I remember going to a park when I was around 6 years old.

We drove what seemed like a lifetime to get there. Down an endless two-lane highway that just went on and on as far as you could see in either direction. It was so exciting when a huge castle appeared through the trees, high up on a mountain. It looked like something out of a fairytale, and I wondered if there was a king and a princess that lived there. I had never dreamed that there was a real castle that had a park that I could go to!

All the people that worked at the park paid so much attention to me and played games with me. My brothers and I played hide and seek going from room to room in this great big building right outside the park and one nice lady even had a hand puppet that she made go in and out of my pockets and under my ball cap. I showed her all my treasures that I had secretly stuffed into my pockets before we left home, and she was really impressed by my celebrity autograph that I had gotten from our local weathergirl who had come to my school the day before.

I also had a piece of Big Red chewing gum that my dad had sent me in a letter, a colored drawing that I had made that I wasn’t quite finished with and a broken green crayon that I was going to add the finishing touches with if I wasn’t busy having too much fun inside the park and a pebble I had picked up because it reminded me of a little frog. There was also a five-dollar bill in my pocket that my mom said the nice lady would take so we could get a seat in the front of the big bus that would take us inside the big gates to where the park was.

There were lots of people on the bus and everyone had brought picnic baskets and bags of food and blankets to sit on. I tell you, I was coming out of my skin with all of the excitement!

I was not too impressed once the bus stopped right inside the park because there was only one old rusty swing set and something that looked like monkey bars to play on. Nevertheless, my brothers and I promptly bolted towards the playground while Mom and my grandparents started laying out blankets and all the food that we had brought for picnicking.

After playing for a little while I was surprised when my little brother yelled “Daddy!”  I looked up to see Dad and his brother Ray come walking across the park to where we were.

All three of us boys ran straight up to them and started hugging them and I asked Dad how in the world he knew how to find us here? He replied, “Mommy said in her last letter that y’all would be here one day this week and me and Uncle Ray was able to take off work and come and see you guys.”

I was so happy to see Dad! I didn’t know how long he had been gone working out of town, but it felt like forever and a day since I’d seen him last. Of course, my brothers and I tackled him and hung off from him like little monkeys as he laughed and dragged us toward where Mom and his parents were.

I’d never seen so much hugging and kissing in all my life!  Mom and Dad hugged and kissed the most, and when they were done, we all sat down on the blankets. Grandma said, “Son, I brought some of them good deviled eggs that you always loved. I wish we could have brought more than Bologna and cheese and chips, but we’re probably going to be coasting home on fumes what with gas being so high and having to come so far.” Dad assured her he’d eat dirt if that was the price he had to pay to get to see us and that all he wanted was some of the deviled eggs.

After we ate, my brothers and I ran off to play and it didn’t seem like any time at all before my dad came and said it was time for him and Uncle Ray to go. I remember begging him to stay just a little while longer, but he said he couldn’t and that he loved us and that he was counting on us to take care of Mom while he was gone.

As we left the park that day my mother started crying. I remember the tears flowing down her cheeks and the soft sobs that tore at my heart and made me start crying too. It was just then that the bus pulled back into the parking lot where our car was parked and Grandma reached over and patted my mom on the arm and said, “Honey, don’t cry… I know it’s hard on you with all these kids and him not being there. But he IS coming home and everything will be alright again.”

As if it would help matters, I pulled my coloring picture out of my pocket and quickly drew a green scraggly stick figure right in the center of it and scrawled “Daddy” above it and handed it to Mom.
I thought it would make her happy again if I gave her one of my treasures. She smiled at me and hugged me so close I thought she would squeeze the life out of me.

The tears didn’t stop falling for the entire six-and-a-half-hour drive home from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary that day in 1978.

In fact, those tears are still flowing down my cheeks 45 years later as I share this with you from my own prison cell here at Beaumont Correctional Center in Virginia. I’ve been in prison for almost 2 decades now.

Mom died in early 2020 and it took me almost a month and a half to find out that she was gone.
But sometimes late at night, after all the madness of this place has quieted, when all of the doors stop slamming and all of the keys stop jingling, I can still hear those gentle child-like sobs she cried on that bus a lifetime ago echoing in my ears and in my heart.

And I am reminded once again of everything that I have lost.