Love, Justine

MUNCY STATE PRISON

January 6th, 2025

Monday

Cool went to Penn-Highlands psych hospital on Friday. That’s really all I know. My parents called CRISIS on him because his delusions were getting worse.

There’s a GI virus going around this Unit. Vomiting and diarrhea galore. People are literally shitting their pants. Norovirus, they say. There is also a snowstorm outside.

Book:

“Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead” by Brene Brown, Ph.D., LMSW 

Excerpts:

P. 189

“SIGNS THAT SHAME HAS PERMEATED THE CULTURE

Blaming, gossiping, favoritism, name-calling, and harassment are all behavior cues that shame has permeated a culture. A more obvious sign is when shame becomes an outright management too.. Is there evidence of people in leadership roles bullying others, criticizing subordinates in front of colleagues, delivering public reprimands, or setting up reward systems that intentionally belittle, shame, or humiliate people?”

P. 195-196

“Related to blame is the issue of cover-ups. Just like blame is a sign of shame-based organizations, cover-up cultures depend on shame to keep folks quiet. When the culture of an organization mandates that it is more important to protect the reputation of a system and those in power than it is to protect the basic human dignity of individuals or communities, you can be certain that shame is systemic, money drives ethics, and accountability is dead.”

P. 225

“Shame is so painful for children because it is inextricably linked to the fear of being unlovable. For young children who are still dependent on their parents for survival–for food, shelter, and safety–feeling unlovable is a threat to survival. It’s trauma. I’m convinced that the reason most of us revert back to feeling childlike and small when we’re in shame is because our brain stores our early shame experiences as trauma, and when it’s triggered we return to that place.

THE END

3:30pm

Lockdown. No word on why. The lights keep going out and an alarm was going off on S Unit. The kiosks have been down for five days. 

January 10th, 2025

Friday

12:53pm

Our cellie Martha got the norovirus. She just woke up puking and apologizing at the same time. Miraculously, neither Daisy or I have gotten it yet. The kiosks are finally working again, thankfully. Not that I have any messaging credits, but I can at least check my balance. I have a visit with Stryder (video) in a few minutes. I had one yesterday with Paul, but neither one of us had much to say. 

Cool is still in the Psych hospital. They told him he couldn’t leave unless he takes medication, so he finally agreed to. Not telling whether he’ll take them on the outside.

No Library today.

Zuko says she broke up with Tyson, but Tyson says they’re still together. Tyson never said anything to me one way or another, after all that drama and threatening about a fight.

Whatever.

Los Angeles is burning down.

EXERCISE: STORY FROM CHILDHOOD

In 1988, the penny candy store was exactly one mile from our house on East Holland Road in Western New York. We usually weren’t allowed to go, but once in a while, we were. My sister and I would each get one dollar from our mother–who was usually angry about one thing or another and bitching about it on the phone–to spend at the candy store.

We would go to the end of East Holland Road, past the Big Red Barn that didn’t have any animals in it, and turn left onto another road–Protection Road. Then there was a high bridge we had to cross over, but there was no water beneath it, just railroad tracks, so if you fell, you’d be in trouble.

Then, eventually, there was the store, with a crotchety old lady (who seemed to loathe small children with one-dollar bills) behind the counter. I would wonder later why she owned a penny candy store at all, if she’d rather be eating us for dinner, like in Hansel and Gretel. (Aside–why are children’s stories so gruesome and horrifying?) 

She would begrudgingly dole out our painstakingly chosen pieces of candy and then shoo us away, lest we think of stealing more loot for ourselves.

We would eat the candy all the way home, which seemed to take forever and a day. Then we would get to our yellow house on the corner and go inside, where our mother would still be bitching on the phone about her crappy life and “these damn kids.”

EXERCISE: TIMELINE of 2005

January 2005

Ethan is four months old. I am working at the Vet Tech Institute as an instructor. Ethan is going to Child’s Way (a special needs day care) during the day. My sister moves in from Erie, PA. She drinks all of the time. My divorce is finalized.

February 2005

Ethan is five months old. Elizabeth tries to make him sit up like a normal baby. Elizabeth asks me if he is dying. I say yes.

March 2005

Ethan is six months old. I sign paperwork for a “Do Not Resuscitate” order for him at Child’s Way. He is hospitalized with profound anemia. He is drinking Ensure almost exclusively at this point.

April 2005

Ethan dies on April 6th, 2005

April 6th, 2005

I was sitting on my couch next to a prone, unconscious Ethan. The only sound besides the hospice nurse gently explaining to me that babies are “programmed to live,” and that’s why his death was taking so long, was the sound of the death rattle in Ethan’s chest every time he took a breath. 

I’ll never forget that sound.

I couldn’t figure out how he was still living. This is why the nurse, Dan, was trying to impress upon me that infants are hardwired for survival. After dealing with animals for a decade as a veterinary technician, I couldn’t for the life of me make it make sense that this kid was still alive. He had been given two blood transfusions and was still anemic, had fluid in his lungs and infections in his gut, and –oh yeah–before all that was missing damn near half of his SKIN. 

You can’t live without your skin. 

Why was he still alive?

Finally, I started sobbing and exclaimed, “I just can’t take this anymore!” and at the same moment Ethan took a giant breath. “I-is this agonal?” I asked Dan, who answered, “I don’t know.”

Well, Ethan must’ve heard me, because he never took another breath. 

Next–just silence.

I cried and kissed his face and told him that I loved him and that I was happy for him.

I was relieved.

Finally, the suffering would be over.

He had suffered so much that I couldn’t stand watching it any more. 

Finally, no more agonizing death rattle, no more struggle, blessed peace.

In a daze, I went out of the living room to tell my family. I told them and kept walking, out of the apartment, out of the driveway in my socks. I wanted to be alone with God for a moment, to thank Him for taking Ethan home.

A truck was pulling into my driveway as I walked past it toward the road, a flower delivery truck. I barely saw it. I continued walking and praying quietly to myself, and went around the block.

Back at my apartment, my Aunt Sweetheart intercepted the ill-timed flowers, complete with “Get Well Soon!” balloons aplenty. My mother, horrified, quickly stabbed scissors through the balloons, crumpled them up, and threw them in the garbage. 

I wouldn’t find this out until years later, of course, the frantic balloon-stabbing party, but I thought it was darkly funny when I did. 

I wonder what Dan, the hospice nurse, thought of the whole thing while he was meticulously measuring all of Ethan’s narcotic medications and dumping them down the toilet. He probably thought we were all crazy, me walking around the block in my socks and my mother’s reaction to the “Get Well!” balloons. 

I will say this–if there’s anything on this planet that is universally crazy-making, it’s your own child dying in front of you on your couch.

I hated that couch.

Funny that I slept on it for the next few months because I couldn’t bring myself to sleep in the bed that Ethan and I shared. 

That bed gave me nightmares.

If I slept in it, I would wake up at 3am–always 3am–with a start, and look around frantically for Ethan. It was time for his medicine, time for a feeding, time for something. Where was he? Had Elizabeth taken him in the night? Horror of horrors–did I leave him somewhere in his carseat? 

Why couldn’t I remember??

A small voice in the back of my head would be nagging at me insistently, trying to tell me something, but I would ignore it.

I had to find Ethan first.

Where was he?

By this time, my heart was pounding in my ears, and I was starting to hyperventilate. 

What?

What?!

What was that voice saying??!

Oh.

Oh no.

Ethan had died. 

Ethan was dead. 

Ethan had died on the couch in the living room.

He didn’t need medication or feeding. 

He was dead. 

I would stop panicking and just burst into tears instead, with my head in my hands. 

Like I said–crazy-making.