Can my soul grow back?

I really enjoyed the first season of “The Mayor of Kingstown”. For me, a lover of detective plots and jailhouse drama, this show started out as many, with a plot twist in the very first episode. But unlike most, this show hit many raw nerves in me. A proverbial storm taking place in me at the very moment in time that this show was released has made this show a sort of mirror – depicting the dark, brooding mood that has hung over me for a number of months now.

I had Jace watch an episode with me. He watched the plot unravel with a jail yard brawl, prisoner shanking, and lockdown. I asked him if the scene was realistic. He said it was very much so, that something similar had happened during his stay in prison. The next day Jace was visibly shaken, explaining the show had awakened him the night before, with vivid nightmares of teargas, danger, and trauma.

The thing I find most alluring about the show, is that it depicts both signs of the coin. Few dramas try such a feat. The inmates are tormented at the whims of their captors, little thought given to right, wrong, or decent. Similar to the horrific current actions taking place in WA state DOC; inmates denied consistent food and medications, locked down by their keepers for an outbreak those same keepers enabled, put in solitary if they speak out against treatment. Denied even minimal care, at the cost of $45,000 per inmate per year to taxpayers. It’s a shame. And a sham.

But this series also shows the police chiefs, detectives, captains, wardens, and corrections officers as real people. Morals, ethics, courage, and intentions, all accurately depicted on a sliding scale. We know all people, on both sides of this coin, are a mixture of good and bad… no one is all good or all bad. Reality isn’t so tidy.

It’s a good show, that made me think, a lot, about if I will ever, truly, recover from this. Will Jace?

And then a lead female in the series, in the season finale, asks ‘I wonder if my soul can grow back’… and that is the thought most heavy on my mind these days.

Jace second trial is looming before us at this time. We recently met with the new, new attorney (#5). I’m sure he is competent and capable but Jace and I were both instantly exhausted after the conversation. I don’t believe any lawyer could ease our distress of thinking about or discussing what all has happened to us. Or what will happen to us.

No one can tell us if our souls will ever grow back.

For those of you interested, my presentation from NARSOL is now available on youtube.