11 Comments
User's avatar
Jennifer L.W. Fink's avatar

I love angry you in your writing bc your writing crackles w energy, rage, and truth. I hate that this is your life, your son's life, the lives of too many. I hate that we let it happen and perpetuate it.

Bridget Young's avatar

I thought I might be stepping over the line with this one but ya know what, I am going to just say what I need to these days. We're not getting any younger. 😉

Beth Shelburne's avatar

There's a group in Alabama called "the Mama Bears." I should introduce you! I shared this piece with them. :)

Bridget Young's avatar

Oh, I love this Beth. Can't wait to meet them.

Daniele Sahr's avatar

It's a very interesting point of what's ours to tell and what's not - so well explained in your essay. Definitely, what's ours to tell is the panic that starts to rise when it's been too long before a call or email (has something happened inside that I'm not hearing?). Inevitably, some of those silences are because something has happened. We can certainly talk about the effect it has on us, on the outside. Yes, they need to be told.

On another point, putting in a legal claim while inside, is, yes a huge risk. My friend wanted me to, and I said, are you ok, are you walking? Yes. Was he in a safer place by that point? Yes. So I said, since I'm your only contact of genuine help, we are going to forgo lawyers and starting building your release package that shows zero comments of "he's difficult." This was hard to say, but it was the right advice, and it got him out when it was time to get him out, early.

Bridget Young's avatar

Whew. Smart. It is so sad how quiet we need to be. I often imagine how many voices we'll never hear from... how many decades of silence remain. 🖤

NotTomHardy's avatar

#metoo

Bridget Young's avatar

Is this empathy for the tiny penis folks or for the people they keep harming?

NotTomHardy's avatar

Can it be both?

Deb Zerafa's avatar

Thank you for telling your readers how you really feel…

So EDUCATIONAL! What a descriptive pictorial picture of these soulless human beings [The little penis (pin dick) gangsters] who play God with the lives of the captive 😡

Keep writing but be careful I worry they will come after you and your family, notably D 😢

Fierce Goat's avatar

Keep shouting! You write beautifully about ugly things.