I've never thought a lot about what my husband does for a living or how dangerous it was. That sounds strange, I know, since we have been married for 15 years and he's been in the same line of work the last 20. Most people can at least visit their spouses at work. I can not. Most also know exactly what they do while they are away from them. I do not. Its not that I don't care or don't ask about his day. I do. Everyday. Its not that we don't talk. We do about nearly everything. You see my husband is one of a rare breed of men and women who work in our state prison system. I refer to them as a rare breed because not many among us could do what they do.
Most of us forget about even the most violent offenders after the media stories disappear or they are sent away to prison and are no longer right in front of us. Correctional Officers still have to face them every single day. They have to walk among them most of the time with only a can of pepper spray to protect themselves. They have to treat them as they would any other citizen no matter how violent the crimes were they committed outside of those walls.
The general public usually only hears anything about Correctional Officers if there is a bad seed among them or in movies and TV shows. Very seldom are these movies and TV shows seen in our home. We did watch Felon, a few years ago, and after I kept asking my husband if he was like Lieutenant Jackson we haven't watched another since. 😀
Although I do not believe he could ever be like Lt. Jackson I know that he does have a different persona at work than he does at home. I've seen "prison face" and heard "prison voice" a few times over the last 15 years. Usually they come out when there is a threat around his family. He denies it and I never brought it up until one night at a drive thru when a man, we did not know, approached our car and all four of us were inside. My husband's whole demeanor changed and when he spoke his tone had changed as well. Our daughter, who was 11 or 12 at the time, also noticed it and asked me about it later which is when I finally brought it to his attention.
I never paid attention to the fact that he would always sit in the seat facing the door in restaurants until I read a post from another CO wife a few years ago. I never put much thought into the way he would immediately tense up and look around whenever a whistle was blown. Or how he is always scanning the room when we are in public. I always passed it off as just him being curious. I had no idea it was actually called "situational awareness" and something he was trained as a CO to do. To me they were just little quirks of his and I was okay with that I never understood why he always talked about so many of his co-workers like they were his best friends yet I had never met but a handful of them and only know most by their last names. I understand now. I see that it is because so much happens in side those walls that we the public, their families never know and don't understand. They have to trust those co-workers with their lives day in and day out. They must protect themselves and each other with limited resources outside of their own bodies. I know now that seat facing the door is so he can see every angle. I know that whistle use to mean another CO needed help. I know that when he doesn't introduce me to someone who approaches him in public and he blocks me from view that there is a reason.
I will generally hear if an officer or inmate is hurt just not in great detail and usually in a way that makes me feel like it was no big deal. After all if he is okay I am okay. I never put much thought into the way he would tell me these things until April 26, 2017 at 7:50 pm when we first got word of what happened to a female officer at another local Correctional Facility. At the time details were incomplete we didn't know a name or what exactly had taken place we only knew she had been killed by an inmate and a few other minor details. Because he was at home when he got the news there was no time for him to process the information before telling me. He could not switch off the CO in him as he normally does on his 45 minute drive home. He was angry, upset and visibly shaken there was no masking it this time. I was right there in front of him. I had already seen it.
In the 24 hours that followed and the reality of what happened to Sergeant Meggan Callahan set in my naivete about the dangers my husband faced daily melted away. I too was angry. I was heartbroken for Sgt. Callahan and her family. Her co-workers and friends. How had this happened? Inmates are supposed to be locked in cells. They are not supposed to be able to do things like this. Not again and not to our loved ones. My initial response was to tell him, foolishly through angry tears, that he was not going back. No way would I allow him to go back into a place like that. I did not care that he had been there 20 years. I did not care he was 10 years away from retirement. I did not care if he liked what he did or not. All I knew was he was mine and I was not ready to lose him. No matter how short lived these feelings, they were selfish.
Sgt. Meggan Callahan was one of us. Her family suffered an unimaginable loss. We felt it too. It could very easily be any one of our family members on any given day. I knew that now. I felt it every time I saw her face on my news feed or the local news. My heart broke all over again each and every time. I could not read the comments on the post about her death because they were laced not just with condolences to her family but with arm chair quarterbacks who felt the need to tell the world their opinions on women working in correctional facilities or what they believed to be true. When all they should be saying is I'm sorry. I'm so sorry you lost your daughter this way. I'm sorry you lost your sister. I'm sorry you lost your fiancée. Your aunt. Your grand daughter. Your niece. Your friend. Your God Mother. Your co-worker. I'm sorry you are hurting. Thank you for your sacrifice. Anything but assumptions and opinion.
