The night before a visit, I iron my state greens until they are perfectly flat, then hang them by my bunk so they do not wrinkle overnight. In the morning, I wake at 7:30 a.m., plug in my West Bend hot pot, head to the bathroom, brush my teeth and take a shower, and return to a pot of steaming water. I pour it over instant coffee and sip it slowly while waiting for the officer to step into the dorm and call my name. 

Eastern Correctional Facility is in Napanoch, New York, a small hamlet located on the Shawangunk Ridge. It’s 30 minutes from where my family recently moved — the closest I have been to home since entering state prison in 2017.  

Visits used to require long drives, hotel stays and money I hated seeing my family spend. When I was in Clinton Correctional Facility, near the Canadian border, a single visit required days off work and hours on the road. Each goodbye landed heavy on my heart because I understood what it took for my family to be able to sit across from me on those afternoons.

Now they can visit without losing an entire weekend. That difference allows me to hear more of the small things that never make it into phone calls: a story from work, a grocery store mishap, a neighbor’s frustration. These are the simple details that keep me connected to the life I left behind.

Still, visits carry their own anxiety. Before my family arrives, I worry about their drive, the weather, what might happen when they reach the gate. Families are sometimes met by K-9 officers, questioned as if they are suspects, or told their clothing violates a rule they didn’t know existed. I have heard countless stories of people being sent across the street to Walmart to buy sweatpants or a plain shirt before they are allowed in. And too often families who made the drive have been turned away without warning because of lockdowns or staff shortages. 

Despite these inconveniences, I’m grateful they keep coming. Sometimes it is my wife. Sometimes my grandparents. Sometimes my parents, aunts or cousins. Each visit feels different, but all of them remind me that I have not been forgotten. 

Not everyone here has that. I have lived around men whose names have never been called. Some have not picked up a phone in years or received even a letter. They carry their loneliness quietly. 

Time moves strangely in prison. The days crawl, but the years collapse, and suddenly a decade has passed. Visits make that passage impossible to ignore. You watch the people you love grow older. You notice gray hairs, slower steps, tired eyes. Prison does not stop time; it only stops you from moving with it.

When my name is called, I empty my pockets and hand over my ID, remove my shoes and glasses, and slip off my wedding ring. After the pat-down, I walk through the metal detector and down a series of sterile corridors until the heavy doors open to the visiting room. 

Inside, families try to create something that resembles normal. Mothers unwrap snacks for their children. Fathers bounce toddlers on their knees. Couples lean close until an officer’s stare reminds them to pull back. You smell popcorn and disinfectant. The first hug is like the first gasp for air after being underwater too long. 

We sit under fluorescent lights on cold metal chairs and try to capture the weeks or months of life since the last visit. Everyday things, from reports of traffic on the drive up to a new recipe to the latest gossip about a petty neighbor, become treasures. Bigger things — absence, struggle, loss — go undiscussed, hanging in the silences. 

And then it ends. We hug again, tighter now, as if holding on longer could change the rules. Soon a guard barks that it’s time to wrap up.

The hardest moment comes when I watch them walk toward the exit. They step into the free world, and I stay where I am. I think about the months when all visits stopped, during COVID or the recent guards’ strike. Those stretches carved out a loneliness I can still feel.

When the doors close, I turn back toward the officers, the strip search, and the steel. The return to prison life is sharp, and it never gets easier. Back in my dorm, I sit on my bunk and replay the visit. I think about the hours my family gave me, the road they traveled, the patience they carried through every gate and search.

In a place built to isolate and forget, it is their love that keeps me going.