RISE, A Modern Guide for the Purpose Driven Woman Winter 2014 | Page 42

privacy, encouraged me and
even woke me during the night
to “milk the cow” as we called
it. I begged and fought to keep
my nursing bra at every raid and
eventually had it confiscated;
facing the humiliation of breasts
leaking through my only state
issued shirt daily. I would face a
cinder block wall as I expressed
my milk in my little cup, careful to avoid the cameras and the
threat of “catching a new charge”
for exposing myself. I had completed 51 months of a 60 month
probation, never missing a home
visit, drug test, report day; I completed 500 hours of community
service within the first 16 months
of my probation. On the record
in court, the Director of Probation for my county said I was “...
one of the best she has ever had
on probation.” I was the editor
of my son’s elementary school
newspaper, PTO mom, room,
team mom and am currently
serving my 2nd two-year term as
a voting member on the Student
Advisory Council of our elementary school; a position you must
be nominated for by the student
body parents and voted into by
the faculty and fellow members.
I built the best damn 5‘x4’ gingerbread house complete with
Christmas lights for door decor
of the third grade, yet I have still
landed in jail 4 times in the past
6 years.
During those jail stays I have met
countless women with stories
more shocking then my own.
The woman who sat next to me
at a video visitation discussing
with her husband how to handle
her cremation as she was certain
her cancer would kill her while
in jail. She had no bond and was
facing an 11/29, that’s 11 months
and 29 days...same as my 364.

They weren’t giving her the cancer meds she normally takes; the
nurse at the jail indicating to her
that they give what is medically
necessary to keep them alive and
that’s it. And what you ask was
her heinous crime to deserve
to be treated like an animal left
to die in a cage? What horrible
crimes was this women guilty of
that we needed to be protected
from? Well, she wrote a check
for $68 that bounced and she
took probation as she had never
been in trouble before in her
life. Her home burned down in
October. To the ground. She
went to her sister’s home; devastated. Battling cancer, all of her
possessions gone. She went to
her reporting day at probation 6
days after the fire. She was arrested. Turns out her probation
officer did a surprise home visit
and reported that she had given
a false address because there was
no house there...of course there
wasn’t. It had burnt down. A Violation of Probation is immediate
arrest, with no bail. The court
dates don’t come quickly...sometimes you wait months or more.
And for most, especially those
who’s home has burnt down, a
public defender is their attorney.
They sit and wait months staring
at a phone on the wall with black
lettering above it that reads “PUB
DEF CALLS ONLY”. It never
rings. In 32 days I heard it ring
twice...with 16+ women in my
pod waiting for it to be for them.
Justice? Do you feel safer with
a person like that locked away?
She is there right now. Waiting
to die there. Suffering in pain
without access to even Ibuprofen. In a jail where it took 16 of
us, banging on metal doors and
screaming “Medical Emergency”,
30 minutes to summons a guard
to respond to a fellow pod-mates

seizure. She had seized 7x. They
took her to “medical”. She came
back two hours later. I let her
bunk with me in my 8x10; everyone else was too freaked out to
have her in their cell. 20 minutes
after she came back, she seized
again. This time only 3x in the 15
minutes it took to get a guard to
come for her. An hour later they
came and took her mat. I never
saw her again. I do not know
what happened to her.
Over the course of this upcoming year, I will take you deeper
into the stories of the women,
including myself, who we are
“protected” from. Their faces
and words haunt me daily. At
night I wake up repeatedly to
escape their cries. Strange thing
dreams are; in jail when I could
sleep, my mind took me far
beyond those walls to my sons
laughter, the smell of their hair
against my face, hugging me. In
the free world, my dreams take
me to the darkest depths of the
human experience. I see many
of the woman I met in jail in my
dreams, walking up that steep
hill, behind that beautiful mother
in Africa. No words. Just faces.
Every inch of their faces stoic,
yet I know every word of their
stories. I hope you will join me
on this journey. One by one, we
can relieve them from that silent
walk and give them a voice that
will move and shake this country
to pursue true justice.

@hedydicarlo on twitter
m.mamahedy.com
join me.