Today’s entry is from Carole
Michael and I had a scheduled visit today, and while we sat together—face to face, holding hands—I told him the words from a love letter that I wrote to him last night. I could hardly get through the first paragraph because I looked into his beautiful brown eyes and felt the overwhelming emotion that comes with my love for him. The visiting room is like a public forum and I’m sure some people looked and wondered, but I only had eyes for Michael. I managed to share the entire 4-page letter, and it felt really good to experience the intensity of emotions that are inspired by the deep commitment we share. Our love has grown exponentially over the past decade, and it continues to blossom as we prepare for the future we’re building, together.
In the 3,091 days since I joined my life with Michael’s, he has written me thousands of pages and millions of words. When our romance began it was through correspondence that we came to know each other again after being apart for twenty years. We were on opposite coasts and separated by thousands of miles so we wrote daily letters that were between 10 and 20 pages—and some days we wrote several times. We had much to share with each other, and we quickly fell in love. I’ve kept every letter (his and mine) and also several envelopes from each prison where he’s been confined. I’ve already filled at least 10 boxes with our letters, and when he comes home we’ll read them all again—it’s something we’re both looking forward to doing in our home, together. I may add thousands more pages by the time he is released (since we don’t know when that will be) and I’ll continue to save them.
For quite awhile I’ve been meaning to scan our letters into electronic documents to preserve them, and yesterday I began with the box in which our very first letters are stored. I can tell that this is going to be a lengthy project because I’ve hardly begun the scanning process and I’ve already spent hours reading and revisiting our thoughts and experiences from so many years ago. Our journey, from coast to coast, prison to prison, is documented on those pages. I am reminded anew of the brilliance in Michael that was evident in his first handwritten letter–his mind, his soul, his passion for life. He is magnificent; the embodiment of thousands of nights of introspection and personal growth.
Our relationship isn’t easy, and our letters document the difficulties as clearly as the joys and laughter and love. Every couple working to hold a marriage and a family together through the hardships caused by prison understands those difficulties. Michael and I choose each other and we work hard to enjoy a thriving marriage. It’s a conscious effort, and it doesn’t happen by accident. We nurture our love as if it’s a garden–when weeds appear that can destroy the beauty, we don’t leave them, we pull them. When we have the opportunity to reconnect physically by holding hands with our fingers interlocked, it’s a time for us to recommit to all that we have promised each other, and we took that opportunity today.
I hate to leave after visiting, and it was especially hard today. I miss Michael already.
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