke added to The Big Picture…

 

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Many of you read my article about my daughter, Jodie Lynne, getting out of prison, The Big Picture, last week.

I said, “I am asking all of you who believe to pray for us. She is walking out the prison gates with nothing but the clothes on her back, a faith that God loves her, a belief that He will help her survive and a very strong desire to not return to prison.”

You responded with encouragement, support and promises of prayers…thank you so much.

I am thrilled to report that we got our miracle. One of many in Jodie’s Journey.

Her ex-husband, currently sober, has used his recovery connections to help her get into a recovery house for women. A very structured program designed to teach women to take responsibility for their own lives, while giving them a safe place to live. This is a big deal, definitely in the miracle category, because I have called recovery programs in the area and Jodie has already burned so many bridges that most of them wouldn’t even call me back.

When she is released, she will be taking a daylong bus ride back to Tulsa and as soon as she arrives, she will be going to the house for her interview. They have two openings and all she has to do is show up sober and say she is willing to follow the program’s rules. She will be accepted into the house that very night. She will not spend even one day or one night wandering the streets, looking for shelter.

She started crying when I told her. She had planned to leave prison with a list of shelters for the homeless and now she has a bed waiting for her.

If she wants to stay straight and stay out of jail, God has given her the opportunity. It won’t be easy, but it will be possible.

She has been calling me the last few weeks full of anxiety and nearly hysterical. I kept telling her that God had a place for her, we just didn’t know where it was yet and I believed that with all my heart, but nothing I could say calmed her down. I understood her fear, but this precious girl has helped me learn to trust God, so when I could tell her that I knew where her place was, my heart was overflowing with gratitude. I told her that I believed for her when she couldn’t and I reminded her that she has done the same for me.

Again, thank you for your encouragement, support and prayers,

Jeanne Marie

The Big Picture…

 

The Big Picture…

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Hi! I haven’t been around my blog very much lately because I am in the middle of packing up my house in Florida and moving to New Hampshire.
Crazy as it sounds, I would rather be cold than hot and I am from New England.
I do have other reasons for moving. Still, I’m either insane or very brave considering the snow they had there last year.
So, the day that I close on my house in Florida is the same day that my daughter, Jodie Lynne, walks out of prison in Oklahoma.
I am asking all of you who believe to pray for us. She is walking out the prison gates with nothing but the clothes on her back, a faith that God loves her, a belief that He will help her survive and a very strong desire to not go back to prison.
I can’t go to Oklahoma on that day and I think God wants me to let her sort this one out because the timing means that I have to be here in Florida and not there with her.
Her dad and I have set aside some money so she can get an apartment, but not many landlords decide to rent to a felon, a felon without a job.
In spite of that, I am praying that God already has a safe place picked out for her. He can do that…I can’t.
Jodie and I are writing a book about how hard it is to make it and stay clean when you walk out of prison.
It’s almost impossible to start over when you have been stripped of everything but your life. Your children, dignity, self-worth, confidence and possessions, gone, and now you owe thousands and thousands of dollars in fines.
It used to be that you’d go to prison and work off your fines but now they not only add them on to your bill, they charge you for the services you require to stay free.
She has to pay to see her parole officer and she has to pay for frequent urine tests.
She owes $50,000 in child support and as soon as she gets a job they garnish her wages.
I will never defend the choices that landed my daughter in jail, but I will say this, people do horrendous things and walk away every day. All you need to walk away is money for a good lawyer.
She has no crimes against people, no violent offenses, just a bunch of petty crimes that added up to doing time as a habitual criminal.
Plus, Oklahoma has more women in prison than any other state and it’s not because they have the highest crime rate.
I make no excuses for my daughter, but as we have traveled the prison system together over the last eight years, I have realized that the women and girls who come out of prison are setup to fail.
I don’t know how anyone could come out owing about $70,000 and make it, excepting for a big miracle or a few medium size miracles.
My daughter is a beautiful woman, inside and out and when she is straight, she is my best friend in the world. When she is not straight, she is my biggest heartache.
I would like you to pray with me that she finds the strength and the courage to walk out of prison and stay sober, that she will find a job allowing her to pay her child support and fines, at least enough to stay out of jail. She doesn’t have a driver’s license because she owes child support, so her job options are very limited, confined to the area where she finds an apartment.
I never did understand how losing your license because you didn’t pay child support would help get child support from you. How do you get to work without a license?
And as for me, please pray that I stay strong as I pack about a hundred boxes, while trying to get rid of everything that I don’t care about because it costs too much to move it all and even some things I do care about.
I have to remember that in the big picture, possessions really don’t mean anything, people do.
I am moving for many complicated reasons, reasons that are far more important than fine china or knickknacks.
I care deeply about my writing, my books and my computers and even most of the books I own could go.
I’ve already gotten rid of hundreds of books and I pray for the strength and the stamina to make this move.
I am praying for the courage to allow my daughter to walk out of prison and stand on her own two feet.
My daughter and I are also writing about how going to prison damages the families of the prisoners, the parents and the grandparents, siblings and family members, anyone who loves them, moms who like me, never give up hoping and believing because they love their child.
Please pray that God and the angels cover our backs as we each struggle to do what needs to be done to change our lives for the better and please pray that we continue to move forward in faith despite the enormous odds that we have against us.
Amen and XO, Jeanne Marie

Happy Birthday, Jodie Lynne

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Happy Birthday, Jodie Lynne

April 18

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Today is my younger daughter’s fortieth birthday. Since we couldn’t be together, we created a substitute plan. We would celebrate over the phone.

When she called me, we only talked about things that made us happy. We talked about her silky-haired Chihuahua that I am raising, Maggie Mae, we talked about other dogs that we have loved through the years and we spoke of our happy dreams, instead of our nightmares.

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We talked about peanut butter and marshmallow fluff being her favorite birthday cake (today) and how grateful she was to have snacks in her locker so that she didn’t have to go to the cafeteria to eat on her birthday.

For me, as on this date every year; I am thinking about the morning that she came into my life. She made a grand entrance, all 5-pounds 6-ounces of her. Her daddy had ordered me to have a boy and he meant it, so when they told me I had a beautiful little girl, I started to cry.

It had been a rough birth, a planned C-section, but the spinal that didn’t work before they made the incision was not part of the plan, so I was a bit overwhelmed and the moment she was out, I was over-drugged to compensate for their mistake. Then, they brought her to me and the moment I saw her little face shaped like a pink heart, I fell in love with her. She was so tiny and so cute that she looked like a dolly, not like a real baby.

Everyone’s life is complicated, hindsight is an incredible tool to beat yourself with and you can do some real damage. I often find ways to blame myself for every unwise choice this beautiful woman has made, but I’m not going to do that today.

Today, I am going to celebrate her life, her birthday and the fact that when she is sober, she is full of Grace and Light. I will celebrate the day twenty years ago when she taught me to open myself to the spirit of our Universe, the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, the Stars, the Wind and the Rain. The day she taught me to stand barefoot outside and to raise my arms up to the sky so I that I could ground myself in the beauty and the strength of God’s love through the elements He created. I still try to remember to do this every morning and what my daughter taught me that day changed my life.

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Today, I will celebrate the precious gift that her aliveness gives me, no matter where she has to rest her head on her birthday.

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As my daughter falls asleep tonight, in the gritty gloom of Eddie Warrior’s Correctional Center in Oklahoma, I will fall asleep in sun-drenched Florida. But we will be together in spirit. I will hold her tight in my heart, I will keep her ever constant in my prayers and if I am blessed, tonight she will stop in for a visit as I dream.

Happy Birthday, Jodie Lynne

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Special thanks to Michelle Marie for the awesome family picture above.

Dear daughter in prison,

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Dear daughter in prison…

When you feel so alone and

there are bars on your door

I am standing beside you

of that you can be sure.

When letters don’t come

And you think you’re

forgotten

remember how

against all advice…

I still spoil you rotten.

I’m there beside you

in ways you can’t see

even though you kick

and you scream

as if you were three.

Soon your caterpillar

skin you will shed

and my beautiful

butterfly you

will be free…

hopefully before

I’m dead

or before

I’m lifting

seventy pound

care packages

at ninety-three.

Your loving mother,

Jeanne Marie

Middle Child (Jodie Lynne)

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Middle child, where do you fit in?
You fought for my attention
but did you ever win?
You surely have it now
although painfully gained.
You capture me with crisis
then, I shake loose again.
Middle child, I know you well,
you speak to me of your dreams
your fears and your babies lost.
People judge you harshly
but once you lived beneath
my heartbeat…
so, together we pay the cost.
I can’t catch you when you fall
but I’ll bandage up your knees
just like when you were five
and asphalt tore through your jeans.
“Don’t run,” I’d holler out the door
as off to play you’d tear.
You never heeded my warnings
took on the world without a fear.
Twenty-two this month and still…
my warnings fly into the wind
blowing every which way
following you aimlessly around.
Perhaps you’d stop to listen
if you knew that my heart bleeds
each time your knees hit the ground.
My daughter, my middle child
I loved you when you didn’t know
when my hands were full with others
or when my feelings didn’t show.
We’ve had our ups and downs
but I’ll never let you go.
Middle child, where do you fit in?
My quintessence has a
special niche for you
tucked beneath my ribs
right where you’ve always been.
by Jeanne Marie, 1997

Maggie Mae and her purse…

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I was getting ready to leave for the airport this morning and realized that Maggie Mae was planning on coming with me. I didn’t get out today and rearranged to leave Saturday, so she eased up on her packing. She didn’t realize that she wasn’t going with me and I’m not gonna tell her until I hug her goodbye on Saturday.
She loves her new sister and her new Daddy so she will be fine, but I’m already missing her. If you haven’t been following my saga, “Jodie’s Journey” I adopted Maggie Mae when her Momma, my daughter Jodie, went to prison April 7.
I’m going to Oklahoma to meet my third great grand baby, Violet Dawn, just a little over two weeks old! Met Carter, my second great grand baby last month. He is just over two months old and I met Ricky, my first great grand baby at the same time. Ricky is a handsome one-year-old. Grand baby number 14, courtesy of my son Rick and his angel Jessica, is due in December. It is The Year of the Babies for us.

Angels Among Us…

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“Oh I believe there are angels among us.
Sent down to us from somewhere up above.
They come to you and me in our darkest hours.
To show us how to live, to teach us how to give.
To guide us with a light of love.” Alabama

Maggie Mae Packs For Florida…leaving her coats and sweaters behind…and her Mama.

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Maggie Mae was an angel on the plane ride to Florida, even with a connecting flight on our agenda. We arrived home safe and she is settling in and getting accustomed to her new sister, Ms. Kita.
Ms. Kita is thrilled to have another Chihuahua to run with and is happily sharing her toys. Happy about sharing her Mommy and Daddy? Not so much.

Blessed with a day of love before my daughter goes to prison…thank you for all your prayers. I feel your love.

 

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Love Waits~For you Jodie From Michelle Marie. Thank you, JM

Love Waits~For you Jodie.

Doing Time…

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I publish tons of personal stuff on my blog, but I wasn’t going to write about my thirty-nine year-old daughter going to prison, not because I’m ashamed of her, but because the hurt is so enormous.
I have made mistakes. Some that will haunt me until the day I die. Everyone makes mistakes. We all pay for our mistakes too, whether it’s through Karma, prison, divorce, broken hearts, family members who never speak to us again or whatever. You don’t have to wait for an official Judgment Day.
I believe that every day on Earth is Karma’s Judgment Day.
My heart has been sliced, diced and pureed, but much of it I can blame on myself and my bad decisions, decisions made from fear and insecurity.
And just when I think that I have bottomed out on heartbreaks, my middle child, who has also made bad choices, gets herself in enough small trouble with the law to end up with a very big sentence.
Twenty-years, three in and seventeen-years of probation. If she sneezes, she will do twenty-years. And she is a sneezer. She received that sentence for non-violent, minor crimes.
Meanwhile, rapists, child molesters and murderers do less time. They get out and do it again. Sometimes within a week. The man who killed my daughter’s first husband had six convictions for drunk driving, no license and his blood tested positive for alcohol and drugs at 8:a.m.
He went through a red light taking down my son-in-law’s motorcycle that was stopped at the red light.
I had to call in the news before he was even charged. He did fifteen months in prison.
I am not excusing my daughter’s crimes, but doesn’t rehab make more sense for an addict who hasn’t found sobriety?
The worst part is that we couldn’t afford a lawyer and justice is for people who can afford a lawyer. Take my word for it, because that is one theory you don’t want to test.
And I get to fly 2000 miles on Monday and then drive three hours to deliver her to the prison. There isn’t a big enough box of tissues for this one, but I am grateful for the opportunity because I want to stand by her and I want her to see her mama’s face loving her as she walks into prison.
I keep giving her to God and He has saved her life so many times and I am grateful. She has thrown away a hundred chances to turn her life around, so maybe prison is the only way to save her life again. He sees the whole picture and I trust Him, but it’s an extremely painful solution.
Seriously. I have no clue how I am going to make it through that day or the days that follow, because she won’t be the only one doing time. We are connected and she holds my heart, so we are both doing time.

A Thousand Voices by Jodie Lynne (2008)

A Thousand Voices by Jodie Lynne

I-am-alone, yet a thousand voices surround me,

ricocheting off the sounding board that is my mind.

I take a deep breath only to feel the weight of time

as if the world rests upon my shoulders.

Tall dark fences build the walls that close me in

as the sound of freedom, close enough to touch,

is really a million miles away,

a soft breeze flows through my very core, like a crisp winter wind.

I taste his kiss on my mouth, as my head hits

the hardness of a rubber pillow, just as  I do when I rise.

Places and spaces blend together in the chaos of this insanity

that I alone have caused.

Pressure builds, yearning to combust amongst the ashes of my yester years.

Their faces stop the explosion, their eyes filled with the pain

I have inflicted, still, they plead for their mother’s touch alone-they go forsaken.

Just as his soul goes missing it’s other half, their souls scream out for me,

the same in the dead of night, as in the light of day.

Darkness at last engulfs me, even in the midst

of an afternoon’s sunlight.

I-am-alone, yet a thousand voices surround me.

Jodie Lynne

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You can’t keep a fairy angel
on the ground
You can imprison her
Take away her ability to fly
Hold her down, for a while.
But as soon as the light hits her face
She will shake herself free.
She will fly
She will laugh
She will love
She will leave her addictions in the dust
Cause you can’t keep a fairy angel on the ground.

by Jeanne Marie