Prisonist.org: Faith & Dignity
for the Days Ahead
Blogs, Guest Blogs & News
for the Days Ahead
Blogs, Guest Blogs & News
Prisonist.org Newsletter Jan. '16
Faith & Dignity for the Days Ahead
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Showing posts with label melissa tanis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label melissa tanis. Show all posts
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Prisonist.org: Newsletter Jan. '16, White-Collar Ministry, Faith & Dignity for the Days Ahead
Monday, December 21, 2015
Journey From Darkness to Light, By Melissa Tanis - Child of an Incarcerated Parent & Guest Blogger
Prisonist.org: Blogs, Guest Blogs
& News Concerning National and
International Criminal Justice Themes
Journey From Darkness to Light
By Melissa Tanis - Child of an Incarcerated
Parent & Guest Blogger
Melissa's first guest blog for prisonist.org, Child of an Incarcerated Parent,
(Jan. '15) chronicled her reunion with her father who was sentenced to 50 years in prison - it became our most-viewed blog ever! Below is her follow-up blog
that brings us up-to-date on her incredible and heartwarming story.
__________
Jeff Grant and Lynn Springer and the Progressive Prison Project are on a mission to change the lives of families impacted by incarceration, and they changed mine in a very unique way. At the beginning of this year, I was without a job, searching for places to live and having to consider moving out of the city. I knew I wanted to work at a nonprofit and I knew I wanted to work in criminal justice reform and was doing everything I could to try to get my foot in the door. I was applying to jobs every day but with only a bachelor’s degree in this day and age, the only response I received was an automated “thanks for applying, we’ll get back to you soon.” They never did.
I came across Jeff on LinkedIn because I was searching people who worked in criminal justice reform. I took a shot in the dark, used one of my free LinkedIn messages and introduced myself, asking him if he knew of anyone looking to hire in New York City. I had shared a short overview of my story with him and he said he and his audience would be interested in hearing more. So one afternoon I sat down at a coffee shop and in about thirty minutes to an hour typed out my first draft of my story of having a parent who is incarcerated, Child of an Incarcerated Parent. I sent it to Jeff for review, to see if I was even going in the right direction and did not anticipate his response. He said he was so moved by it and wanted to post it as is. I was a little shocked. I knew my story was interesting, I knew it was unique, but I guess I was a little used to it and forgot the impact it could potentially have on people. I was excited and somewhat nervous to see the response.
I like to think that I tweet funny, clever things on a regular basis, but my phone has never seen more Twitter notifications than when Jeff posted my blog. People were tweeting directly at me, thanking me for sharing my story. The blog caught the eye of Piper Kerman, author of Orange Is The New Black: My Year In a Women’s Prison and her compliments were very meaningful since she has also been impacted by the system and is now working to change it. The best responses came from people who not only were moved by my story but could relate. People would email me saying I put into words what they have been trying to express for so long and wanted me to talk with their children who have a parent who is incarcerated.
A couple weeks later I got an email from Tanya Krupat who works at the Osborne Association and is the Director of the New York Initiative for Children of Incarcerated Parents, and my jaw dropped. She told me she had read my blog, loved it and wanted to talk on the phone. Eventually I came into the Osborne office and shared more of my story, both past and present, with Tanya and her team. Tanya had asked how comfortable I felt with advocacy and sharing my story more publicly. I took the opportunity to casually mention that I was actually currently (and desperately) looking for a job doing just that. One thing led to another and in April of 2015, I started working in the Communications Department at Osborne’s office in the South Bronx. Ironically, a part of my job is writing blog posts.
One of the many lessons I have learned is the power of vulnerability and the beauty of what can happen when we are transparent with each other and how that can open doors for support. This year is the first time I’ve really felt like I’ve known other people like me, other adults who have had or do have a parent who is incarcerated and struggle with similar emotions. I now feel less lonely. I now feel less burdened by my past and all the difficulties I have experienced throughout my life. I feel less ashamed of my struggles with depression or anxiety or the emotions that arise when memories are triggered. As I’ve embraced being a daughter of an incarcerated parent rather than ignoring it, I have learned so much more about myself. In getting to know my dad, I have become better acquainted with me.
Another lesson I have learned is that not only is it powerful for me to share my story as an adult with an incarcerated parent, it is powerful for my dad to share his. As I wrote in my last blog post, my dad had cancer and at the time was in remission. But in March of this year I got a call from my dad like I normally do except this time, he told me his cancer had returned and spread to his lungs. The doctor said he had at best, two years to live. He has responded well to chemo but it will be an ongoing treatment and at different moments, he is very vulnerable to infection. If it’s not the cancer that gets him, it could very well be a minor infection that his weakened immune system is not able to fight off. When I first found out about his cancer returning, everything seemed meaningless. What do we talk about now? How do we catch up on 20 years of not knowing each other in at best two years?
Because we are not sure of the amount of time he has left, visiting has felt more urgent. A couple months ago, after the Ella Baker Center issued a report about the cost of incarceration on families, I started a GoFundMe to help supplement the costs of visiting my dad in another state. Friends, family and people I don’t even know have generously supported me so that I was able to visit him at the beginning of this month, cost-free.
Before the visit, I was wondering what kind of impact it would have on children to talk with their incarcerated parents, at an age appropriate time, about their crimes. Tanya had recently told me a story about a young girl who thought her dad’s incarceration was her fault because of something she construed in her head and it wasn’t until she went to visit him and heard from his mouth that his incarceration had nothing to do with her, that she felt freedom and was smiling when she came out of the visiting room. I wondered what kind of pain and guilt that girl would have struggled with as she got older had she not talked with her dad. My dad and I talk about his crimes and what led him to such a place where he was capable of committing them. He assures me over and over that it never had to do with us, it was his issue. It wasn’t because of a lack of love or care or desire to be with us, he was in a bad place and made terrible choices. To this day, although he can walk me through the how’s and the why’s of committing his crimes, he still cannot fully grasp what would cause him to push his loving family away like that. He assumes it must be some deep level of self-loathing. We may not figure it out, but watching him wrestle with it is healing for me. It is healing for me to sit across from him in a visiting room and hear him say that and it is healing for him to be given the opportunity to say that to me. I believe when people are truly remorseful, they not only say they are but they desire an opportunity to make things right, to somehow fix their wrongs. And for people in prison, we consistently deny or limit the ability for someone to do so. I know why. I know there is risk, I know there is a lot of pain involved in bringing a harmed party around the party that has caused the harm or bringing up years of buried pain, and in some cases, it may not be for the best. But I believe every person should know that it is at least their right to decide what they want and that there is potential healing in doing so.
In order for someone to begin the healing process, there has to be community and policy support. I could not have started reconnecting with my dad if I did not feel I was in a safe space to do so. I know the key to my continued health and well-being is the support of new and old friends and family, people on Facebook I haven’t talked to in years sending me words of encouragement, donating to my GoFundMe and offering for me to stay at their house when I visit my dad. It’s not easy, it is overwhelming, but the payoff is worth it. My dad is worth it. His healing, my healing, and the impact it has on people in my same situation is a million and one times worth it. So thank you New York City, thank you Osborne, thank you Twitter, thank you Tanya Krupat and the New York Initiative for Children of Incarcerated Parents, thank you friends and family, thank you prisonist.org family, and thank you Jeff Grant and Lynn Springer for opening your arms to me and not only allowing me the opportunity to share my heart, but for taking such good care of it.
Happy Holidays, Melissa
Melissa Tanis happily resides in New York City,
loves to travel, learn new things, binge-watch Netflix, and is currently
teaching herself Spanish. Melissa can be reached at mntanis89@gmail.com. Twitter: @meltanissa
Comments from Social Media:
Gary Baney Jeff Grant, JD, M Div
- keep up the excellent posts. You never know whose inbox these will
end up in and how much good they can be doing. Have faith!
Barry Diamond. "This is an inspiration to anyone who is currently incarcerated or to a child of someone in prison. It gives hope to children of inmates because it shows you that you can be a person of quality & contribute to the world. It also gives hope to the incarcerated that their children with the right attitude can get somewhere in the world & accomplish things. Thanks Melissa for sharing your story so that others in the same situation can have hope."
Sharon Traeger Goldberg This is so powerful. What an amazing strength of character for someone so young who is been through so much. God bless you and Lynn for all you do
Barry Diamond. "This is an inspiration to anyone who is currently incarcerated or to a child of someone in prison. It gives hope to children of inmates because it shows you that you can be a person of quality & contribute to the world. It also gives hope to the incarcerated that their children with the right attitude can get somewhere in the world & accomplish things. Thanks Melissa for sharing your story so that others in the same situation can have hope."
Sharon Traeger Goldberg This is so powerful. What an amazing strength of character for someone so young who is been through so much. God bless you and Lynn for all you do
__________
Progressive Prison Project/
Innocent Spouse & Children ProjectRev. Jeff Grant, JD, M Div, Minister/Director
jgrant@prisonist.org
(o) 203-769-1096
(m) 203-339-5887
Linked In
Google+
Lynn Springer, Founding Advocate, Innocent Spouse & Children Project
lspringer@prisonist.org
lspringer@prisonist.org
(203) 536-5508
George Bresnan, Advocate, Ex-Pats
gbresnan@prisonist.org
(203) 609-5088
Jim Gabal, Development
jgabal@prisonist.org
(203) 858-2865
Babz Rawls Ivy, Media Contact
mediababz@gmail.com
(203) 645-9278
George Bresnan, Advocate, Ex-Pats
gbresnan@prisonist.org
(203) 609-5088
Jim Gabal, Development
jgabal@prisonist.org
(203) 858-2865
Babz Rawls Ivy, Media Contact
mediababz@gmail.com
(203) 645-9278
Donations
If transformation and redemption matter to you, a friend or a
family member with a white-collar or nonviolent incarceration issue,
please contact us and we will promptly send you an information package
by mail, email or via Dropbox. The darkest days of a person's life can be a time of renewal and hope.
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Child Of An Incarcerated Parent, By Melissa Tanis - Guest Blogger
Prisonist.org: Blogs, Guest Blogs
& News Concerning National and
International Criminal Justice Themes
Child Of An Incarcerated Parent
By Melissa Tanis - Guest Blogger
We asked Melissa to write a guest blog for
prisonist.org after she contacted us looking for a job.
She sent us one of the most poignant, moving
and authentic pieces we have ever
had the honor of reading. - Jeff
and authentic pieces we have ever
had the honor of reading. - Jeff
__________
When I was five years old my father was sentenced to a maximum of 50 years in prison. I was not able at that age to comprehend how much my life would change from that moment on. I visited my father in prison when I was eight years old and then went 17 years without any contact.
During that time, my mom was a single mom for five years, working as a teacher and trying to support four kids. She was (and still is) amazingly strong and a positive example for me of what it means to be an empowered woman with enough vulnerability and strength to rely on and receive help from others. I remember members of our church would just show up at our doorstep with dinner or groceries or a new refrigerator when ours broke.
My mom said at the sentencing that the judge looked at her and told her that we were the “silent victims”. I understand what he means by that. When your family member has committed a crime against others, especially one that has been followed by the media, there is a level of guilt, shame, and embarrassment that can hinder self-care. Your only desire is that the victims feel no more pain at whatever cost. You suddenly become a source of pain, a reminder of what happened. I only know this now as an adult and by looking at the story through my mom’s lens. But as a five year old, I was not fully aware of the situation and therefore could not understand why I could not be around my friends anymore. My mom was wise enough to not neglect self-care, and put us all in counseling. Although counseling to me was getting to play Chinese checkers while my friend asked me if I ever felt angry at times, I enjoyed time with my counselor and at a young age had a positive view of counseling.
Even with the immense help of friends and family, we still struggled financially and emotionally. We were all hit with an unexpected bomb and my mom did everything she could to keep us on our feet.
__________
There
was a 17 year gap where I was indirectly the child of an incarcerated
person. He was my father through genetics but was not in my life at all.
One day as a 22 year old in college I had this random realization that I
was not even sure if my father was still alive. As I am learning now,
the prisons do not tell you much and especially not in a timely fashion.
When my father almost died in prison in 2013, my aunt did not know
about it for almost a month after the fact.Back to being in college, I decided to google my father’s name to see if I could find out any information. This was the first time I had ever done this. What I found was pretty life-changing for me. My father was in a rehabilitation program called Shakespeare Behind Bars and a documentary was made about the program. My father is in that documentary. Suddenly, I had a way of seeing him after 15 years at this point. I worked myself up to watching it by reading reviews and watching trailers. I downloaded the documentary that night and watched it. I was hit to my core. My dad would say things throughout the film like “those who need mercy the most are the ones you think deserve it the least”. I felt as if he was crying out for someone to take notice of his pain, for someone to not define him by the worst thing he has ever done.
It took me two years to work up the courage to write him, but I finally wrote him my first letter in February 2014. Since then we have written countless letters, spend time on the phone weekly and I have gone to visit him twice. Our relationship is very unique in that my dad knew me as a child, and now all of sudden I am a woman. He missed out on very crucial years, and yet he gets to see the result of those years. We have moments where we feel really connected, and then moments where we’re reminded how much we do not know about each other. I knew my dad as a five year old. I did not know anything about his life, his growing up years, even how he met my mom. I do not know that much about him, although I am learning, and yet he is my dad and I feel like even though I do not know facts about him, I understand him.
He is my dad. And he is incarcerated.
I can tell him about my day, about what is going on in my life right now, but he does not get to experience it. I cannot just call him up whenever. He tells me about life inside the wire but I will never really be able to understand or truly relate to what he is going through. I can only sympathize when I wish to fully empathize.
My dad will sometimes reminisce about what could have been. He was a computer engineer and ahead of his time. He was on the edge of the technology boom and who knows what kind of apps, websites, etc. he could have created or invested in. He tells me if he had not gone into prison, he imagines we would be millionaires. Whether or not that is true, when he talks this way it reminds me of how drastically my life did change when I was young. I am happy with the person I have become and the adversities I have been through have allowed me to see the most important things in life, things other than potentially growing up as a millionaire’s kid. As much as I wish my father did not commit his crimes and leave my life at such a young age, I like the relationship we have now. Reminiscing about the past does little good. All we have is now. I remind my dad of this when he begins to look back. I can imagine he has a lot of time in prison to think. But I try to keep him moving forward, to think of what can be, to not try to correct his past mistakes but to see what he has in front of him: a daughter who supports him and cares about him now, not what he could have been had he not gone to prison or who he was before he committed his crimes.
I have learned so much about the prison system and the brokenness on the inside that is easily kept on the inside. I am grateful for what seems to be a push in more awareness of the conditions of our prisons and the problem of mass incarceration. I have sat in a visiting room and held back my own tears as I watch grown men unsuccessfully try to fight back tears as they hug their wives, children and mothers goodbye, some of them not knowing when they will ever see them again.
And I have learned the power of human connection. For someone inside the wire, contact with someone outside of it speaks so deeply to their soul. It helps them feel heard. It helps them feel like they are not forgotten. One thing I have seen in my dad is that it is easy to slip into oblivion. It is easy to push people out because they are already out and going through the pain of letting them in is a huge risk. It is easy to feel forgotten because to many people, you are.
The challenges of being an adult with an incarcerated parent mainly consist of a constant worry that they will be ok. I do not have unrealistic expectations that he would ever be at a point of thriving. If he calls and does not seem depressed, that is a win. One of my biggest fears before I wrote my dad is that he would die in prison without ever knowing that I care about him. That fear was almost a reality. A year and a half before I wrote my dad, he found out he has cancer. He is almost in full remission. A year later, something in his bowels ruptured and although he cried for help, no one did anything until a nurse came and ordered them to rush him to the hospital or else he would die. Many people do not survive what he went through. He just had a surgery to repair the rupture last month and before he went into it, he told me there were some risks and that I would be a person on their list to contact if anything happened to him. Thank goodness he came out of it fine. But I cannot rush to the hospital to see him. I cannot help him in his recovery. I have to trust him to a system that sees him as a number, a criminal only deserving of the minimal amount of care and not even that at times. He told me about a nurse at the hospital who was kind to him and that made everything so much easier. She treated him like a regular patient. When I cannot be there for him, I am grateful for people like that nurse who exhibit compassion beyond the norm.
I know I am not capable of making everything in his life perfect, nor should I try because that is too big of a task to bear, but I do carry around his pain. It is unavoidable. However, I choose to carry his pain with him. I choose to sit with him through the mess that is prison, through the ugliness that is depression, through the pain of loneliness, through the moments of shame and self-loathing, and through the joys that come through reconnecting.
Because not only is he my dad, he is a human being who is not invincible, no matter how much he wishes he was.
Originally published in Jan. '15, this became our most-read blog ever! Melissa soon became sought after in the NY reentry community and accepted a job with The Osborne Association - you can read about it in her follow up blog, From Darkness Into Light, Dec. '15. She
happily resides in Brooklyn, NY,
loves to travel, learn new things, binge-watch Netflix, and is currently
teaching herself Spanish. Melissa can be reached at mntanis89@gmail.com. Twitter: @meltanissa
__________
Rev. Jeff Grant, JD, M Div, Minister/Director
jgrant@prisonist.org
(o) 203-769-1096
jgrant@prisonist.org
(m) 203-339-5887
Lynn Springer, Founding Advocate, Innocent Spouses & Children
lspringer@prisonist.org
(203) 536-5508
George Bresnan, Advocate, Ex-Pats
gbresnan@prisonist.org
(203) 609-5088
Jim Gabal, Development
jgabal@prisonist.org
(203) 858-2865
Babz Rawls Ivy, Media Contact
mediababz@gmail.com
(203) 645-9278
George Bresnan, Advocate, Ex-Pats
gbresnan@prisonist.org
(203) 609-5088
Jim Gabal, Development
jgabal@prisonist.org
(203) 858-2865
Babz Rawls Ivy, Media Contact
mediababz@gmail.com
(203) 645-9278
__________
Donations
We are grateful for donations from individuals, religious groups, charities, foundations and the like. Donations can be made by credit card/PayPal or by sending your check payable to: “Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc.” P.O. Box 1232, Weston, Connecticut 06883. Progressive Prison Project/Innocent Spouse & Children Project are missions of Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc. We are a CT Religious Corp. with 501c3 status - all donations are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law. Thank you for your support and generosity.
If transformation and redemption matter to you, a friend or a
family member with a white-collar or nonviolent incarceration issue,
please contact us and we will promptly send you an information package
by mail, email or via Dropbox. The darkest days of a person's life can be a time of renewal and hope.
___________
Comments from Social Media:
Kate Rolston
Richard Sampson
Founder at Mana HQ
Vision of Life, Founder,Director,Advocate and Public Speaker
There are literally thousands of children of incarcerated parents. Maybe it's time to step up and help them
Barbara Dudley
Business Owner at Awakenings Treatment Services
Thank you so much for sharing this wonderful piece of a relationship in the making...I feel you would be a huge asset to work with families of incarcerated members...I notice you don't mention your mother much ( except in the beginning) and get the idea this is clearly your journey...The part where your dad was hospitalized felt as though he was being punished again rather than like any other human being as the nurse you mentioned was able to do...Fear, bias and generally someone Else's anger gets in the way...This was very moving and I find it so interesting to hear about your developing relationship...Good for you...
Ronald Simpson-Bey
Research Assistant at University of Michigan
Kudos to Melissa! She is a young woman with wisdom beyond her years. Many family members use prison as an excuse to turn their backs on their loved one, which is made easier with the passage of time. Yet this young woman let her humanity dictate the order of the day. Her's is a lesson from which society, victims, offenders, and all families could learn. Thank you Melissa. . .
olanda Ortega 2nd
Director, Faithbased Mental Health Initiative; Consultant Wellness Center for Families of Faith
This column is inspiring. I have no direct experience with prison although I have 3 nephews from Michigan who have been there--one is finally out and working on building a life on the outside with family support. The other 2 are still in prison. All three have mood disorders, or "mental illness." My brother, the dad of one, was in prison 20 years, is married and has not re-offended since his release more than 20 years ago. He had depression when he committed his violent crime that sent him to prison. I live in Texas so I'm not close to the prison issue. I do know that many in prison have mental illness, and that it runs in my family. I have been a mental health advocate since the '80s and now am involved leading an effort in San Antonio, TX, to have churches become part of the safety net for those affected by serious mental illness.
Laura Lillian Best, This is a heart wrenching story. Thanx
Carol Goldstone Incredible. I would love to meet you to learn more about this organization.
Linda Jorgenson Excellent article! Very well written. Thank you for sharing.
Nancy Mattox
Wow how poignant
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