At first, I wrote letters to Richard when he was in prison. One of the first letters from him was crazy. It seemed abusive, and I almost threw it away. Somehow, I realized it was a call for help. I sent back a brief note. It said “When you feel scared, stop. Be still and notice your breathing. Keep watching your breathing. See how it slows down? As it does, you will calm down. If you forget and get scared again, start over. Stop. Watch your breathing.” His next letter said he tried my suggestion, and it worked.
Richard, then 18, was in a prison in Southern California. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and I was the only person outside the prison system in contact with him. Fortunately, he had an insightful psychologist. After hearing Richard’s story of abandonment and abuse, the psychologist said Richard belonged in treatment, not prison. He worked hard to have him transferred to a mental health facility. First, Richard went to a treatment center in southern California. That was too far for me to visit. He relocated to Napa, California, to a mental health facility for people with a criminal record. I visited him there for quite a few years. Throughout that time, he had therapy, one-on-one and in groups.
It took an hour and a half for me each way. I would bring lunch for the two of us. We would eat in a visiting room except for special occasions when the facility gave a barbecue outdoors for residents and guests. Richard called me “mom.”
I am 5’2” with grey hair, freckles, and green eyes. Well, my license says my eyes are “grey/green/blue.” Richard is around 6 feet tall with black curly hair, brown eyes and brown skin. Another visitor to the facility, a priest, once asked if Richard was really my son. I said Richard wants very much to call someone “Mom,” and that I didn’t mind.
One of the continuing themes in our relationship is Richard’s search for his mother, his actual mother, his birth mother. No one in his living facilities seemed willing to help. His mother was an unknown factor. She had abandoned him when he was five years old. Did she have severe problems herself? Would she hurt him further?
I didn’t know the answers to these questions. I only knew that Richard always talked about wanting to find his mother. I discussed with him reasons for people’s reluctance. Maybe he wouldn’t like her. Many people have challenging relationships with their mothers, as I did. What if she was doing illegal things like selling drugs? He wanted to stay away from criminal activity. No more prison for him!
Years rolled by. His April birthday came again and again. He did his school work and became a movie fan. He liked his therapists and group activities, some more than others. Different medications helped him heal. Staff put him on a weight loss regimen and he looked quite trim. He still wanted to find his mother.
Why? He wanted her to see how much he had changed, that he was a better person than he had been when he committed his crime. Now he couldn’t commit a crime like that. No one on staff where he lived could help him with this search. Rules forbad computer use for him, so he could not do it on his own, even if he knew how to use a computer, which he did not.
Richard was spiritually curious and searching. At first, Christianity was his spiritual home base, but he was open to learn more. He became interested in Amma, and Hinduism. She is a South Indian woman who showed her love for everyone by hugging them, sometimes 8-10,000 people per day in the United States. This led to his love for Indian films like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Slumdog Millionnaire. Recently, two men visited him and converted him to Islam. They gave him a copy of the Koran, a prayer rug, and a kufi, the kind of hat worn by Muslim men. Unfortunately, they never returned. He wears the kufi every time I visit. Maybe he wears it all the time.
The day came when authorities where he lived decided that he had improved sufficiently so that he didn’t need to be in Napa anymore. The search for his next place began. I searched online at home to help. A few places seemed nice. We chose one in Novato, California. They taught some life skills like cooking. He transferred there and got used to the new environment. He still wanted to find his mother. Once again, no one could help.
For almost twenty years, I listened to him talk about how he wanted to find his mother. I understood why no one had helped him and had talked to him about the unwelcome possibilities, but he still wanted to find her. I may have assumed that, besides the challenges and upset that finding a mother with an addiction, or mental illness, or involved in crime would bring, staff where he lived didn’t feel it was their job. That was true: finding lost family members was not in their job description.
On my next visit, I asked him some questions about his family. What was his mother’s name? Did he have sisters or brothers, and what were their names? Did he know his father’s name? He knew all of it. How hard could it be to find them? We could even look them up on my mobile phone. Here’s where Richard and I both neglected to see that we were breaking the rules. We both thought of computers as things that sat on or under a desk. We didn’t connect the computer capability of my mobile phone with computers forbidden by the rules.
He recognized his mother and sister’s name and the names of others who had been important in his life. When I got home, I wrote him his mother’s name, addresses, and telephone number and suggested that a letter come first. He kept forgetting things he meant to say. Four letters from Richard went to his mother.
He got a telephone call from a woman. He thought it was a friend playing a trick on him. “No,” she said, “This is your mother” and she gave her name. They talked for a long time. She lived in someone else’s house, did light housework, and took care of their children. She didn’t have a way to get to him for a visit.
Richard got in a lot of trouble because he had broken a rule. He had used a computer — my mobile phone. I felt terrible. He could not call his mother, but he could take her calls. But, when she called him, a staff person had to be present.
Others receiving treatment in the facility where he lived knew how much trouble he was in. When they asked him about it, he said, “It was worth it!”
This last visit I brought salad, sandwich, soda, and Brownie Bites from Trader Joe’s. It was raining on and off, so we ate in the library. As we visited, I asked Richard if his mother had looked for him, just the way he longed to find her. “Yes,” he said. “She contacted every prison in California, every single one, but I wasn’t in prison.”
Wow!
It was worth it.
Rev. Aikya Param is a Staff Minister at Oakland Center for Spiritual Living in California. She writes nonfiction articles and poetry. For more by Rev. Aikya see Clippings.me — Aikya Param.