One Family’s Hope and Heartbreak
In many counties, the jail has become a de facto mental institution, housing mentally ill inmates awaiting due process without their medications and/or life-sustaining therapies. The situation is lose-lose-lose; the inmate, fellow inmates and jail staff, and the taxpayers are all affected. The statistics have been quoted for so long that one wonders if they have lost their impact. Perhaps it is time to talk about the fourth party in this story: the inmate’s family. What resources do mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, and spouses and children have to help their loved one as he or she languishes in a jail cell? This is not to say wheels are not in motion. Money has been appropriated, and programs have been established. But are they enough? Or are they just a starting point? Perhaps one family’s story, putting a face to a statistic, will help answer the question.
Lane sat at his kitchen table and stared through the bay window at the deep blue West Texas sky. He had just read a lengthy letter from his brother, Brad. A gifted artist, Brad’s penmanship was immaculate, and the sketches he included in the margins of the letter and in the closing evoked a pitiful smile. They reminded Lane of his brother’s childhood drawings that garnered ribbons at art fairs and of Brad’s job at Six Flags creating caricatures for excited customers.
While the penmanship was organized, the rambling letter, six pages long front and back with every space filled, was jumbled. Childhood reminiscences. Questions asking when family would come pick Brad up from the county jail. Would Lane check on Brad’s children? Where was Brad’s money? Some paragraphs screamed of desperation. Others of resentfulness. Some made no sense whatsoever.
Lane took out a pen and paper to write Brad back. What do you share with your big brother, a grown man in his 50s with no home and no contact with his ex-wife, meaning no association with his two young daughters. Lane is the youngest in the family, and Brad is almost nine years older; there are two other siblings in between, but Brad chose to write Lane most often.
Questions ran through Lane’s mind. Do I continue to share family news, or will that make my brother sad? Do I talk about my job, or does that just emphasize Brad’s joblessness?
Lane wrote of general news, and then he began a new paragraph. He wanted to validate his brother’s suffering, to offer some semblance of comfort. He read the first sentence aloud to his wife.
“I do not know why you are burdened with mental illness, and I am not…”
Lane’s voice cracked, and his wife began to cry.
He ended the letter promising to pray for his brother, and he told him he loved him.
The Beginning
Brad’s younger years were bright and promising. He was productive in school and in extracurricular activities. Brad was voted “Favorite Camper” at church camp, and he was a kind and thoughtful child.
To Lane’s recollection, his brother began showing signs of instability in his late teen years. He experimented with drugs and began “acting out.” His parents tried to seek help, but the valleys and peaks continued. Brad could be bright and engaging one minute and then confused and uncontrollable the next. Brad eventually joined the military, but he was quickly discharged due to obvious mental health concerns. (He was not enlisted long enough to receive VA benefits).
Brad would disappear for months at a time. On one unforgettable night, Brad’s parents received a call from someone claiming to be a jailer in Mexico. “Send us money, and we will let your son go,” the man said. Brad was eventually beaten and then released.
Jailers from across Texas called his parents, who asked about programs and mental health facilities. Brad spent time in state hospitals only to be released once his medications evened out his behavior. Diagnoses included bipolar disorder, manic depression, and schizophrenia. He was in and out of halfway houses continually. Brad’s parents became his guardians, and the Social Security Administration asked Brad’s mom and dad to allow his disability check to be mailed to their home address, since Brad was always moving around. They agreed and continually paid Brad’s rent; of course, they spent much of their own money on Brad’s other needs. Sometimes Brad showed up at his parents’ home, but he usually became restless and walked out after a few days. Other times he acted so erratically, tearing up photos, ransacking drawers, etc., that his parents had no choice but to ask him to leave. They would call Lane with feelings of guilt, but Lane assured them they did the right thing.
The sad and frustrating cycle continued. Brad stabilized on meds. Because he felt so much better, he discontinued them. Then his mental health declined, he walked off a job or out of a group home, became hungry, trespassed, stole food, ended up in jail, was given a few days of meds, and then released. And so on.
Lane would call the county jails and ask them to work with his brother. They said their hands were tied – they did not have the resources. They would often say if Brad threatened suicide, they would try and connect Brad to a mental health provider. That wasn’t to say the jail staff did not care; they just did not have many options.
On one occasion, Lane asked that the jail delay Brad’s release until Lane could mail him a coat. It was the dead of winter, and the forecast was bitter cold. The jail staff went to a lost and found and found Brad a coat and hat and promised to send him with a sack lunch. For that, Lane was grateful.
The Middle
Every now and then, Brad would stabilize with medication and hold down a job for a while. One such time, Brad was employed on a ranch. He was provided with a trailer, and Brad’s parents went to visit taking him clothes and supplies. Was this the answer? The right place, the ideal job? Brad knew where to go to renew his meds, he was working hard on the land and with animals, and he seemed happy. Months went by. Maybe, just maybe, this would last.
And then one day, the phone rang. Brad had gone off his medication. The rancher told Brad’s parents, now in their 70s, that Brad had to go. Brad had ransacked his trailer and was nowhere to be found. His parents began a lengthy drive to the ranch to try and find him.
“I can’t let my elderly parents walk blindly around this ranch looking for Brad,” Lane told his wife. So, Lane made a five-hour drive and met his parents. First, they went to the sheriff’s office to explain the situation. This county had a partnership with a local mental health facility, and they promised to try and get Brad where he needed to be.
Lane and his parents began to drive around, and Lane says God led them right to Brad.
Brad was wild-eyed and unkept and in desperate need of professional help. Before calling the sheriff to come get Brad, the parents and two brothers shared a meal.
Then, Lane asked his mom to please sit in the car so she would not have to endure the sight of Brad being led away.
And so, the cycle began again.
The Uncertain End
So much has transpired since that day at the ranch. Since that time, Lane and Brad’s dad died of a heart attack. Brad was in a halfway house at the time. He seemed stable, and the house parents helped with transportation to the funeral. Brad did well, sitting by his mom in the church while Lane preached their dad’s funeral message.
Several years following their dad’s passing, Brad’s mental health declined yet again. He ran away from his halfway house and called his mother begging for one night in a hotel. She gave the hotel her credit card and paid for two nights. Brad ordered a pizza from the hotel room. He had no money to pay, and when the young delivery boy arrived, he picked up a screwdriver and made a threatening gesture. The police were called, and Brad was arrested on a felony charge, as the screwdriver was considered a deadly weapon. Brad sat in a county jail for over a year waiting for a bed to open at the North Texas State Hospital, the only facility in Texas for violent offenders.
Brad wrote Lane more letters asking his family to come get him. Lane and the family continued to call the staff in the mental health ward to see if anything could be done to help Brad. Thankfully, he was able to receive his much-needed medication.
After a year of waiting for a mental health bed, Brad was scheduled to be released with credit for time served. Lane asked the jail to delay. A recent letter from Brad had Lane rattled, as Brad was exhibiting anger at their mom for not coming to get him. The words were not overt threats, but they were concerning.
The social worker said if Brad “said the right things” during his release interview, they could not keep him.
Brad said the right things. He was released and somehow made it from Texas to Arkansas. Brad stopped by their sister’s apartment, stayed a few days, and then said he was headed to Florida to get a job on a ship.
That was over three years ago, and Brad has not been heard from since. The family filed a missing person’s report and waited for a call from authorities, assuming he would eventually be arrested.
To this day, they have not heard a word, and Lane believes his brother is most likely dead.
The Unknown
In April 2020, Lane and Brad’s other brother, Greg, was diagnosed with two glioblastomas. Greg passed away four weeks later at the age of 58.
We were all with Greg when he died. I say “we” because I am Lane’s wife.
I have walked this road with Lane since the day we met in August of 1985. When we talk about Brad, Lane often says that four decades of heartache and struggle have left him feeling somewhat calloused, and his primary concern is now for his mom. We have two sons, and we cannot imagine how she has endured.
One of the saddest moments for me was just after Greg, my brother-in-law, took his last breath. His mom looked at Lane, tears streaming down her face, and asked, “How are we going to tell Brad that his brother has died?”
Not knowing if Brad is still alive has been excruciating for my mother-in-law. Today is her 87th birthday. She has lost her husband to a heart attack, one son to brain cancer, and one son to mental illness. The sadness can be overwhelming at times. When she asks my husband where he thinks Brad is today, Lane tells her, “Heaven.” I pray that gives her comfort.
I asked Lane’s permission to share his family’s personal story. It was his request that I add one more paragraph:
“Our family appreciates every act of kindness from strangers over these 40 years of trying to help manage a life gone wandering,” Lane wrote. “We’ve received many such kindnesses from jail and prison staff, lawyers, judges, and law enforcement. For each one, we are thankful.”
Next on my list of stories to write is an article on the Community Diversion Coordinator Pilot Program now in place in three Texas counties. I can’t help but wonder if such a program could have helped save Brad, or at the very least helped Brad’s family as they walked this road with him.
By Julie Anderson
Editor