Life After The Sentence.
It’s strange to think that I’ve been visiting my dad in prison for almost my entire life. MCI–Norfolk isn’t a name most people know, but for me, it’s as familiar as a family home — just with metal detectors, guards, and cold floors.
The first time I remember seeing him there, I was still little. I didn’t understand why we couldn’t leave together when the visit ended. I used to think the locked doors would open if I just asked the right person nicely enough. But they never did.
Now I’m grown, and the routine is second nature. The long drive. The security checks. The clanging doors that always sound the same. And then that moment when he walks in — same calm smile, same warm eyes that remind me of the man he was before the world took everything from him.
He always tries to make our visits feel normal. We talk about life outside — work, family, small things. He still gives me advice like any dad would: how to stay grounded, how to trust myself, how to keep going even when it feels impossible. We try to hide the pain of our time in the visiting room with jokes and laughter, pretending for a little while that life feels normal again.
He never wants me to see the pain. But I can feel it — in the pauses between his words, in the way he carries himself, in the way he watches me walk away when visiting hours are over.
The truth is, the years have taken their toll on both of us. I grew up trying to explain the unexplainable — why my dad was in prison, why people whispered, why I avoided questions. There were times I felt angry, embarrassed, and lost. But with time, I stopped letting the shame belong to me. It never did.
Today, my relationship with my dad isn’t defined by the walls between us — it’s defined by what we’ve managed to build despite them. Letters that stretch across miles. Phone calls that come when I need them most. Laughter that somehow finds its way into the quiet.
He’s still the same man — patient, protective, stubbornly hopeful. Even after all these years, he talks about the future like it’s waiting for him, not lost behind him. He believes that one day, the truth will finally matter. And he reminds me, every time we talk, that we’re both still standing.
What I’ve learned through all of this is that resilience isn’t loud. It’s quiet and steady — like breathing, or showing up, or loving someone through the worst of it. It’s about finding strength in the middle of heartbreak and refusing to let the world harden you.
People ask me how I’ve held onto hope this long. The truth is, I don’t always know. Some days it’s heavy. But I look at him — his patience, his faith, his refusal to give up — and I remember where I got mine from.
Because even after everything — the headlines, the years, the heartbreak — we’re still here. Still fighting. Still believing.
And until the day he walks out of those gates, I’ll keep saying the same words I’ve been saying my whole life:
One day closer.
