Mama, I'm Comin' Home

Here I come but I ain't the same.

Jun 05, 2026

I have struggled to write this.

I have started and stopped and walked away from my computer, wordless, several times over the past few days. Right now, my thoughts are not flowing out of me as I wish they would—as I know they can.

If I had to diagnose it, I would say that I am spiraling. Even with the gift of words that I possess, I do not know how to explain what is happening in my life—nor can I describe what is taking shape in my heart and my head right now.

I only know that we will never be the same.

Backstory

In December, I learned that I had been betrayed in the worst of ways—for nearly a decade. While I am not ready to discuss these matters openly in a public blog, I share it to illustrate that there are about 25 tabs open in my brain on any given day related to the last ten years of my life: what my gut knew and when, what my heart avoided and why, what I wish I had done and what I will do differently now. This thing alone might have been enough to make me crawl into bed and not ever write again.

And then—

In March, on the morning of my 49th birthday, I got a call from my daughter. She was sitting on the side of the road where Find My iPhone had led her to her boyfriend of three years. He was lying dead in a ditch from a roll-over accident. She had arrived before the police and paramedics, and I would race to get dressed and drive to her, and him, before the medical examiner was on scene. I sat there and watched my baby girl pick grass out of his hair, wanting to fix him, to stay with him—wanting to go with him wherever he had gone.

We buried him on what would have been his 30th birthday, the son-in-law I would not get. For weeks, I would lay down for sleep only to see his lifeless body on the ground. I could only bring my daughter smoothies and comfort food which she could not, would not eat. I would clean her house or take her dogs outside and sit in silence with her on their couch. We moved her out of his house on Mother’s Day.

Somewhere in this blurry timeframe, my oldest son called from prison to tell me that he was finally being paroled—after two years of waiting for this decision to come down. We hurried construction on a new bedroom in our basement and then hosted a parole officer for an in-home inspection. I gathered clothing and bedding, shoes and other necessities. I navigated the phone calls and shifting timelines, began counting the days and battening the hatches for a new voyage.

May dawned, and with it the end of the elementary school year. I continued taking my youngest child to piano and swim class and baseball like nothing else was happening in our lives. I attended field trips and Field Day and a live wax museum and read bedtime stories and made sure to hug him extra while overseeing the teeth brushing and putting Skin Repair on new sunburns and spring bug bites. I hosted a birthday party for him and packed lunches and put the too-small winter clothing away to be donated some time in the next three years.

I also tried to keep my protein intake at lioness levels while following through with all of the treatment protocols from Mayo Clinic— at which I had spent 10 days in early May undergoing a battery of brutal but necessary medical tests for chronic post-viral illness.

Female fertility drops off sharply after age 35, and I now know that there is a damn good reason for that. I collapse into bed every night, thankful but overwhelmed. Satisfied but bewildered. Amazed, but beyond exhausted.

And then—

Two weeks ago, I got another phone call on a random Tuesday morning. This time it was my middle son with his own life news. He is making big changes (which I do not have permission to share). Nevertheless, the Earth shifted again on its axis, and I nearly floated into space. I stood in my kitchen, untethered in the weightlessness and the unknown impact of that moment. Of all of these moments put together.

Being a mother is like nothing else a human can experience—and while I still don’t have the words, I’m gonna try to catch you up on the news we've all been waiting for here at Black Sheep Mom.

One Day At A Time

Before I opened my eyes in that dark hotel room, I thought of him inside of his cell. For years, I have started my mornings this way.

Today—just focus on today.

Of course, I also woke with a pounding in my temples and a tension in my neck that felt like I had been dragging a rope tied around a cinderblock all night. Because I had. I have been holding an entire cinderblock prison cell up in my mind since the start of Covid.

In planning for his release, I didn’t anticipate the headache nor that I would burn my tongue on crappy hotel-lobby coffee and spend the morning feeling that burnt patch against my teeth with regret.

I had always pictured him emerging from the prison gates under the glaring rays of the sun but when I pulled back the hotel curtains, rain spit at me against the glass. It was grey and cold and windy outside. And of course it was—no part of this ride was ever going to be sunshine.

It finally hit me in the shower—they’re gonna have to let him go today.

Naked and vulnerable, an hour before I was scheduled to pick him up, only then did I dare to begin to hope. I was shaky, though. I held onto the shower wall and let the water needle my back. A mixture of adrenaline and weariness, anticipation and fear poured over my shoulders. I felt the years of worry beginning to peel up, lifting in chunks like layers of dead skin. I faced the stream of water and let it sting my face too. I lathered with the cheap hotel soap, rinsed, and let a bit of death trickled down off of me into the drain.

I dressed quickly, in baggy jeans and a black sweatshirt. You would think I would have worn fuchsia or bright Kelly green or my ballcap that says, “Black Sheep” but no, I had just packed solid black instead.

“There is something about black,” Georgia O’Keefe had said, “You feel hidden away in it.”

There is an element of being mom, especially a prison mom, that requires you to stay hidden away—to be quiet. I will not make a scene today. I will not shout nor draw attention. I will simply hug my boy and get him to my car and leave without incident, without giving any reason for them to keep him. So, yeah, I wore black like I was attending a funeral. This thing, this whole thing, was scheduled to die today.

I looked at myself in the hotel mirror for a moment—I was puffy and tired. I looked old. I have aged rapidly while he has been down, and I realized that my son would see me at home tonight, in the light of the real world. I wondered if he would be able to see how much time has gone by and what it has done, not only to him but to me.

It was five point seven miles between the hotel and the prison.

I had double and triple checked for two weeks with both prison staff and with my son to verify his release day and time. During those weeks, I repeatedly dreamt that I had missed the day, had the time wrong, or went to the wrong place to get him. He had called my cellphone the night before to confirm that I was in town, that I was ready. Because he was ready—and all of his stuff had been given away to other block mates.

It’s happening, I promised him. This is our last call from there. Sleep, if you can. I’ll see you tomorrow. 8am sharp.

I drove those five miles with the windshield wipers on high, and when the opening riff of “Mama I’m Comin Home” came on my radio, I snickered out loud. Then my face twisted into a near (but not quite yet) cry—

Times have changed and times are strange,
Here I come, but I ain’t the same.
Mama, I’m coming home.

I pulled into the parking lot at quarter to eight, ahead of schedule—in spite of the long line at Starbucks where my husband had bought my son the Iced Mocha Frappe he had promised him at our last visit. He didn’t want just any old coffee today, he wanted dessert first. And why the hell not? We threw in a few egg and cheddar sandwiches and cinnamon rolls too.

As I got out of my vehicle and walked toward the building, I felt like I was in a documentary, like there should have been cameras to capture this last day. Each step, I walked further into the awareness that this would be the last time I would need to drive to this place. As though it was scripted—I slowed my pace, looked around, and took it all in.

I wasn't prepared for the familiar ache to rise up in me walking across that parking lot—to see other men beyond the fences in the yard in their bright orange hats, in the rain. I relaxed a bit knowing that my boy was not out there today. I practically leapt at the knowing that he would not be out there ever again.

A lump formed in my throat anyway—for all of the moms who were not coming today to pick up their sons.

I walked in the front doors like I had a hundred times before, but this time I marched right past the sign-in clipboard and visitor chairs. No need to declare my jewelry or get a locker key. I wasn’t staying. I walked directly to the front desk agent like I was at a preschool and said, “I’m here to pick up my son.”

The guard, one whom I’ve become familiar with, looked up and smiled. He confirmed my son's last name, and nodded.

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll call him down but it will take them about a half an hour to process him. I’ll walk him out when he’s ready. You can wait in your car.”

I thought of the melting iced mocha in the cup holder out there. I thought about the number of times I had confirmed that it was indeed an 8am pickup. I thought about the version of me that decided to leave the hotel with wet hair and how impatient I had been in the Starbucks line because I thought I would be late in getting here—only to be told I could sit in the parking lot and wait some more.

“Okay, see you in a bit.” I said, and smiled.

Do not make a scene.

Of course we would have one final round of prison-life torture. One more wait. It would not, after all, have been a proper prison experience without it.

I have envisioned him walking out over and over for years and though I was about to witness it—I was fidgety and worried and discontented. I decided to wait on the blacktop where the sidewalk meets the parking lot, not in my car. It was still raining so I pulled up my hood over my head.

I will not miss the moment he becomes a free man.

Not for anything in the world.

And then he was.

The door opened and a guard pushed it wide, motioned to my son who had hesitated in the opening, so used to being told when and where to move.

The guard set a garbage bag down on the wet pavement and stuck out his right hand. My son, holding another bag over one shoulder like Rambo, stuck out his free hand and shook the CO’s—an act which would have been forbidden just moments before.

“Don't come back,” the guard said.

“I won't.” My son replied.

Then picking up the second garbage bag, he turned toward me and began walking—one step, two step. Just like the first time I ever saw him walk.

I started to walk toward him.

And then I broke into a run.

Stay tuned, friends.

I want to take this moment to thank all of you for your thoughts, prayers, donations, messages, shares, and incredible support. We have raised $1780 toward his re-entry, thanks to you! This community is so much more than I could have ever imagined.

For my Misfit Lit Book Club friends, I have not forgotten about you! We are about halfway through Bone Valley, if you are following along. I would still like to schedule a Zoom call to discuss the book this month—comment below or message me if you are interested in attending! *Watching Dylan walk out of prison made Leo’s plight all the more real.

Stay tuned for lost essays, unbelievable stories about incarceration (I got a call from someone inside last night), more reveals about our state and our own circumstances (including the rigors of parole)—and hopefully, an interview with Dylan at home.

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