Lost in Florida

Personal Blog

Categories: Cards, Prison

The end of physical mail in prisons / how prison wives turn to e-cards

There are few things more important to a prison wife than staying in touch with her husband. But with the recent move to end physical mail in prisons, it’s becoming a little more complicated to write.

As the use of physical mail in prisons continues to decline, prison wives and families are turning to e-mails to stay connected with their loved ones. While some may see this as a positive development, others worry about the lack of touch and intimacy. This is my case and as I really deplore this radical change, however, we now have to deal with it.

There are a number of reasons why e-mailing is not always the preferred method of communication for prison wives. First, holding a paper that contains the handwriting of your loved ones, their smell, is simply irreplaceable.  Secondly, it is increasingly expensive to send e-mails to prisons.
However, many prisons have restrictions on what types of limited mail can be sent to inmates, they go through 3rd party companies… making it more difficult to send letters and cards. There is also the simple fact that most people now communicate electronically, and prison wives, families and pen pals are no different – especially if writing from overseas.

As a cardmaker, it is incredibly frustrating for me that the cards I create – usually with my husband in mind as he is my main inspiration, are cards he will now be unable to see…
Well, or so I thought at first… Because I recently started to send them to him electronically.

E-cards are not my favorites but they offer a number of advantages over traditional mail. They are cheaper to send, and there are less restrictions on what can be sent. In addition, they can be sent instantaneously, which means we prison wives can stay in touch with our loved ones more easily.

So, how can we turn to e-cards? Websites that offer free e-cards – same issue as greeting cards – rarely fit the situation of having an incarcerated husband and/or friend. You might find sites that offers a wide variety of e-cards but they might not respect the JPay, Access Corrections, etc. rules, the format (and so the conditions to go through and not be rejected either by the institutional e-mail provider or the prison staff)  plus you want to be able to find the perfect card, whether it’s funny, romantic, or just a simple hello!

So I am launching my own e-cards! The same way I was hoping to help with my greeting cards (still available and if your loved ones’ facility still accept them, lucky you!) when I started Sweet Undertone, I hope my shop will allow you to find the perfect e-card for your loved one!

 

And for those who don’t want to send a greeting card to a 3rd party shredder but still want to use paper in the facilities the mail is copied and given in paper, I am also launching printable versions of some of my cards:

Categories: Books

April reads

 

I am still playing catch up with my reads but this will be my last delayed post. Hopefully, I will continue more regularly.

In April, I read 4 books on 4 very different topics:

  • An essay on the persistent racial injustice in America.
  • A friend-to-lovers vacation story.
  • A collection of essay about pregnancy, birth, and motherhood .
    A bit hard to relate as most writers have tons of money, which does make a difference in the options you have for your care and baby’s. Be prepared to cry everything you have (especially if you listen to the book as the authors are reading) during Emma Hansen’s essay. It really made me want to read her whole book, “Still: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Motherhood”, I am just not ready to face it at the moment.
  • A “memoir meets masterclass”. We follow the author from aspiring author to professor. Her book is an “exploration of how we think and write about intimate experiences—“a must read for anybody shoving a pen across paper or staring into a screen or a past” (Mary Karr).”
Categories: Books

March reads

A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham
This had a great interesting start, with the narrator being the daughter of a serial killer arrested when she was a teen and “left to grapple with the truth and try to move forward while dealing with the aftermath”. When the book begins as Chloe is trying to keep moving on with her life – through with the help of alcohol and drugs – the murders start again… the work of a copycat?
Though it was slow-paced, it was a quick read. It has a bunch of twists, some predictable, some less, I expected a bit more. It seems like it was meant to be a psychological thriller but I found the end a bit too messy on this side.

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin
A psychic tells siblings the date of their death, some soon, some decades later. How will each of them handle the prophecy and how much knowing when they’ll die will influence how they live?
I had some troubles getting into the book at first, but then we dived into Simon’s story and it was so representative of his time, so sad but so full of life too… My favorite part of the book for sure.

A Good Man by Ani Katz
The narrator is a good man, with a good family and a good life. Or is he? How fragile can this perfect life be? Everything has taken a turn for the worst and though we won’t know specifically what happened until the very end, we listened as he unraveled the story of his life to try to understand when things took a spin, and if he is a victim, or a monster.
Through the story was not groundbreaking or the ending as surprising as maybe intended, it was a super short read, I picked it up and didn’t put it down before it was over. A good drama book for an afternoon.

The Body in Question by Jill Ciment
Another great starting point: Hannah is a juror on a very mediation and horrible crime, we follow her during her period of sequestration. It was a quick read too, some passages about jury duty life were interesting, but overall I couldn’t really believe the [SPOILER] love affaire with another member of the jury.[/SPOILER]. The choice of not telling us either what really happened in the actual murder case was a bit frustrating, but I actually loved that choice. The jurors don’t know more than what was presented and a year later they still can’t be sure if their verdict was right. Annoying, but real!

Categories: Prison

Richard Tabler

I reposted the post I wrote for Wire of Hope’s Instagram yesterday but I wanted to talk more about Richard Tabler. First, he is looking for pen pals and that’s how we met, he joined Wire of Hope, and we stroke a friendship. He is on Texas death row (already terrible life conditions), but he lives in harsher circumstances as he is the only person who is permanently housed on death watch, at Polunski Unit. A rapid Google search will make you believe his mom smuggled a phone to him and he used it to threaten a State Senator’s daughters, which lead to his super-high security housing and the arrest of his mother and sister, and their definite loss of visitation. The truth is that he used a smuggled phone – his mother has nothing to do with this, but she did buy minutes for the phone so he could call her – and made a call trying to raise awareness on the living conditions on Texas death row. Obviously, making an unauthorized phone call from inside to someone of power was not the smartest move, but does this deserve an unending housing on DEATH WATCH? All his neighbors are men who have received an execution date, and as he builds relationships with them, they get closer to their date and eventually, he witnesses them leave to their death. On top of this mental torture, he has not been allowed to see his family since the phone incident, over 13 years ago.
I suppose I relate as I feel he is the only one who has an idea of what I’m going through, having lost my visits too. He says it’s different however, and it is, because it’s not his life partner, there is no child involved, but it’s been going on for so long it makes me sick for him. I have a really hard time accepting prison authorities have almost all-power as there is no real oversight, and no one cares enough to change that… Anyway, if you’d like to get to know Richard, here is his profile on Wire of Hope: https://wireofhope.com/prison-penpal-richard-tabler/

 

Categories: Books, Prison

Within the Shadows of Life

Richard was writing his autobiography when he first joined Wire of Hope. He tells the story of growing up feeling unwanted and unloved and how he embraced a life of crimes while searching for his place in the world… until he ended up on Texas death row.
Without even realizing it, and before he even found anyone to write to through us, we at Wire of Hope made an impact on him, and we were moved to read he even mentioned us in his book.

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