In Sickness, In Health...and in Jail by Mel Jacob
Genre: Biography, Memoir, Non fiction
Read: 5th March 2024
Published: 24th August 2016
★★★★★ 5 stars
DESCRIPTION:
'So why did you marry Dad?' my daughter asked. 'Well, over time I got to know him and he made me laugh, and . . . and I knew deep down that, that . . . even though we were really different . . . he was a good person.' Without skipping a beat, she said, 'He's not that good, he's in jail!'
After fourteen years of marriage, Mel Jacob's life looked as perfect as the roses perched above her white picket fence. The nice house in the suburbs, two great kids, a good husband. Until . . .
Her life took an unexpected detour when her seemingly saintly husband was jailed for two years. In Sickness, in Health . . . and in Jail follows Mel's funny, moving and insightful journey as she navigates single parenthood, prison visitations and nosy neighbours.
Mel's revealing account is the story of the family left behind. It chronicles the grief, the stigma and the conversational minefields of her husband's whereabouts, as well as the logistical problems of making a baby sibling for her two children, and why it's not appropriate to tell people that Daddy's in jail.
In Sickness, in Health . . . and in Jail is a funny and touching account of grief and love and forgiveness.
MY THOUGHTS:
I met Mel when she was the guest at a lunch I was attending for a small group of women. Her story was encouraging for those who may find themselves in similar circumstances and she was open and honest about her experience. She gifted a few of us her book addressed to each of us with words of encouragement. That was several years ago and the book went on my ever growing TBR list.
Yesterday I plucked it off the shelf and sat down to read...and I kept reading right through to the end, finishing some 6 hours later. I usually read fiction and don't read a lot of non fiction which is generally bogged down in facts and drone on and on. But this is not like that at all. Mel writes it in such a way that it feels like a story as well as being her own experience. She incorporates humour into some of the more entertaining conversations, letters and so forth. I even had to laugh at her description of court. That on TV courtrooms are filled with impassioned speeches and witty comments but in reality being in court is right up there with watching paint dry. It really is.
Her conversations with her children are some of the most endearing and entertaining, particularly Miss Five who decided she no longer wanted a cat but a baby (preferably a sister) for her birthday. This while her father is languishing in prison six hours away and in NSW conjugal visits are really not a thing. Her understanding of where babies come from and thus her solution to the problem preventing her mother from having a baby with daddy locked away was hilarious.
Not only was this a memoir of how they got through the experience but how it affected each of them. I could feel the shock of finding, not one or two, but eight police on her doorstep, the disbelief that this was happening to them, the treatment by the police during the search, the feeling of violation as they searched her house and she not even allowed to be left alone during the process to the dread of being faced with the court process, which is not in any way shape or form, quick. It is a long drawn out and often expensive process. And then to have the worst luck in the judge they were given for their case. It seemed that things were always stacked against them. The sentence Patrick received was, in my opinion, incredibly harsh in the grand scheme of things and the fact that police are allowed to entrap someone to virtually encourage them to break the law just so they could arrest and prosecute them is just beyond unfair. Because placed in that situation at any other time with anyone else, it would never have happened but the police persisted until they got him to break the law. I can't see how that is fair. In my own experience of the police over the years, I have indeed lost a great deal of faith in them.
Mel's book is a wonderful insight into what it is like to endure such a heartbreaking and lengthy process. Prisons are incredibly confronting if you've never visited one before and each of them indeed have different rules. And while I could understand taking the children to visit their father in prison, it really isn't a place for children. It is bleak, confronting and children would find it very very difficult to stay seated for the entire duration of the visit. But Mel did the best she could for her family and I daresay rural prisons are different from metropolitan ones.
I laughed and I cried throughout the book and by the end I was still crying tears. It may have been over but the next journey was just beginning.
A wonderful insightful account of what it is like to be left behind when your loved one is sent to prison. A compelling read.
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