intro to my heart behind bars

As many of you know or may not know I have had a bit of a heart hurt experience in my life a few years back.  I mean we all have them and some of us have many, I know I have, this one impacted me in ways I didn’t anticipate or expect.
When my son turned 21 years of age, he ended up in prison for a serious crime. It was pretty public in my smaller town, made the news, paper, and radio station.  It was horrible enough for me that my baby had made some choices that ended him in a very serious situation and a place that no one wants to see there child go to, then to have it blasted on the tv, radio and paper…of course how the media would like it to be to be perceived,  meaning not all the facts are correct and they twist it to sell.  Please don’t mistake what I am trying to say, what he did was not ok but the media sure made is sound a whole lot worse.
I work in a public service so I see people all day, everyday. Once the news was out I could hear people talk about it, some not knowing I was his mother and some not caring that I was.. they had their opinion and that’s all that mattered to them.  I had, what I thought were friends then, say the worst things with little to no compassion for my family and the ordeal that we were going through.  I had co workers who wanted the juice, would talk about me behind my back or complain because I wasn’t happy enough at work. I had people judge me on being a parent and all the horrible things I must have done for my child to behave like this.
It wasn’t just me that they had under scrutiny, my daughter who is only 2 years older than my son, also got the wrath of what people thought and felt about her brother.  They would say the worst things to her like how we would be better off if he were dead, that he was a waste of life.  At that point I wasn’t sure who I was more mad at the shitty behaviour of the public or the shitty behaviour of my son.
The reason I am writing about this today is because I have kept so much inside, then last night I went to a girlfriends house for dinner and we ended up talking about this experience.  I shared way more than I normally do and then left feeling like I shared too much.  It’s a bit of a party crasher.
I am sure people are curious and its not a common thing among my social group to have their child go to prison and commit a serious crime, so there is lots of wanting to know, judgement, trying to understand and having no way of ever understanding.  Sometimes I walk in the room and I feel like Medusa, me and all my freaky snake heads.  My son is done his sentence and is finishing up his three years probation, so we are almost three years out of prison and life has changed dramatically, much time has past since the crime and yet I still feel like a stranger in a crowd of people I’ve know for years

So Ive decided to write a book
I’ve done the art work for my cover.  I did it the first couple weeks of my son being in prison.  I started painting once he got arrested, I needed an outlet to express and sharing with people was not working.

I will try to attach the picture….  success picture attached

Title…..MY HEART BEHIND BARS

My first sentences……
July 26 is a pretty important date for me, first in 1992 when my son was born, second in 2013 when  he was arrested for a serious crime.  On my sons 21st birthday his life changed significantly and so did mine.

I haven’t gotten any farther than that, it seems like the emotions that I have kept down deep in the depths of my core emerg while I write about this experience and sometimes the emotions are too darn strong  🙁

thanks for listening
take sweet care