Prisoner Stories | Davey L. Crockett

Inside The Walls | Prisoner Stories

Texas

"MAMMA'S LOVE" ©
By D. Crockett
"Have a nice visit!" The lady told me after handing me my pass to the visitation room as she let me out the side door that leads to the visitation area.
I have walked down the side walk a few times in the past year. However, once I clear the AD SEG. wing and the sidewalk opens up to a broader view, I get disoriented. It takes me a moment to recall the correct path to take that leads me to the room where I must under go a strip search. After receiving visits for 15 years, I know the drill. This is really more of a hassle then anything. I know I do not have anything I should not have. It is just a lot of trouble to get out of your clothes and then right back in to them.
Having put my clothes back on, tying my shoes I begin to have visions of the person who I know has come to see me. I can see her standing at the other end of the visitation room with her arms full of cokes, chips and candy. I can see her, smiling ear to ear and patiently waiting for me to tell her what seat we will be at so she can set all these goodies down and can return to the place she had been standing, to give me a hug before having to sit down.
As I leave the shake down room and enter the visiting area I hand my pass to the officer working that post. I look up to see my mother just as I had pictured her. Standing there smiling with her arms full of things that she knows I like. Over the past 15 years she has traveled thousands of miles just to see me. She is the one person in this whole world who has continuously stuck with me.
My mother has told me all my life how much she loves me, even though we have argued over many things, and childishly I have said things I wish I had never said. Feeling all the pain my mother must feel, yet she still stands by me. The one son she felt would amount to something, now serving 4 life sentences. I know this breaks her heart, yet I also have an older brother who is on death row. His situation causes her so much pain that she can hardly visit him without hurting for days afterwards. I also have a younger brother who has just been arrested. He is facing 5 to 99.
My mother did a good job of raising me. Merle Haggard said it best, "Momma Tried." I knew what was right and what was wrong. But I chose not to take the path my mother wanted for me. Like 90% of the TDC's population, I did not think I would get caught. I thought I could live this evil life in secret until the good life started to look prosperous. Only then would I straighten up and fly right.
It hurts now to realize the pain that I myself have caused my mother. This is the kind of pain I will never know. In spite of this, she still loves me. I know people here who let me down in just little ways, like not remembering to go to recreation one day when had plans. In here we tend to stop talking to each other over little things like this.
But we all have let our mothers down. How many mothers wanted their sons to go to prison? How many times have we let them down, lied to them, told them that we did not love them or even hated them. Yet, they still stick by us and travel many miles to visit us. How can anyone be so happy to see someone who has caused them so much pain? It has taken me some time to realize how alone I would be in this world without my mother.
My first ten years down here I thought about no one but myself. I was in and out of lock up, fights, riots, stabbings, I have even caught more time. The whole time my mother asked me through a glass window, "When will I be able to have a contact visit like these other mothers here, so I can hug your neck?". Even though I felt I could justify my actions for my being in lock up, she just could not understand.
After being released from AD SEG. I realized I could have a contact visit in just a few months... if I kept my nose clean and stayed out of trouble. I made up my mind, I was going to avoid all the trouble I use to get into. At once, I felt the weight of all this on my shoulders. I had one goal, and that was to give my mother a hug. And with the exception of a few close calls, I made it. I can remember the tears running from my mother's eyes throughout the visit. She asked me over and over again not to get into anymore trouble.
But with her living so far away and visits were few and far between. I would lose focus and end up in lock up once again, causing me to lose my contact visits. I know how bad this upset my mother, yet still she would drive down just to see me. I have learned over the years how to avoid the avoidable and how to control the unavoidable. Before I do anything, or even give a situation of any kind any thought. My first thought is, "How will this affect my mother?" I have learned selflessness from my mother. I have seen and felt true love in my mother's eyes and in her hugs. I know the guilt and pain I feel now, for having caused her so much heartache, will not truly hit me until she is no longer around. I know I have that coming. I just hope that I have the strength that she had while experiencing losing me over and over again.
These are the thoughts that go through my mind while visiting my mother, as I look into her aging eyes, I see her painfully reposition herself in her chair, because her hip is hurting from having to sit so long. I think of her long drive down, and how she still faces the long drive back home. I rack my brain trying to think of some good news to tell her, but there is none. I know she has dreams and hopes, but over the years and the pain she seems to have accepted the way things have turned out. However, I can see that she is happy just to be able to see me and touch me. I think to myself how sad it is that I have caused this lady to have to cope with such a bleak reality. Yet she loves me so much that she has somehow found happiness through it all.
I do not deserve the love she has for me. It is not the lessons I have learned that has changed me. It is not the constant criticism or childish nitpicking of the officers that has changed me. It is my mother's enduring love for me that has chiseled through the stone wall around my heart. There is no comparison to the sacrifices and love my mother has shown me. I hate that it has taken me so long to realize this. I could have saved her some pain. Now that she has felt its sting there is no undoing what she has experienced.
As my mother tells me that she loves me all I can tell her is that I am sorry. And I know that I have hurt her, and I'm sorry. I now feel pain because of the heartache I have caused her, (I know this is in no way comparable to her pain). But I am sorry, and I love you too! As she holds my hand she smiles and tells me, "I know, I know!"

Contact Information:
Davey L. Crockett #552550
Robertson Unit
12071 FM 3522
Abilene, Texas 79601