Ron & Cathy Tijerina

In September of 1991, I was twenty-four years old when I found myself Trying to explain to my two and four year old sons why Daddy didn’t come home that day. “Prison” was a new word to define for my sons – a word that toddlers should not even know – yet here I was trying desperately to provide an explanation to them that would make sense without completely robbing them of their innocence. We were so sure that Ron was not going to be convicted of a crime he did not commit we had not even thought about telling our sons anything.

Now, as I sat alone on the floor of our house, holding my sobbing, frightened children, I wondered how on earth our young family was going to make it through that night – let alone the next 14-25 years my husband was just sentenced.

Little did I know that the devastation I felt as I walked out of the court house alone that day was just the beginning of a journey of pain, shame, disappointment and social shunning that my husband’s incarceration had created for my children and me. My sons and I had joined the leagues of forgotten victims; the families of the incarcerated. I searched everywhere for help. I knew from the number of people who filled the prison visiting rooms that we were not alone in our plight, and yet I could not find a single support group or program offered to help families and children of the incarcerated.

The fact that Ron had not committed the crime for which he was incarcerated provided little comfort to us, as we fought to stay together as a family with no outside support. We soon realized the loss and grief my sons suffered was simply beyond the grasp of society, and that the world has little use for the families of felons and ex-offenders.