Letters

Loneliness.

The strongest impression I brought back from the first four-day Christian retreat I attended at Torres* was loneliness.  Behind the smiles, chatter, jostling, I sensed deep loneliness.  Camaraderie among inmates is discouraged in prison. Some men in white** never have a visitor and never receive a letter.  Men in white are not present for life’s events—births, deaths, graduations, weddings, birthdays.  Many have been filed away and forgotten.  Even those who are not filed away and forgotten suffer greatly when their family has a crisis or major problem and there is nothing the man in white can do to help.

I resolved that I would write every man in white in my family*** or that I had established a relationship with at least once every two months, with no expectation they would write me back.  The standard I set for each letter was I would always tell the truth and every letter would contain hope.

*The Torres Unit is a Texas state prison located near Hondo, Texas.

**In Texas prisons, all inmates wear white.

***At the retreat, we sat at tables of nine in assigned seats (three volunteers/six men in white) called families.