Putting Up Walls: A Prisoner's Response to Grief

This past week the father of a friend of mine died. Losing a loved one while in prison is very hard, for a lot of reasons. For one, prison isolates one from suffering with the community of people who are most touched by the loss of a loved one, leaving the prisoner feeling disconnected from the shared stories, good and bad, that make collective grieving easier. When my friend told me his father died, he asked that I pray for his mother, but I countered, "And for you in your loss." Shaking his head, he retorted, "No, just pray for my mom. I'm okay."

Sensing the deep grief that he was unsuccessfully trying to wall off from himself and others, I gave him a hug and told him I was sorry for his loss. Tears began streaming from his eyes, and he said, "See! I told myself I wouldn't cry, and now you've made me do it!" After all, prisoners are supposed to be "hard" and unfeeling of emotions. We're supposed to be angry, weight-lifting, violent and rebellious people. Or at least that's what we've been made to believe. It's society's lesson of rugged masculinity taken to the extreme. 

The truth is, prisoners feel the pain of loss too, sometimes even deeper than people who are free to mourn their loss among the safety of other loved ones. Forced by a perception that tears are a sign of weakness, many prisoners don't give themselves permission to feel the depth of the losses they experience during their incarceration. My friend's loss was not simply the loss of a father, although that is bad enough. It was also the loss of a long-held hope that he would someday be valued and loved by his father who had been distant and absent most of his life. This lost hope leaves him now feeling just a little less hopeful about his future. His father died without ever making sure my friend knew he was loved and valued as a son. 

My friend has a right to cry for his loss, but some people would disagree. The same day I heard this news, I heard another prisoner say with venom in his voice, "He ought to be celebrating by making a cook-up with his friends. His father didn't give a s**t about him his whole life." While this statement has an element of truth to it, my friend's father didn't express love for his son, nevertheless, this shocking statement fails to acknowledge the humanity of a man who longed for the love and acceptance of his father. Death is final. There is no more hope for a restored relationship (or even for the beginning of a new one) when death comes calling. 

The prisoner who called for celebrating this father's death might sound calloused and lacking empathy, and he could be, but I suspect that his response reveals a deep hurt at the people in his own life who disappointed him. While there are sociopaths in prison, most prisoners are simply living with deep hurt in their lives. Without the knowledge of how to heal from that hurt, many make choices that end up hurting others, and the cycle continues. My friend is maturing and learning how to heal from his deep hurt, and I'm hopeful that even the loss of his father won't derail him from his journey of healing. If recognizing and acknowledging his hurt and trying to comfort and encourage him through his loss helps, then I am grateful to be a part of his journey of healing and tearing down the walls he's constructed to protect him from further hurt. In helping someone else heal, I, too, experience a little healing of my own hurts, and my hope for restoring broken relationships with those I cherish is rejuvenated. I'm grateful to still have that hope.