A Knock at Midnight(55)
Our four-hour structured visits were full of joy, but departures were difficult. Daughters and mothers clung to each other, reminded suddenly that their time together was finite, and the exception. My mom and I were often overcome with emotion, thrust back in time to our own experience, the afternoons when Jazz and I would get back in the car for our long and painful drive and Mama would head back to her cot, alone again until our next lifegiving visit. But at GEM, my mother was a model of strength, supporting the other mothers through their goodbyes, taking a knee beside Ariel, a nine-year-old slumped over in despair after her mother had gone back to her cell. With remarkable skill and an empathy earned in the hardest way, she reminded us all that the pain of separation would soon be eased again by the loving embrace of our next visit.
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GENICE’S BODY WAS breaking down. Sharanda could see it, plain as day. Midsentence, Genice would break into heavy sweats. Her usually animated face would contort with pain, and afterward her skin would remain ice cold for hours. For weeks, Sharanda pleaded with the guards to do more than check her blood pressure. Eventually, Genice’s legs started swelling so much that doctors were forced to take her to John Peter Smith Hospital, where a new doctor began to investigate her symptoms more aggressively. She found metal clamps stitched into Genice’s stomach, carelessly left there during a surgery she’d had in Terrell eighteen years before.
Genice was in the outside hospital for almost a month after the clamps were removed, and during that time Sharanda received no updates concerning her mother’s health. She couldn’t sleep from the worry and stress, and prayed continually for her mother’s healing. She kept herself busy with work and helping Alice with her theatrical productions. On a crisp, clear day, Sharanda and Alice were sitting on the bench outside, scouting talent for the next play, when they spotted staff carrying a blanketed woman on a hospital gurney into the medical unit. Without even seeing who was on it, Sharanda screamed out, “That’s my mama coming back in!”
And it was.
“I feel so much better,” Genice told Sharanda when she snuck up to the fourth floor to see her. “I swear, I’m a new woman!”
Keeping her emotions at bay was critical for Sharanda’s survival inside, but that day, she let herself feel them all, especially relief. The thought of facing life at Carswell without her mom—well, it wasn’t a thought she could bear.
She would soon have to.
Chaplain Danage called Alice first, to be there when he broke the news to Sharanda. On December 19, 2012, after twelve years of incarceration with her daughter, Genice Stribling died of a staph infection that she’d been harboring since her surgery a month before. Overcome by grief, Alice collapsed on the floor. This was losing a family member. When Sharanda arrived at the chapel and saw her friend broken down crying, she knew immediately that her mother was gone.
Sharanda was devastated. Her time at Carswell had been devoted to her mother’s care. What was life without her daily visits to her mother, without Genice’s sharp wit, her loving humor, the model of joyful resilience she provided to those in her company?
The entire prison community mourned Genice’s passing, even some of the guards. While Sharanda sought solace in her cell, her prison family worked behind the scenes to give Genice the honor and respect in death she had rarely been granted in prison. Alice took over the preparations for the memorial service, determined to make it as beautiful as possible. She decorated the display table in regal purple, gold, and silver, and Chaplain Danage allowed her to borrow an elaborate gold frame to hold a picture of Genice. Other women prepared and printed an obituary with photos of Sharanda’s family in it. The prison anticipated such a large crowd for the service that officials authorized the use of the multipurpose building.
The choir sang as Sharanda and the processional entered the building. A volunteer pastor, who conducted services that Sharanda and her mother attended in prison, was allowed to deliver the eulogy—a first in Carswell’s history. Alice and the praise dancers performed “I Can Only Imagine” as hundreds of women—more than Sharanda had ever seen at a memorial service—gathered together to pray, grieve, love, and comfort each other.
Prisons often grant furloughs so that incarcerated men and women can attend a parent’s funeral outside the prison. Sharanda begged officials to allow her to say goodbye to her mother, but she was denied, her “lifer” status cited as the excuse. Sharanda’s family videotaped the funeral and sent the tape to the prison for her to view. She saw her family grieving and finding comfort in one another as they laid Genice Stribling to rest. The only one missing was Sharanda.
Genice’s death marked the beginning of the most difficult phase of Sharanda’s incarceration. She broke down for the first time a few days later while working in the prison laundry and had to be guided back to her cell. Always social, always busy, now she lay still on her cot except for work hours, when she went through the motions in a numb silence. She’d never been a crier, not when Weasel was released, not after Clenesha visited, not even when she was sentenced to life. But now her eyes were slits, her face swollen from the tears. Alice visited her in her cell, helped her up, made her walk around a little in an effort to keep her busy, to lift her out of her grief, but it felt like swimming against the tide. Every day Sharanda spent in prison had been devoted to her mother’s care. She’d structured her life around that purpose. In her mother’s absence, the hope Sharanda had maintained against all odds faded fast. For the first time since I’d met her, she was unable to maintain her positivity.