You hear your name called over the intercom with instructions to report to the chaplain’s office.  If you’ve not requested to speak with a chaplain, nor been involved in a discussion with them after one of the many religious services, the summons can only mean bad news.  Losing a loved one is difficult to deal with, and how that news is presented when incarcerated can have a huge impact on how it is processed. 

After weeks of not hearing from my mother, I was dispassionately informed by a chaplain that she had been diagnosed with late stage cancer and required immediate surgery.  In his presence, I was allowed a few minutes on the phone with her.  During those few minutes, I learned she’d called the prison weeks prior and asked that I be notified so I wouldn’t worry.  Another chaplain had once waited days to tell me my son had been struck by a car and was in a coma.

Most of my fellow prisoners have had similar experiences, notified days or even weeks after a death by people with no bedside manner.  We’ve criticized their shoddy delivery tactics over the years, discussing how they could better do their job, but never would I have imagined being responsible for delivering a death notice myself.

During a phone call with my cousin, Teresa, I learned that the father of one of her son’s friends is here on death row. She asked if I knew him.  The death row population is relatively small, so we’re all familiar with one another.  I told her yes.

I knew the father, I’ll call him Adam, to be a very unassuming, gentle man.  Someone without many friends because he didn’t engage in the foolishness of the masses, while also seeming eager for friendship.  In a restorative justice class we’d participated in, he spoke about his two sons and how his ex-wife prevented them from contacting him since being arrested and sent to death row.  Now they were young men, and I was excited to share the connection between his son and my cousin.  Hopefully a line of communication could form, maybe he could be a dad again.

He lived on the bottom floor of the death row unit while I was upstairs, making it difficult to find opportunities to speak with him.  Long, anxious days dragged by till, finally, we were amidst a group of prisoners called to pick up our medication at the nurses’ office.  In the little time we had, I told him about his son, Steven, being a regular visitor to my cousin’s house.  His hangdog look was replaced by the joy of a parent finding their child after a decades long search.  I offered to pass along a message and cautiously, he asked that his son be told that he loves him.  Adam explained that he didn’t want to scare Steven away, and through experience with my own sons, I understood Adam may not have known what words to choose.  After a long drought of no communication, he wanted his words to be perfect… when there are no perfect words.

Sometime after passing along his message, Teresa told me that Steven didn’t seem ready to talk with his father, but didn’t mind if she sent his dad some pictures.  The next time Adam and I crossed paths, he immediately pulled out some pics of his son, thrusting them at me like a proud poppa showing off a newborn.  He explained that Teresa promised to send pics and share pieces of Steven’s life.  Seeing the positive impact the pics and promises of more were having, I was happy and hoped things would grow between them.

Over the following months I would occasionally see Adam.  He would share a recent pic or letter he’d received from Teresa, but mostly, I shelved it to the back of my mind.  Much of my mental space was occupied clinging to the safety bar of my own rollercoaster relationship with family. 

And then Teresa answered the phone crying.  She told me Steven had died from a suspected overdose and asked whether I knew if anyone had notified Adam.  Having no other connection to family, I felt sure no one would’ve.  She asked if I would tell him. She didn’t want to break his heart through a letter, and I wouldn’t have felt right to pretend everything was okay upon seeing him and then feign shock when he ‘broke’ the news to me.  I had no experience delivering terrible news, only receiving it, and had no idea how he would react.

The death row unit manager had begun allowing guys who played Dungeons & Dragons the use of an empty, downstairs cellblock on the weekends.  Adam would be there. Though I wasn’t a player, sneaking down with the group would give me more time to talk with him as opposed to bumping into him in the hallway, shattering his day, maybe his life, and being rushed along.

A guard’s voice crackled over the intercom, “Anyone going to D&D, now’s the time.”  I fell in line as smiling guys filed out of the four cellblocks upstairs.  The long hallway and set of stairs gave me a little time to steel my nerves and replay everything I disliked about the chaplains’ delivery while trying to formulate my own.

Entering the block, I noticed Adam and his fellow players gathered at a nearby table.  I caught his attention and motioned him to where I stood by a water fountain.  He was smiling as he walked toward me.  No one expects bad news about home from a fellow prisoner, and I realized that was an advantage in the chaplains’ favor; everyone they summoned arrived prepared for the worst.  I felt terrible, knowing his smile would disappear with my message.  

When he reached me, I told him I had to speak with him about something that wasn’t good and asked if there was somewhere else he would rather go.  The water fountain was about as far away from everyone in the block as we could get, so he said no.

With no reason to put it off any longer, I gently told him Steven had passed away.  He leaned onto the water fountain and was quiet for a while as a few tears made their escape.  Then he asked how.  I said it looked like an overdose.  I shifted my focus to the floor to give him some privacy, and a beat later he leaned over and gave me a hug.  I hugged him back, and through sobs he thanked me.  He then returned to the table where his group was waiting while I stood in place reflecting – how could a man in the midst of receiving such terrible news find within himself the means to console me.

I wondered at the impact such compassion could have between staff and prisoner upon being summoned to the chaplain’s office.  I reevaluated their position as I headed back upstairs… delivering bad news can be as difficult as receiving it.

ABOUT THE WRITER. Jason Hurst only recently began sharing his work here, and his contributions are so well written, I look forward to reading his submissions. He is a natural writer, and this is a subject that deserves talking about. Two WITS writers lost parents this week alone.
Jason can be contacted at:

Jason Hurst #0509565
Central Prison
P.O. Box 247
Phoenix, MD 21131
OR
textbehind.com