About Carole
September 2009
Dear Readers:
Welcome to MichaelSantos.net. We hope you find this Web site informative and helpful.
As Michael’s wife, I’m often asked questions about my life, how Michael and I met, what it’s like to get married in a prison visiting room, and how we continue to enjoy our thriving marriage through a decade of his confinement. Michael and I share a history that extends back to 5th grade—more than 35 years ago—when his family moved to Lake Forest Park, Washington, the vibrant community where my family lived. We grew up together as classmates through grade school, junior high, and high school, and our childhood ties contribute significantly to the solid foundation on which we’ve built our relationship. He is my best friend, and I am his.
My favorite memory with Michael took place on a balmy, moonlit August night in 1981, the summer before our senior year, when a group of us walked on the Burke-Gilman trail that wound through our neighborhood along the shores of Lake Washington. Michael fell into step beside me and reached for my hand. Though we had grown up together and known each other for years, I was shy and reserved, while Michael— fantastically handsome, fit and athletic, with thick, black hair and a pair of eyes the color of melted brown sugar—was popular and confident.
As we held hands that night, neither of us could have predicted the choices we’d make after high school, or how our lives would come full circle. Maybe it was fate, or destiny, or possibly even serendipity that brought us together more than 22 years after our moonlit walk, but it is no accident that on June 24, 2003, our fingers twined together again on our wedding day as I married Michael in a New Jersey prison visiting room. Our matching, white-gold wedding rings symbolize our amazing love, a love that we recommit to every day.
Michael and Carole Santos
Thanks again for visiting our Web site. The article below is for readers interested in more of the story about how I fell in love with Michael, my magnificent husband.
My Life with Michael
By Carole Santos
I stared at the e-mail. “Is this the same Shorecrest High School that federal prisoner Michael Santos attended?” It was February of 2002. As the coordinator for the Shorecrest Class of ’82 twenty-year reunion, I had grown accustomed to receiving anonymous messages on my computer. I read the stranger’s e-mail again and remembered that balmy summer night when I had walked hand-in-hand with Michael. I’d heard of his arrest, conviction and long prison sentence for selling cocaine in 1987, but I didn’t know the details.
The stranger’s email mentioned a Web site so I searched Michael’s name and found him. His story began, “I am a long-term prisoner…” and I was compelled to reconnect with him. I wanted to learn more about his transformation that had occurred behind prison walls. I began to write.
Our correspondence filled hundreds of pages. His first years in prison, he wrote, included thousands of hours of introspection. Even if he hadn’t made choices that led him into the criminal justice system, the patterns of his life and the people with whom he had been choosing to share it up to that point suggested he was on a path to emptiness similar to mine. Some people in prison found religion to carry them through. Michael wrote of his determination to grow through adversity. He chose to spend his time in prison educating himself and preparing for a contributing life beyond his sentence.
This incredibly articulate, intelligent, repentant man took my breath away. I knew in an instant that he had faced and conquered an adversity that would bring any other man to his knees. I wanted to connect with him. My life was a vortex of chaos and I was starved for the peace with which he existed. I wanted to learn from him. I knew, instinctively, that from behind prison walls Michael understood me and my struggles better than anyone I’d ever known in my life. I reached out to him with my pen and paper, and he invited me to share my thoughts. I welcomed the chance, welcomed the feelings that came, and opened my heart as I have never done before. I began to look inside of myself. I wanted to answer the questions he was asking me. I told him what I had settled for, and as he shared his heart with me, I knew that I wanted to be with him forever. From the moment Michael came into my life and wrapped me in his embrace, I’ve known a safe, loving place to explore every part of me and share who I am with him.
I was 38-years-old when I fell in love with Michael Santos. My friends and family thought I’d gone crazy. People could not fathom how I could uproot my life to pursue a romance with a prisoner. But I knew I was leaving behind all the craziness that had consumed my life. I found this incredible treasure I had dreamed of, but never believed was possible, yet I had known him all my life. Michael had been in prison for more than 15 years and he expected to serve another ten years when our romance began. During that time, against unimaginable obstacles, he had earned an undergraduate degree from Mercer University and a graduate degree from Hofstra University, and he had just finished initial drafts of his first two books.
As I sat with Michael in the prison visiting in Fort Dix, New Jersey, he took my hands in his, looked into my eyes, and said, “In five years, you will be a different woman.” He pointed to the sky and said, “Do you see that path? That is the path I’m on. It’s the path to success, and I want to bring you with me.” I trusted him, and with him I took my first steps toward real stability. It was December 31, 2002. In all my life, I’d never met anyone who had the vision and discipline that Michael lived by. Not my parents, not my friends, not the men with whom I’d previously had relationships. None possessed Michael’s strength or his ability to think and thrive through adversity. With Michael, there was no time or tolerance for whining or self-pity or self-loathing. When I joined my life with his, it was with a complete commitment. We both went all in, and together we began building the magnificent marriage we wanted.
Michael and I worked together to create a plan that would allow me to relocate with every administrative transfer his prison sentence brought. At the same time, we needed to create the financial stability that would help him transition into society after nearly 25 years in prison. With his complete support, encouragement, and blessings, I returned to college to pursue nursing. With a nursing degree, I knew that I could find employment in an honorable profession wherever my husband was confined. That prospect encouraged us. With two years of prerequisites to complete before I could begin nursing school, I invested several years in my education.
As a husband and wife team, Michael and I brought several of his books to market. Through our work, readers around the world learn about America’s prisons from the perspective of a long-term prisoner. Those books generated book reviews in The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Seattle Times, and other national news sources. Our work generated earnings that enabled me to accompany Michael when administrators transferred him from New Jersey to Colorado, to California. Those earnings sustained our family while I progressed through nursing school. While I studied through a formidable schedule to master algebra, chemistry, and anatomy, I also had to learn about publishing and marketing and Internet business. Yet this total commitment to our marriage kept us growing closer.
In the spring of 2008, a little more than five years after that day in the visiting room at Fort Dix, I graduated at the top of my class and earned my nursing degree with honors. Michael was right—I am a different woman than I was on that wintry, cold New Jersey day in 2002. Today, I work full-time as a nurse while presiding over several Web sites that publish my husband’s work. I am financially independent, and I make monthly deposits to the account that will fund our future when Michael is released.
By following Michael’s path, I set clearly defined goals and became more empowered as I realized his strategy worked! I followed his guidance, evaluated the marketplace, and made the most from the blessings I had. I created opportunities to convert my husband’s unique experiences into an income stream, then I invested that income into an education that will assure stability for our family.
Today I exist in peace, with tremendous compassion and empathy for the human condition. I’ve felt the pain and fear that comes with struggle, and I know the joy that comes with love and happiness and stability. It is precisely that depth and breadth of emotion and life experience that makes me a better wife, a better mother, a better nurse, a better person.
My story doesn’t have an ending. Michael and I cherish the love we share. He looks into my eyes and covers me with his heart. I wasn’t looking for him, but we found each other and I am in love with him.
Carole Santos is married to Michael Santos and has two children – a son currently on a year-long deployment in Iraq, and a daughter in college. Carole works full-time as a nurse while presiding over several Web sites that publish her husband’s work. Carole and Michael are true partners in every aspect of their life together. At present, they’re focused on preparing for Michael’s release and working for meaningful prison reform.
Follow Michael on Facebook and Twitter
