Day One

There are moments that define us. There are moments that test us. There are moments that change forever what we think and pry our eyes open. I am living through one of those moments. My eyes are open and they are not shutting. They are questioning eyes. They are pensive eyes. They are tear stained eyes.

I have lost the remainder of my naivety. It took 51 years. And no, I did not just lose my virginity, smoke my first bowl, snort my first line or get conned out of any or all of my hard earned bankroll. In fact, I never knew I had any innocence left. Compassion - yes, Love - yes, Feelings -yes. But as far as maneuvering the landscape of life in USA, I felt pretty damn competent. I am a successful business person in my community. My friends are the "right" friends...the ones that make the decisions in the town, in the state, in Washington. I live in the right part of town, in the right house and drive the right kind of car.

I have street smarts. Long ago I figured out that all things are not equal especially on the professional front. One surgeon was not the same as the next. If you have any doubt Google breast augmentations or face lifts and make your own decision as to who gets the A grade and who barely made it through the exam. It is the same all the way across the board. Pick any profession from lawyers, to teachers to handymen and you'll find a range of talent.

So, why was I surprised when my best friend, my lover, my soul mate got more punishment than even the prosecutor was willing to settle for? Were judges somehow exempt from the talent continuum? Had I really expected fairness, justness and wisdom? Christ, yes. I had. I was a newbie to this whole world of charges and trials and deals. I knew nothing of convicts, felons and prisons other than what I had seen in the movies or on TV. No one in my family had ever done anything bad enough to warrant a stay in jail or at least if they had they had never gotten caught.

So, you see I had a lot of assumptions about everything to do with the law, with justice and with jail life. For instance, I assumed that whatever the sentence; my lover could get off in half the time on good behavior. Wrong. That went out with the Patriot Act. I assumed that a judge could never say they were delivering a strong sentence because my lover was an immigrant with an Ivy League degree (wasn't that racial profiling?) I never knew that when the time came for him to start serving his time we wouldn't even know where they were going to take him.

I never knew that while he was incarcerated, myself and the family would fall into a state of depression that we had little or no means to deal with. And this is only day 1.