I haven't seen the kids since March 30, two days before my arrest. I miss them terribly and have been very anxious for the opportunity to calm their fears and assure them that none of this is their fault and that I will someday return home to them and their mother.
No Contact Orders are mandatory in our state, and ours was put into place the day I was arrested, April 1. While I understand and even believe in the purpose of these legal shields, both myself and my wife feel ours has been the most difficult facet of our case. She didn't ask for it, never wanted it. I hate it, but like many things in my world right now I accept it and make my own attempts to whittle away at it when appropriate. It's like an infinitely long, impassable wall seven stories high and made of solid titanium.
Because of the NCO, Kimberly has been burdened with what I feel is a sentence of her own: one more difficult and challenging than mine. She has been forced into single parenthood with little to no help from friends or family. She has petitioned the Court on multiple occaisons for modifications of the No Contact Order, but the judge has only approved one small modification. It is unlikely that there will be any further modifications until I have completed my time in jail and I fear the worst; that it will remain until my probation is complete in May of 2011. The modification of the NCO allows me supervised visits with the children only. Kimberly and I are allowed to email one another, a right we have fully embraced and made great use of.
Supervised visitation works like this; Only facilities court approved can offer the service. My wife and I have to independently apply for the program, which costs $25 each. Once approved, you have to get in line - as the service is "popular" but has very limited staff and hours. The appointments are on a narrow sliding scale and ends up costing us $50 an hour. The parent with custody drops off the children 15 minutes before the other's scheduled arrival. The children wait with a supervisor. Once the visiting parent arrives, they spend the entire visit under close supervision. No whispering, no exchanges of gifts and the supervisor makes detailed notes on interactions. When it is over, the visitor leaves and the custodial parent picks up the kids 15 minutes later.
We waited a full month before we were able to schedule an appointment, only to end up cancelling because my sentence was given and I was immediately remanded into custody. The stipulation that the Department of Social Services must approve the visitations was added at sentencing. I contacted our caseworker, Luis, as soon as I was able to. This gentleman had visited me in the jail shortly after my arrest to interview me. He was by far the kindest and most considerate man in the "system" that I had met. (I'll tell more about that story another time.) Luis again was very kind and quickly emailed my prosecuting attorney expressing his approval of the condition.
This Monday I contacted the DA's office to follow up on Luis' email and Tuesday I received the wonderful news that I am cleared to have supervised visits with the kids. Since I began my sentence, Kimberly has been making and canceling appointments with the facility that does the supervision - keeping a place in line for us to ensure I have the opportunity to see kids as soon as possible. I was able to arrange a regular weekly visit and was excited to complete my schedule change request when I returned to the jail in the evening.
I completed the paperwork last night and left it in the door jamb of the Work Release pod, the door that regularly locks behind me when I return every evening. This morning while signing out to go to work the request was waiting in my case jacket on top of my sign-out sheet. "Denied" stamped in red ink with a handwritten note: "I need paperwork attached w/ Judge's signature before I can approve this." Ugh. There's that sinking feeling. The judge. This is never going to be approved.
My judge is by far the most interesting and challenging person in this case. I think she hates me and by the way the police report reads: rightfully so. Again, I'll talk more about my judge some other time - I'm just trying to keep a focus on my current events in this post. So basically, while the court technically has given me the opportunity to heal with the children and play with them - the Work Release program will not recognize that right until the judge has ordered me to visit the children. Again, this makes sense to me but it just feels bad. I suppose if it were any other way, I could say the court also allows me to email - so let me out of jail whenever I want so I can email my wife. Yeah, right.
So now my lawyer is involved again, racking up my bill at $200 an hour. More future wages promised away. Things were thin before all this started. Now we're talking rice paper thin. Onion skin thin. He has to file a motion asking the judge to go out of her way to order me to see the babies. To my mind, this sounds a lot like me asking her to climb Mt. Everest on her way to work.
I am praying again more since this news came. I pray the judge will understand the predicament and think of the needs of the children more than my own. I hope she doesn't think much of me at all. I sometimes imagine my case jacket on her desk. My mug shot and her own personal shorthand notes of her impressions. If this is how it is, I hope she doesn't read those notes. I hope she is having a good day. Maybe her flowers are coming in nicely in her garden. Maybe her overdue tax return check came that morning. Maybe.
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