Lisa, Alexis, and Eli on Maintaining Their Connection as a Prison Family

 

Happily ever after isn’t always what you think it will be. Happily ever after doesn’t mean always having a smile on your face. When everything is taken away from the family, you get to appreciate the things that never mattered before. Lisa Schonfield was a mother, grandmother, wife, and well-known in the community for her dedication and hard work. Here’s the story of three generations experiencing incarceration together, even though Alexis Schonfield and her son were on the outside. Hear about the experience of a child growing up visiting his grandmother in prison and the ways they all stayed connected and maintained their relationship in-between visits. It’s their version of learning how to integrate and adapt to create a happily ever after for their family.

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Lisa, Alexis, and Eli on Maintaining Their Connection as a Prison Family

When someone goes to prison, they don’t go alone. The whole family is affected in serving the sentence with them. This is the hidden sentence that people don’t talk about. We’re talking about it with Alexis, Lisa and Eli. Alexis’ mother served 3 years, 9 months and 14 days or 1,385 days. She counted every one of those days. During that time, Alexis completed her Master’s degree and raised her son, Eli. Even though it can be traumatic for families and some families even lose touch, this family stayed together and grew strong.

We’re going to read from three generations of how they handle those years of incarceration. Alexis, Lisa and Eli, thank you so much for being here. We’ve spoken many times and I have to say that you’ve taught me how to stay positive, no matter what’s going on around me. I’d like the three of you to share what it was like visiting prison and Lisa, for you receiving visitors. Let’s start with you, Lisa. What was it like? How did you feel when your family came to visit you?

On the first visit, I was at reception in Bedford Hills and I had no idea what it is that takes place. I just knew my family was coming to visit me. I had to wait for a phone call and then I walked down to the visiting room. You’re frisked. They make sure you don’t have anything on you. To see my family standing there waiting for me, Eli ran up to me and it was all I could do not to cry. I had decided ahead of time that I was not going to let them know how bad things were. I didn’t want them to be as worried about me as I was about me. It was a guarded visit. They spent an obscene amount of money on food from the vending machines.

I don’t know how people who don’t have the money go to visit people because it’s a very expensive adventure. Eli and I would play hockey with his Reese’s pieces and the paper plates they had. It was a difficult visit, but very rewarding. Alexis was in tune with the things that she was watching. She noticed that I had certain bruises that I would not acknowledge to her. The eye contact where I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t look at anybody else or any other inmates. My family was curious about what the other inmates, who they were and what they were in for. It was difficult. As the clock approached, the time for the count, because 11:00 in the morning was count, it was embarrassing to have to stand up.

Eli went to stand up with me and I explained, “They are not counting you. They are only counting me,” to stand there and wait while an officer goes, “1, 2, 3, 4.” How hard can it be to count the inmates? It was embarrassing and humiliating. When the count was done, we sat and finished eating. We will play games. It was still in the fall, so we were able to go outside and they had a very nice play area for the kids, which was good. Someone from the children’s room took a picture for us because it wasn’t a picture day. They took a picture of all of us which became sacred to me because I’m able to put it on the wall. It included my husband, who was my husband then, Alexis, Eli and myself.

It’s like you can watch them grow.

I would watch them grow from picture to picture. We always took pictures whenever they came. Pictures are expensive for inmates too. They’re $2 and that’s a lot for a Polaroid picture, but it was worth it. It was all that we had. Our pictures were sacred to us. When it was time for them to leave, you always feel like you’re never going to see them again. I had no idea what was waiting for me on the other side. I said goodbye. I waited for my turn to go through the door and you’re strip-searched afterward. There was nothing off-limits. You have to take everything off, bend over, lift your breaths up and open your mouth. They look in your mouth, hair and everything. It was very embarrassing. I reached a point where I didn’t care anymore. There was no more modesty. I would not tell my family what I had to go through in order to see them because I felt that maybe they wouldn’t see me.

Alexis, what was it like for you that first visit and bringing your son in there? What was the kids’ area like, the playground?

What we went through was the reception prison in Bedford Hills. I thought it was horrible until we went to the other one, which was Taconic. It depends on who is working. My experience at Bedford Hills was much more positive than Taconic. They were more welcoming of children. One of the guards was so wonderful that I wound up calling her union. I wanted it to go on her record that her kindness will never be forgotten. I said, “Thank you for showing me and my son that when we visit my mom, we are human beings.”

The thing you have to realize is that at Bedford Hills, you had people there who were lifers. Your children’s room is set up to accommodate that kind of environment and it’s encouraged. Taconic couldn’t be further from that because it’s like the last place to go before you’re out. It’s not the same setup for families at all.

There was a handful of officers that were kind, but it was clear. Eli, the very first time we went thought, “Grandma was working at a schoolhouse.” I prepared him and said, “There’s going to be people wearing green, people wearing blue and white. I want you to be polite.” It was a month after his birthday. He had turned three and I was terrified. I can’t stop a three-year-old from crying or running around. I didn’t know what to expect. I called a couple of times before and every time, I got different answers on what I was allowed to bring in. I brought two diapers. I was allowed five wipes and a change of clothes. We went in with deodorant and lots of food. I did my research. I went online. I looked for everything. Half of it all got returned. I spent over $500 on deodorant the first two months and conditioner. It depends on who you are and who the guard is if they let things in or not.

They liked to be called COs, not guards.

OK, it’s the individuals that wear blue.

Those are the COs or the Correctional Officers. You can call them guards. They understand.

They make you feel guarded. Eli was kind and said, “We’re coming to visit my grandma at work.” You could tell which correctional officers had children and which ones didn’t base on their responses. At Bedford Hills, it was huge. It felt like you were on a college campus. It was a beautiful old college campus that just happens to have bars and wires. Eli assumed it was a school. You were there until right before Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving, we went to the new prison and I was not prepared at all. We had to park at the bottom of a very steep hill. Nobody would help us bring the food up. It was a humbling experience on Thanksgiving Day. My grandfather was there. I had to help him up the hill and make sure my son was going up the hill.

There were taxi cabs going up and down the hill from the train station. It was overwhelming. At Taconic, we had to stay outside rain, snow. We always would bring blankets. I bribed him with the vending machine. What was even more frustrating is we didn’t know what my mom was doing on the other side. She never knew what we were doing. It was frustrating. Eli became very comfortable visiting her over time and it became what he knew over half of his life.

He knew the people who worked in the children’s room and it was almost like a school for him in that these were the people who were in charge and he was not just comfortable, but friendly. The people who were running the children’s room were not correctional officers. They were volunteers.

What you’re saying is different from my experience. You were allowed to bring things into the prison. You’re saying that you could bring food and blankets?

We had to keep all that in a locker. We weren’t allowed anything except my driver’s license, a locker key, and money, but we would bring bags of food and we would have to take them out of our bags, write down her DIN number on the bags and place the food in. I’d have to watch him in the small little waiting area, put the bags on the counter and hope that the correctional officer-in-charge wasn’t going to lecture me about my son walking around while I’m doing all this.

Also, there’s no accountability because what you think is being written down isn’t necessarily being written down. A lot of things that she’s telling me, I put in a bed for you. I didn’t get nor were they returned to her as if they were unaccepted.

I took pictures of everything.

There’s nothing that we could bring in. That was quite interesting when you said that.

Some will let you go in with winter coats. Other people, wouldn’t. What was funny was once she was at Taconic, her room was in front of where everybody walked in. A lot of the women she became close with, you would hear them yelling, “Hola. Hi, Eli.” Every once in a while, a guard would tell him to shut up or using profane language. At one point, mom told me, she said to one of the guards, “You get to go home at night.”

“I don’t. I’m sorry if I’m excited to see my family or they’re excited to see me.” Because I didn’t get nasty and I wasn’t rude, she backed down a little, but I was very careful of how I did it. Other women would have been very in your face and that wasn’t my style. I didn’t feel that was going to win me any points.

In many ways, Eli became a symbol for a lot of high-ranking correctional officers, some of the compassionate correctional officers, and a lot of the women there. This was a child who was here to visit with his grandma like if you were going to go visit at a nursing home or her house. He did not understand why he couldn’t see her room.

He wanted to see my room. He’s like, “I’ll just a take a peek.” I went, “No.” I made a drawing. One day he wanted to know where the mess hall was. Not realizing this, I drew out where the gate is, where the visiting room is, where my building is and the other builders. After I sent it, one of the COs, out of his curiosity, “You sent a map?” I was like, “No. I didn’t send a map.” He’s like, “That’s exactly what it was. You sent a map. You can’t do that.”

That’s when you started doing the stuff like a storybook and she would describe things, but it was about Elroy, the Taconosaurus rex.

It’s a dinosaur that only comes out for kind and good inmates.

He is here now in our backyard.

Yes.

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Elroy followed him.

I’m a much better swimmer than I am a sailor, but I know a little bit about wind. I was able to look at the trees and tell Eli, “There’s Elroy. Watch him walk,” because you could see the wind moving. Eli would look for Elroy tracks in the yard. He’d go on the swings and look through the telescope to see if he could see Elroy.

It became a thing too at our house where we would go for long walks and he would search for different things and report back to grandma about maybe it’s Elroy’s brother or a family member who misses Elroy.

I had to give him something that was ours because I felt everything was taken from us.

Everything was, even our home.

Everything was taken from me and this way, it kept me connected to him. More than that, it took me out of prison to illustrate and to write those stories. It was cathartic because it was things that went on in prison that I was able to transfer to animals and do it in a way that if someone with authority read them, they wouldn’t have picked up what was going on unless it was someone intuitive people.

Do they look like intuitive people?

Yes, but none of them were reading it.

You are creating that in a book. Is that something that I’ll be able to see?

I wrote a book putting parts of the journal that I wrote each day, that I would send home. I wrote a book based on that, putting up some of the legal documents and some other prison experiments and studies. It talks about what it was like to get divorced in prison, which almost killed me. Worrying about my dad who was going downhill. I was afraid he was going to die in prison and they wouldn’t let me go to the funeral because it was out of the state of New York. I missed my daughter’s graduation, my son’s medical school graduation. I felt I was losing so much that I had to find a way to stay connected.

He did that through the stories and how else did you guys stay connected?

Every morning at 7:00 when the phones would open before she went to work or Eli went to school.

Eli would usually tattle on me.

Eli would tell me what his mother was doing or not doing that he was not happy with.

They would talk about what they were going to do the day she got out.

He told me we’re going to bake lasagna and make cookies. The funny thing is it was weeks or months until we made lasagna and baked cookies that we had a good time being together.

There was a lot of snuggling when she got out. It was very different because we moved two hours from where home was. Eli was very concerned that mom wouldn’t feel at home when she came with us. I was renting a house at that time and I didn’t understand why it was important for her to buy a house.

We’ve got to backtrack. Eli gave me his playroom as my bedroom.

It’s because you wouldn’t take my room.

No, but I felt so guilty that I’m taking up their space. On my first night there, Alexis bought me a futon.

I bought myself a futon.

On the first night, Eli looked and said, “Can I sleep with you, grandma,” and he did. Part of his body had to keep touching me the whole night. It was almost as if he was afraid I would disappear into the night.

Fast forward, with COVID, I’m working remotely. My son’s in virtual school. Mom has taken on the caregiving role during the day. There are times when they’re at each other and I’ll yell downstairs between patients, “Remember what you said when you were in prison.” Everything down to parole and how my son deals with that when a teacher tries to correct him, I did not realize the full impact it had on him. Even though my mom doesn’t see it, but you can tell when she’s bothered. It’s a lot different than before she was in prison.

I excuse myself and I go up to my room. There’s a comfort with that.

I’m sure it’s different. What was it like that day that you walked out of the prison doors and you are free?

I never believed I was going to make it out the gate. I always used to watch women leave in the morning. I smile. I’d be happy. You clap and yell. I turned around and cry because I never saw myself walking through the gate. I was convinced that physically I was going to die in prison. The day that I went out, it was the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend. My parole clothes had already been sent in and I tried them on so I knew what I was going to be wearing. It was all blue, the forbidden color in prison. They called me at 8:00 to go downstairs.

We were there at 7:00 in the morning waiting.

It didn’t seem real. I went downstairs. I remember trembling as I got changed because it was the first time I was able to take my uniform off without them watching me strip. How do you get that modesty back when you’re used to, “Just take your clothes off?”

I was worried she was going to yell at me for my car being messy.

They did not make it easy. I was still walking with a cane.

 

They wouldn’t let me help with her packages.

I had several bags of things. There were 3 or 4 other inmates that were being released and we were helping each other.

Watching this experience, watching these women help her said a lot. Here are the people who according to the law were the dregs of society helping one another. They were building each other up. They were supporting each other. They were all providing positive motivation that everything’s going to be okay. I know I was terrified. I can’t imagine what my mom and these other women were feeling because it’s like, you’re away from everything for so long.

It’s more than that. The one CO who walks us out and she wouldn’t help us. It’s like, “You’re not carrying anything. You can’t help somebody.” She was as cold.

She was probably worried she was going to lose her job because one more of you left.

She was not pleasant at all. You have to go through the business office because they also give you a check for the balance on your commissary and they were supposed to give us our meds and you don’t check it when you go, they just give you a bag. Once I got home, I realized that the meds that have horrible withdrawal side effects were not in my bag and there was no prescription and no one could help. The superintendent tried to help me. They were wonderful, but they couldn’t do anything because the medical screwed up. When I went from the business office, you’re able to walk down the hill and I didn’t understand why my family wasn’t up there. They were on the other side of the gate already. I learned the officers were yelling them, “Get to the bottom of the hill. We don’t want you up here.”

I called ahead of time and said, “My mom is handicap.”

She had a cane. She needed assistance.

It’s more than that. Since she’s been out because I work at a hospital, I had all her medical appointments already set up. I’m horrified at the negligence that occurred. Listening to professionals tell her she’s lucky to be alive is horrifying to me because if she were to have died in prison, I would have never gotten justice. I remember calling medical in Albany. I said, “When my mom dies, who do I call to blame?” He hung up on me. The superintendent and one of the officers, they were wonderful. I truly believe it was because of who my mother was as a person. They saw through the green. Nobody else did. These doctors wouldn’t even do gynecological exams correctly. They told her to pray to God. They didn’t do anything for her. They allowed her to be in rooms unsupervised without being cleaned with no mattress. Someone who is schizophrenic and not on their meds. This is not safe for anyone.

The best was when I asked the doctor, “What am I supposed to do? You’re telling me you don’t know what to do.” He said, “Pray to God.” I came back the following week and he says, “What did you do?” I said, “I prayed to God. God told me to come back here.” He looked at me because he didn’t know what to do. Going back to being released, when I got down the hill, I was seeing something shiny. As I walked further down, it was Eli holding a bouquet of balloons. My brother’s playing the song on the radio, We Are Family, and I bend down to hug Eli. He’s trembling.

You promised yourself you wouldn’t cry.

The women in prison had done my hair, makeup and nails. I said, “Don’t give me mascara because I don’t plan on crying, but you never know.” I went to hug Eli and he squeezes me and says, “Grandma, please never leave me again. Promise me.” I then started to cry and I said, “Yes, I promise I’m not leaving you.” That’s a promise I intend to keep and I have kept.

Every time she would be in the hospital overnight, he would worry she was going to go back to prison. When we left for the day and we were five minutes from the house and he hadn’t spoken to her in a couple of hours and he felt like he had to check in on her and that breaks my heart.

He’s always worried about what’s going to happen because it doesn’t make sense what did happen.

I’m worried that he believes that everyone’s going to leave him. This is why the house is important to him.

I bought the house because after two weeks of living in her house, I decided it’s not fair to be stuck with mom. He’s also the family dog. I started looking at houses and it was funny because the first house I saw, I fell in love with it. I hadn’t even been on the market yet. I figured out finances. I had gone to the bank and explained, “I was in prison. That’s why I have no financial anything.” The bank was awesome. They said, “We’ll work with you. We understand.” When I came here, the day of the inspection of the house, they asked us, “Is there anything that you want from here?”

I said, “What’s up for sale?” I don’t remember the comment but I said, “This house is important to me. Let me tell you why. One, I’m doing it without a husband, without a man and two, I need a place to live in my life because everything was taken from me.” They were like, “What do you mean?” I explained why I went to prison. I explained how my husband came to divorce me in prison. She’d be able to do this and have a great credit rating. They looked at me and she starts writing and I’m thinking, “She’s writing things saying why she doesn’t want me to buy her house.” That how paranoid I was.

This community has been wonderful.

Instead, she turns around and says, “We want to give you two flat screens, all the altar furniture, grill, beds, couch, all the garage tools, toaster and microwave. You deserve all of this. You’ve been through so much. We have a full house where we’re moving. Take it.” I was like, “Thank you so much.” I’ve slowly started to realize that there’s someone who doesn’t even know me and I’m not a monster. I’m not looked at as an ex-felon or an ex-offender. I’m being looked at as being me and the best of me.

We thought the best in you the whole time.

I didn’t see the best of me. There is no rehabilitation in prison unless you do it yourself. In Taconic, you have your own cell. I spent most of my time by myself. I do believe that during that time, I found myself again, that all of the anger, anxiety and everything that my marriage was causing me, that the situation with my daughter and Eli.

She had a close friend that was my age. She got out of prison about a year before my mom did. We spoke almost every day until my mom got out. She prepared me for a lot of things. She knows my mom as well as I do but in a lot of ways, you haven’t changed. “Don’t let her kid you.” She found herself by doing the things that are who she is. She is a natural helper. I joke and you joke. Maybe there’s some truth. I asked her if I could copyright that with the time and date when she said that, but she’s learning now.

In prison, it taught her that, “I have to be okay before I help others.” The number of women that she helped blows my mind. She used to send me all of her old mail. These cards from these women, you would watch their grammar improve and it was because of her. She taught them how to be women. She gave them those motherly instincts that a lot of these women never had. She had no idea what she was doing now. She gave these women hope.

I would read some of their letters as they were leaving the prison. They leave me letters. It was like, “I had no idea I had that impact on someone.” It happened all this time by myself. I started to realize prison is not about what’s in your head. It’s geography. I’m free in every other sense of the word. I cried at least once a day for about a year after my husband came to tell me he was divorcing me. The divorce had nothing to do with prison. As many women do, I associated marriage with success, identity and companionship. I didn’t know how to take a breath without it. Because of the sorority, which I referred to as riot, the real inmates of Taconic, these women would not let me suffer alone. They gave me hope and picked me up when I couldn’t stand up.

They let me know you were okay.

Through them and through my own work as well, I realized, “I’m okay. I’m better than ever.” It was a process of finding me again. The biggest thing was realizing that prison is geography because the punishment is not being removed from society, which is what I thought. The punishment is having everything else taken away from you. I could have dealt with being removed from society. I couldn’t deal with losing everything else. I lost my home, car, husband, two relatives and a friend. Some of it was my doing, but it was also other people, gossip and feeding them information that wasn’t accurate.

Look at all the people that came out of nowhere that support you. I have friends that look at her and are amazed. I have to remember that because sometimes I feel like because I’m living here, I’m a failure, but I’m not a failure. We had to figure out how to adapt our relationship, which we did through many tears and swearing, “What is wrong with you?”

You all live together now too? You bought the house, Lisa.

I bought this house because I felt I needed something that was mine, which later translated into Eli’s house. I have to leave a legacy. I want to leave something in my children. I took Eli with me when I looked at this house.

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Because everything was taken from us.

I took Eli with me and Alexis didn’t know. I’m looking at this house and Eli goes upstairs and says, “This’ll be my bedroom.” I looked at him and went, “Okay.”

He goes, “This is where I want my playground.”

Also, “I like the pond. I want the pond.” It’s like, “You approve of me buying this house?” He’s like, “Yes.”

He went around holding the woman’s hand showing her what he wanted.

She gave it all to him. She told me that there’s a different handle on one of the bottom drawers in my kitchen island. She goes, “It was done on purpose. It’s the frog. Tell him to go to the frog.” In there she gets two little woodcarvings and some candy bars for him. It was sweet to be able to do that.

We still find little things around the house now that she left for him.

We kept the frog on there.

Those are the things that you missed when you’re not with someone. Our family living situation might not be typical, but I don’t think there is a typical one.

It’s not typical, but it is. A family takes care of each other and keeps each other safe. I don’t think we could’ve done a better job here in this house.

This is been a wonderful transition for Eli living here. Making it his own and my mom living here.

It’s a new beginning for everybody.

We’re not associated with all that from the past. This is the closest thing to home I’ve had ever. I was in prison myself.

It’s from the outside. That’s why we call it the hidden sentence. You don’t realize that you’re serving the sentence with you.

I had to find my voice because my voice had been taken away for so long. My mom was my only advocate. It always was turned around that my mom was enabling me or something. I never wanted Eli to feel that way. It’s interesting having the three generations. Now that my parents are divorced, I’m taking a step back and seeing, “What was going on? Was it what I thought was going on?” How I went in one direction and my brother went in another direction. It doesn’t mean one of us is successful and one of us isn’t successful.

It also goes so far that Alexis couldn’t understand why I was not angry with her father. I said, “The anger will kill me.” Forgiveness is interesting because forgiveness in my mind truly means letting it go and not picking it up again.

I can’t do that.

You’re not there yet, but I had lots of time. I allow my ex-husband to come over. He had Thanksgiving here. I’m okay with that. I would never trust him again with certain things.

He’s a good grandfather. I will never take that away with him.

I believe if I was sick, you, he would help me that way, but I would not trust him with my heart. I came to realize that anything of mine he threw away or didn’t give me, it’s just stuff and stuff is replaceable. When you go through a divorce, you look like you’re greedy, but you’re not because it’s your life that’s disappearing. Once I realized, “I had my life back.”

This is good for Eli to come to talk because Eli watched everything. He even watched himself get replaced by a family that he thought. Why don’t you talk a little bit about everything?

Do you want her to ask you questions or do you want to talk?

Ask questions.

Who is Elroy? Tell me about Elroy.

He’s me and my grandma’s own secret friend. It used to be a secret friend that is invisible that we used to play with when she was in prison. He kept grandma and us safe. When I’m sad, when I heard things that bad happened to her, he made us feel better.

Did grandma send pictures of Elroy or what does Eloy look like?

Elroy is invisible. When the trees move that way, that’s him. Elroy played soccer with his mom and dad like I was in preschool.

He lost a tooth when you lost your first tooth.

What color is Elroy?

 

Elroy is orange, blue and red.

Where is he now?

We moved him to our backyard.

We have Elroy the metal dinosaur.

We made them into metal. The people that are still in prison send us stuff and we put them together and painted them in our backyard.

The ladies that took care of grandma made sure that Elroy found grandma’s new home and all the animals too that used to steal the food from the mess hall.

What did the other ladies and some of the guards do or say when you would visit?

Some of the guards were mean and some of the guards were nice.

What did they make you do when we went through the security?

When we went through the scanner, when they have the checkups, we had to do this little thing called the penguin dance. We had to spread our arms and legs and shake around.

That’s how you got through. You get to go to the playground. What was that like?

It was fun. They also had some balls and some birds were there. We played and fed the birds when we were there.

How did you know when you could go to the playground? What did they yell?

They yelled, “Smoke break.”

Tell her about count time and when we would come home, what would you do with your stuffed animals?

The count was when a security guard had to say, “Count on,” because they had to see if everyone that came in or the visitor that they were still there and if it was all complete. They said, “Count over,” and a few minutes later they yell smoke break.

What did you do when you got home with your stuffed animals?

Before I went to bed, I keep saying, “Count.” When I’m starting to fall asleep, I said, “Count over.”

Is that why you have to check everything before bed? What do you have to check before bed?

The windows, my door and I had to secure my stuffed animals.

What are you afraid of?

He’s afraid his father’s going to come and hurt us.

He goes around with his Nerf guns.

We have Nerf guns at every door.

He checks all the doors, makes sure they still are locked. Alexa thought I was being paranoid when I got the ring doorbell and she thought I was being a stalker.

No. Now that there’s a restraining order pending at work against the patient.

She’s grateful that I did that and anything else that we needed. We have little dinger dongers up on the driveway and things in the backyard so Eli knows that no matter what, we are safe here. We have state troopers that live on the block, EMTs and fire people, that we’re as safe as can be and there’s nothing to worry about.

Eli, you are lucky. Tell me what it’s like living with your mom and grandma? What do you call them?

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I call them the hens because they do a lot of fussing with me. When I want to watch TV, they say, “No. You always watch what you want to watch.” My favorite show on TV is Chrisley Knows Best.

He says it makes his life normal because the father is a lot like me and my mom.

Eli, what are some things that you and grandma do together?

In 2020, there is this cornfield in Fly Creek that we went to. We got lost that we had to go at the same thing where we had to.

We couldn’t find our way out. I couldn’t get out.

When she was younger, her father had to lift up her brother, which is my uncle to see which way is the exit.

If I could, I could have lifted you. What do we do over the summer? Where did we go? The diamonds?

We went to Herkimer Diamond Mines and we didn’t find anything, but we did purchase some sapphires and stuff.

Why don’t you tell her the story about Christmas shopping in the store in Sharon Springs? What did you tell the lady at the register? You want to pick out Christmas presents for grandma and me.

I said to the lady at the cash register, “Can you please put these in separate bags so she can’t see it? My grandma’s still going to pay for it.”

That was nice of you to get presents for them. Are you guys musically-inclined?

We like music, but we are not inclined.

I didn’t sing to my babies out of fear that they’d cry louder.

She would get embarrassed when I would ask her to sing

Eli seems to be talented. You play the piano and the French horn. Santa brought Eli an electric piano that I don’t know what Santa was thinking either. He’s banging on the keys in place. He has to rhythm up.

He’s a little overwhelmed. I don’t think you’re going to get much more out of them.

He looks good. I know he’s still adjusting. It’s still an adjustment, especially with the stories that he tells about living with you two. He’s lucky to have both of you. There is a level of comfort.

Kids go too easily to adults. Adults have to earn their trust.

If Eli trusts you, you’re probably a trustful person.

Anyone who I’ve gone out with, you see how Eli responds or doesn’t respond.

She has to let people know ahead of time. Eli will call three times. I’m not going to stop him from calling her because when she first went in for her knee replacement surgery, she had to stay up at night. He wanted to fall down the stairs because he thought if he fell down the stairs and went to the emergency room, he could see her in the hospital.

I had to have heart surgery and they told me I’d be going home the next day and I didn’t. More than that, they had me waiting in the cath lab, which was still a part of the CAT scan area. I said, “Do what you can. Try to bring him through the bag.” She snuck him in so he got to see that I’m alive. It was a blessing because one complication after another, I didn’t come home for four nights. I went out on a Monday and on Friday, he said, “Grandma’s not coming home.” I remember looking at the doctor saying, “I have to go home now,” and I did. I wound up having a problem that I should have stayed another night, but it was more important for me, for him to be okay and to say, “I went to the hospital and yes, I’m home.”

We’re glad that you’re okay, Lisa. You’ve been through a lot since you’ve been out, all those surgeries. That’s another reason that it’s good that everybody’s there because you all support each other and can take care of each other.

When you’re in prison, the most important thing is to document everything you do.

The family member and person in prison.

 

If you drop a medical slip that you’re not going to the clinic, you document it because it’s amazing what can get lost in the 500 feet being mailed from your building.

Let’s start over with what you said because it’s important. I want to stress that because you had all these medical things after, but what you’re going back to is from the day that you went into the prison that not only are you taking notes and keeping track but also your loved one on the outside should be tracking everything.

You will have to be careful because you want to have members on the outside advocating for you, but you’re also punished for it. There’s retaliation that comes with that. It’s subtle, but nonetheless retaliation. Even in getting the medication that I was promised would be in continuity when I went to prison, there was none. I went three weeks with constant withdrawal, which is cruel. My husband had called many different people in different places of authority. He would threaten them. I got my meds, but the price I paid for them was awful.

It was a black eye, a broken nose, a busted tooth and a big knot on her head.

I thought it was an inmate. I didn’t tell anybody for 1.5-year. I told my brother and my brother had called the state police who called the watch commander. The sergeant then called me down. I was stripped and photographed to see if I had any bruises. This happens 1.5-year before. When the State Trooper came down to speak with me, they asked if I wanted to know who. You have to understand that Taconic and Bedford are across the street from each other. Inmates frequently are coming from one prison to the other. If there’s a service, you’ll have an officer come from one prison to the other. I was terrified that if I don’t know who did this, how do I know I’m not going to be hurt again or worse? I told no one for quite a while though.

When you went through the reception process at Taconic, that officer that asked you about the knot on your head totally knew.

I was missing three teeth. I had a big knot on my head and my nose. He looked and he goes, “Who beat you up?” I don’t know if he’s kidding or not. I got to use humor. I looked and said, “I won’t tell them that it was you.”

She has a lot of defense mechanisms that she’s never had before.

I’m not sure I’ll ever get rid of them either. I know that I eat too fast because I only had twenty minutes if you were to go to the mess hall. I know I still do that. I think eventually that’ll change. When people say how difficult COVID is on them, I chuckle because this is not prison.

Not only that, but it’s great for Eli because he doesn’t have to wake up at 4:30 in the morning to visit you.

I have my house and 5 acres to go walk on, COVID is not that bad people. You could be in a 9×6 cell.

It’s harder for people that have lost their jobs. It’s not staying home that as bad as losing their jobs. Some of the things that you were talking about are good information. Alexis, you’re saying that you spoke to somebody before your mom came home to help prepare. Do you remember who do you think that really helped?

It was more individualized with her. Right after she got out, we had to go to Bloomingdale’s or Nordstrom to get a wedding dress for my brother’s wedding. We live in the middle of nowhere. It’s rural. She said, “No matter where she is, she will be hypervigilant.” It’s not like a PTSD thing. It’s more of an instinctual thing that you will never lose. I am overly protective of her. When we first went to the mall, I saw a security guard and he had his hand on, I was watching her and I very discreetly put myself between her and the security guard.

I smiled and said, “Good afternoon.” It is uniforms. Whenever there’s a police car with sirens, she gets a little nervous. This thing with the politics is triggering you. Even before the current stuff over the summer with the Black Lives Matter, certain language will trigger her and justice. For me, it was a big thing too. Even in my Master’s program, people who are intelligent truly don’t understand. I’m not saying all people, but a lot of people. You take things for granted, when you either experienced it through a family member being there or you experience it yourself, things are taken for granted. There’s this privilege that if I don’t know what’s going on behind those doors, it doesn’t affect me.

It’s interesting you say that because I remember thinking in the beginning, “They have no idea how bad this is for me.” It took me a few months to realize, “I have no idea how bad it is for them.”

I was in a weird way jealous that my mom didn’t have to deal with the aftermath. It felt like I was constantly being forced to choose, “Dad and mom, do I stay and work at Walmart or do I pursue this Master’s degree?” The Master’s degree gave me my voice back and glued me back together. It’s important to acknowledge the scars. I came home when I left Eli’s father with scars that were causing her scars.

Scars make you stronger.

Not to get on therapy tangents but there’s a great YouTube video about when Japanese bowls are broken, there’s an art where they’re filled with gold. Every scar makes you more wealthy, makes you more worth or more value. I feel like I should be a millionaire. A lot of times, the patients that I get have been through so much trauma that they need to understand that trauma to heal themselves. You got through it. I use a lot of analogies that my mother shared in a lot of her letters. The best one is, “Wonder woman’s dry cleaning costs are at the dry cleaner.”

It’s not coming out anytime soon.

The experience makes you look hard in the mirror and make you realize a lot of things that happened to you, you had no control over.

Here’s something I did have control over. I also was a licensed clinical social worker in private practice. I surrendered my license on the day that I was sentenced. In order for me to get it back, they wanted me to pay some ridiculous amount of money and take continuing education credits as many as I have missed which not only is expensive, but time-consuming. I decided I paid my dues to New York State, I’m not giving them any more money.

Also with a lot of the physical things I have going on, I don’t think I’m the most reliable candidate for a job to show up on every day that way. I don’t think it would be fair to the people I was working with or working for. Subsequently, I’ve decided I’m not going back from my license. I closed that chapter of my life. It’s interesting because Alexis will still speak to me about certain things and how to handle them. It’s neat because it’s almost like pure supervision again. I feel bad for Eli because he lives with two social workers, but it’s all relative.

She gives me supervision too because COVID has affected a lot of people and it does affect me. Working from home, it’s hard to make that transition between therapist, daughter, mom and she reminds me, “It’s okay to go out and drive around. You don’t have to be here all the time. It’s okay to take a break.”

In taking a break, here’s the best example. At the beginning of this COVID thing, I was playing schoolmarm for Eli when school’s closed. I said to him, “You need to sit down at this dining room table and we’re doing the Math.” He gives me this attitude and looks at me and says, “That is a want, not a need.”

He uses our words against us.

I said to her, “I’m going out. I don’t know when I’m coming back.” I drove around and I thought it was the kindest thing to do. That was one of the first times that I looked at since being out of prison is, “I’m living with my grandson. I’m not always happy about it. I always love you, but I don’t always like you.” It’s okay to feel that way.

When he says to me, “Grandma’s having asshole tendencies.”

Giving yourself permission that it’s okay to have asshole tendencies because you’re afraid to when you get out of prison that you feel like everyone’s looking at you including yourself.

Always acknowledge every scar that you get in life. Share on X

It’s more than that. You’re not just my mom.

This has been wonderful. As far as sharing information, giving people insight, seeing how people can stay together, how families can stay together and either thrive after coming out of prison. You guys are prime examples. I love your energy and you always make me smile and laugh.

You are thriving, but it’s about taking a step back and realizing that you have to thrive differently for prison it’s because you have to acknowledge that it was a part of everyone’s life. If we ignore it, it’s like that elephant in the room.

The parallel when a family member has surgery and the family’s all waiting in the waiting room, the patient thinks they’re the ones going through the worst ends of it because after all you’re being cut apart and you’ve got to heal from that, that’s not true. There are people who have to watch you go through it and they have to adapt their lives to accommodate this person in healing.

Also, there are people who are in prison having surgery and the family members have no idea if they’re dead or alive.

That’s even more daunting that you’re not allowed phone calls. I was rushed to the hospital with a blood pressure that was 185/145. Even with that, I was stripped searched before I left. I stayed handcuff. I stayed out in my greens, handcuffed, shackled and put in an ambulance with all these on. When I first went to one hospital, the medical center, when they realized that I didn’t have a tear in my artery, they then sent me to the hospital where the prison hospital was. My family kept calling the hospital to find out how I am. My son calls and the CO gets up and says, “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you anything.”

My son calls back as the physician that he is. My brother calls back as my lawyer and they did nothing. My daughter calls and the CO says to her, “Do you have any other titles? Would you keep holding back under any other title? I can’t give any information.”

That was a turning point in your relationship with that particular officer.

That particular officer is the one that screams at Eli and myself for walking around in the visiting room. That gave us the opportunity to talk while I was in the cardiac unit. I felt that she was a cold mean monster.

We didn’t know she had her own demons.

She was dealing with her own issues.

I did have a question though about getting information because here you need to sign a HIPAA release, a power of attorney and there are different things. What forms did you need to provide to get information?

If your loved one sends you a copy of a HIPAA release, anything that your loved one signs, make sure there’s a copy or they can use carbon paper and send it to a responsible family member because when she was in the hospital, I would be able to have it fast to the hospital before she was on the prison unit and I was able to speak. She has four notebooks of medical journals down to the tee of her wet meds if she was late. When my mom went to the hospital for the first time, not handcuffed and shackled, what did you say?

I asked them if what they want me to step out of the room. She said, “Why?” It occurred to me, “I’m not in prison I’m allowed to sit in the room.”

When you had your catheterization, you were looking for your shackles. That hurt me a lot.

It does condition you, but it wasn’t all bad.

Every person you meet at that hospital. First, I was terrified that my fellow coworkers and other parts of the hospital were going to somehow use this against me. That was my biggest fear. One person and it was a patient, out of all the hundreds of patients and professionals I work with had an issue with it. She is making people in professional positions more aware of what happens in situations that we don’t think exist. She has four cardiologists ready to read her book.

It comes out in April 2021.

Does it have a name?

Bitter or Better because you can make the choice either come out bitter or be better to say, “It happens.” It’s a choice I made that I wasn’t going to let them win and that I was going to win. For me to win, meant I had to conduct myself in the way that I believed was the proper way. Not by swearing at COs, having meltdowns and behaving in disgusting ways. More than that, it was okay to cry. It was okay to feel and to heal. The choice I made, I know that I’m the best that I’ve been in a while.

As a family experience, the prison experience, I don’t think I would be doing what I’m doing and I truly believe you would still be in an unlovable marriage.

Getting divorced was the best thing that ever happened to me. I lost 250 pounds of him getting divorced.

You don’t know when a door closes, what else is going to open? For all the scars that we have, they’re filled with gold.

We’re all authentic and because of it, we are now finding other authentic people.

Also, when you let go of the anger, nothing mads you that it’s okay. It is what it is.

There are things that rattle us, but we have a rule in this house.

You deal with it.

It’s a 24-hour pity party and then you get over it.

You’re only allowed one 24-hour pity party a month so you better plan it correctly, otherwise, you’re going to be in trouble. You don’t want it on the last day of the month and the first day of the next month, then you got to wait another couple of weeks. Either amongst where we don’t even have that, it’s okay.

Alexis, didn’t you have some rules for Eli?

 

Be responsible, honest, be kind, gratitude and respectful.

What was the other rule you came up with on your own?

Be safe.

What does safe mean to you?

Not hurting others or yourself

Is that physically or mentally?

Physically and mentally.

Should you call someone names?

No.

I tell them on Pinterest, I didn’t make them up. He makes you sign it when he deals with us. It’s a contract.

He also went so far that, on the times he went to a physical school, he protects one girl from bullies and she keeps him on target by paying attention to his assignments.

He makes sure he’s always behind her so that the kids will not bully her.

He lives what he preaches.

I think it’s good especially when you are bringing the family together after being apart to have some boundaries and to have some guidelines. That helps children too.

You very often don’t know what those boundaries are until you approach them. It’s like, “This is not working for me. Here’s what we need.” One of my boundaries is when I’ve had enough, I don’t get nasty or ugly. It’s like, “I’m going upstairs for a while. Let me be.” I’ll go up to my room, shut the door and whatever I need to do behind the door, whether it be cry or brew, so be it. It’s about the respect of having the space the I need, “Here are the rules, be respectful, honest, responsible, grateful and be kind and be safe.”

In addition to this, he knows if he chooses not to be one of those things. He always has a choice. He gets three chances, and then there’s a consequence.

A consequence usually involves a bedtime or Lego.

When we removed the Legos, I almost took him to the ER, because he had a panic attack for almost three hours. It was about power and control.

His Lego is something that he values

It’s his therapy.

He’s always building something.

He can put things together. If you buy a Lego box for like 8, 12 and up, it’ll be put together in under two hours.

It’s his therapy to build and in a way, he’s building foundations.

He lives with two therapists. Are you guys concerned about his closeness with grandma with that need? Is that something that you guys have any concerns about?

We are slowly addressing it.

Where it’s okay for me to go out.

It’s like that with me too. If I go out, he needs to know what time I’ll be home. He usually will stay up.

I also think COVID is a part of this because we’re together almost 24/7. No one of us goes out. There is that concern of, “When are you coming back and are you okay?” It’s both. It’s not just one thing.

Remember the pattern that we noticed when he video chats certain family members? After the video session, he won’t go and stay in his bed. It’s honestly a sense of jealousy or he feels abandoned and rejected by them sometimes.

We try to stay consistent.

Being respectful, honest, grateful, and kind are the major rules of life. Share on X

Also, not therapize. He goes, “Stop therapizing.” Because he thinks he’s a therapist also because he went to all of my classes, my human sexuality and my dean gave him his own diploma when we walked graduation.

He is on Target for a while.

He’s hilarious. I know we didn’t see some of it now because he was a little nervous.

He’s also a typical eight-year-old. He’ll go outside and he digs his tunnels in the snow. He took my snow boots. He is barefoot outside. I go, “What are you doing here?” “I lost your boots. I don’t know where the boots are.” “You went out with the boots. Where are they?” There’s a lot of typical being an eight-year-old, but it’s an eight-year-old who’s experienced things that more than most people will experience in a lifetime.

The one other thing we could share is your Disneyworld trip. That’s how you connected with him.

When I was in prison, I took some money out of my IRA and it was my Christmas present to you guys.

Everyone forgot about us.

I sent them to Disney and Universal.

I didn’t know you took it out of your IRA. I took money out of my IRA to take care of you.

My ex-husband said, “I won’t bring them to Disney. I let you do that when you get out.” I worried that he took everything else from me.

Eli wanted to go to Disney though. He’s waiting for you. We only went to Universal. He didn’t want to go without you.

I let them go and be able to spend whatever at my expense and then I got to hear about it. One of these days when COVID is ever over, Eli wants to take me back to Universal.

He comes up with questions to ask. Ironically, I forgot mom was a Poli Sci major and when we were video chatting dad, he had no idea what the answers were and mom was responding. I was like, “She’s a Poli Sci major.”

Just because I have a Master’s in Social Work doesn’t mean I wasn’t Poli Sci.

“Never take away your education,” that’s what she taught me.

Education isn’t just about going to school. It’s about your experiences. It’s about how you internalize them. It’s what you observe through other people.

It’s about making a safe space for patients to talk in an individualized way.

That’s what we try to do in this house.

We’re only self-disclosing when it’s going to benefit them and I think you learned this in prison. In prison, a lot of things are business transactions. I know when she goes into a business transaction mode.

I take all emotion out of it and make it clinical.

There are times when I will make phone calls for you.

It’s because I can’t deal with the emotion that goes with it. The loss of a person, I cannot deal with it because it takes too much out of me so I’d rather let it run out.

I had a treat it like a research project in order to get through her prison time. I’m acknowledging now that I struggle with emotions myself because I had to turn them off. Otherwise, I wasn’t going to get through it. It’s hard sometimes because you don’t know when it’s okay to turn it on and when it’s not okay.

It went so far in prison. When they would visit, I would psych myself so that I would try to look like I was happy, okay, safe and it was exhausting, but I could’ve won an Oscar or an Academy awards. I would always try that with all visitors. Even with Eli, I taught him chess while I was in a prison.

He knew it was off. He would come prepared to do it for you.

We would do it for each other, but I would try to make it all about him and this way, one, the time would pass but two, it would make some memories for us.

Leaving the prison would kill me because I knew she was not going to cry in front of us, but I would try to hold off until he fell asleep in the car. We weren’t crying for the reasons that people thought. We were crying because we had no control over situations. Our life was thrown away, not by the prison system, but by someone we trusted. We had to be there for Eli because he is going to be the one who is going to be more successful than any of us. He was a gift. The impact that he has on so many people’s lives, I don’t even think we know. Anyone that meets him never forgets him. The principal knows who Eli is.

I’ve gone eating at a diner on my second day out. My first day at that diner I’m thinking, “Everyone’s looking at me,” and I had my back against the wall to still go into that diner. It’s like, “How are you?” The transition even for me has been one of being totally self-conscious to, “I don’t care because if you’re going to judge me, I’m already been judged.”

When that whole thing with the bank happened, you felt totally judged.

My bank disowned me and I felt like they wouldn’t give me a reason why. There are incidents that come up like that.

It makes me paranoid.

Maybe it’s us but hypervigilant. With the diner, the same people who were there that first Friday morning are the same people who were there even now with COVID.

 

She was sentenced on Eli’s third birthday and Eli insisted on going to the local diner where we lived before. It was like that at that diner. To come out of prison, go to the local diner now and it’s the same exact thing. He’s talking to the old retired fire chief and the local assemblyman. He doesn’t know. They’re nice guys to him. They’ll give matchbox cards if they’re laying around the house. They’ll talk about school. It was a sense of normalcy in a way.

Here’s the biggest irony, in prison, you can’t wear a mask. You can’t have anything for someone who doesn’t know exactly who you are, and now you have to wear the mask and they still know who I am and it’s okay. There’s an irony there that we all wore masks before, we just didn’t realize it. For some people, they put them up, but for me, all masks came off. It’s an irony to have to wear a mask when I go out.

This has been a lot of good information and insight. I love your vulnerability, authenticity and being candid in sharing. Eli, thank you. I’ll see you guys at Disneyworld when things open up.

Thank you.

Bye.

Important Links:

• Alexis Schonfield

About Melisa Schonfield

Lisa, Alexis and Eli are three generations of family that through incarceration and serving the hidden sentence have endured and thrived to create a loving family environment.

Eli was only three years old when his grandmother was incarcerated and maintained a close relationship with his grandmother. They created a character, Elroy, who protected both of them during and after incarceration.

Together they have all created their own happily ever after.

• Here’s How »

• https://prisonthehiddensentence.com/
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