700 Days Inside These Walls

Seven hundred days since I last stepped outside my own front door as a free man.

Seven hundred days of watching the world move through a window.

Seven hundred days of telling my crying children, “I’m sorry, I can’t go.”

I have not been convicted of anything. I have not had my day in court. I have simply waited as my opposition delays. 

And while the legal process drags on, life — real life — has been happening without me.

My oldest, Bella is in across the country in college, 20 years old. I have watched milestones pass through photographs and stories. The pride I feel is matched only by the ache of not standing there in person as she grows. 

My 12-year-old is growing into someone I barely recognize from two years ago. New interests. New challenges. New achievements. I see them come and go from the driveway. I wave. They wave back. And life happens without me. 

My 8-year-old still cries and asks the hardest questions.

“Dad, when can you come with us?”

I don’t have an answer that makes sense to a child. 

        

For more than 700 days, I have been confined to my home. I have missed birthdays, parks, school events, games, holidays , simple trips for ice cream, beach days, grocery runs, and the ordinary, beautiful routines that make up a happy childhood.

You don’t realize how sacred the ordinary is until it’s taken from you.

I have been unable to work. Unable to provide in the way I always have. A man measures himself in many ways, the most important of then them is his ability to stand on his own feet and take care of his family. Now All of That has been stripped from me. 

My wife has carried burdens no partner should have to carry alone. The emotional weight. The financial strain. The constant uncertainty. Together, we have spent the equity from our home just to survive these two years of confinement and civil abuse. — not to thrive, not to grow, but simply to endure.

Two years of legal limbo.

Two years without trial.

Two years of delay.

Two years of watching savings disappear.

Two years of explaining to children why Dad can’t come.

Two years of missed opportunities that will never come back.

The stress has reshaped our lives. Friendships have faded. Invitations stopped coming. People grow uncomfortable with situations they don’t understand. Isolation becomes its own quiet punishment.

My First Amendment rights — my voice — have felt constrained. My Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial has felt like an illusion, my 8th amendment to be free of cruel and unusual punishment is denied. Justice delayed is not neutral. It extracts a cost. And that cost is paid in mental health, financial security, family stability, and my dignity as I write this. 

The process itself becomes the punishment.

I am not asking for sympathy. I am asking for survival.

My family has endured over 700 days of uncertainty, fear, and financial devastation. We are still standing — watching it crumble around us. Legal fees continue. Basic expenses continue. Life continues, even when you are confined to your own home.

If you believe that no family should be financially destroyed while waiting for their day in court…

If you believe children should not have to grow up watching their father trapped inside the house…

If you believe that survival should not depend on silence…

Please consider donating.

This isn’t about politics.

This isn’t about ideology.

This is about a father who wants to walk his daughter to the bus stop. 

A husband who wants to carry his share of the weight.

A family that has already given more than two years of its life enduring and waiting.