The last two days have been hard. Not as hard as last year, but hard none the less. This post, I am going to be honest with you all about my feelings. As supporters for our loved ones caught in these traps, we find ourselves in the role of cheerleaders, and often ignore, or try to, our necessary emotions.
As I watched my ‘grand babies’ rip open their presents and exclaim ‘how did Santa know?’ and ‘I wuv it!’, I couldn’t help but remember my own son, the only one I had at their age, and the joy of our own past Christmases.
My youngest says I failed him during this time – that I wasn’t there for him in his critical moments. I’m sure he’s right. The truth is I couldn’t be there – it was all I could do to stay on this earth.
Everyone of you, closely involved in these stings, has thought about suicide. The mother left alone with her children and no bread winner. The girlfriend who’s lover is about to ‘go away’. The grandparents who, in all their wisdom and experience, can’t believe our lovely country would allow this to happen to their offspring – their legacy. And me, the mother who feels helpless to stop the events that put my eldest in harms way. For all my strength, power, voice, conviction, advocacy… for all that I am – I failed my eldest son. I let evil things take him from me.
As he turned to me in the courtroom, after hearing his sentence, and the realization sank into his numb mind – he turned to me with pain and fear crossing his face – and a sob escaped his mouth. He said one word. “Mom?”. And my heart exploded in pain.
Every day I ‘stuff’ or ‘push’ my fear down. Everyday I anticipate my son will not make it out of prison. Every day I fear I will get the phone call that takes me to my knees.
Yesterday for dinner Jim’s daughter made stuffing. I told her I don’t do stuffing. The truth is I do it every day. As do all of you. My heart is with you all.
The Lady Justice Myth 
You did not fail him. You dealt with his Passive -Aggressive behavior while trying to hold yourself together and support your other son in prison. There are no winners in what our family has been through, S needs to realize this.
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Oh yes I understand all of this…
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You didn’t fail your son. None of those who have been affected or have someone (friend, family member, spouse, etc.) who was arrested from these sting operations has failed anyone. There is ONLY so much we can do beforehand. It is up to everyone to make their own decisions (good or bad). People get scammed every day; essentially that is all these stings are. We just have a higher pain point with our situations. We will get through this and be stronger. Jace has a chance to win via Jury trial (if he so chooses); others who have plead out or lost or will lose their appeal won’t. In March or April the world will know our pain.
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We are two years in to a 5 year sentence with our son. Everyday you go over what you did wrong.
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im sorry to hear that Karla – what state did this happen in? In love and support, Kathleen
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Family members are not to blame for the victimization that scammers and other evil people like this are doing. The evil people who do these evil things are the only ones to blame for this.
It’s only a matter of time before it all catches up to them. There is no escape from the consequences they create for themselves for doing things like this. If they were really as smart as they think they are, they would never even think about doing stupid things like this, because smart people know very well that even though stupid choices like this may have short term gains, in the long run there are painful consequences they’ll have to face. There’s no escape from that. It’s just the way it is.
Young people learn by trial and error. Normal people learn from mistakes. Evil people deny reality and refuse to learn from experiences because they’re so lost in their fantasy worlds and want to stay there. So, they keep repeating the same stupid mistakes, making it all worse for themselves.
Can’t fix stupid. We can only hope that they do end up learning something from their stupid mistakes.
Falsely accusing and mislabeling other individuals (for selfish purposes) is a very stupid mistake. It’s never going to stop being a stupid mistake.
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