One day I couldn’t help myself. I researched federal prisons on the internet.

It was like a terrible car wreck off to the side of the road. I didn’t want to see it, but I had to look.  It gave me the shivers to even know someone going to prison.

I wasn’t the only one thinking about prisons.

My oldest son was too.  He came home one day to report that at school his economics teacher showed the class a prison in Georgia.  I couldn’t believe it.  What are the odds they’d be discussing prisons in economics as my son’s father was heading to one?

To my son, the Georgia prison looked like a nice hotel: glass walls with forest views, basketball courts, tennis courts, ping pong tables, and every cell had a flat screen t.v.

It was incomprehensible to me, and to my kids, that we knew someone heading to prison.

I also couldn’t believe I didn’t know where my children and I were going to live or how we were going to eat, yet He was going to have everything provided for him in prison! Never had the thought of prison sounded like a dream, but there was a tiny part of me that felt like He was getting off easier than I was.  His sentence sounded a lot less harsh than mine.

So my children and I joked about it.  (And I have to give Him credit.  He sat there and took our jokes.)

We repeated jokes like, “In prison, you get three square meals a day. At home, you cook three square meals a day and try to get your kids to eat them. In prison, if you have visitors, all you do is go to a room, sit, talk and then say good-bye when you are ready or your time is up. At home, you clean for days getting ready for your guests, cook and clean up after your guests, and hope that they will one day leave. In prison, you spend your free time writing letters or hanging out in your own space all day. At home, you get to clean your space and everyone else’s space, too, and what the heck is free time again? In prison, there are no whining children or spouses asking you to do something else for them. At home….stop me when I get to the downside of prison, will ya?”

But my oldest son made us laugh the hardest.  He detailed the prison he learned about in school to his dad and suggested He “make a reservation” for Georgia for the next several years!

I guess you had to be there. But I do know the laughter was a nice break from crying! It always is.

“With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.” (Abraham Lincoln)

I knew the feeling.  We all did.