Meet Bindhu…

My great aunt in her eighties wrote back with so much love and information about my family. We wrote back and forth several times, and she had a mind like an elephant.

Bindhu, 43
Incarcerated: 19 years
Housed: Valley State Prison, Chowchilla, California

I wanted to know who my father was. I never met him. I was ten living in Crescent City. My mother put me on a plane to Denver to meet him. Arriving at the airport he was holding a sign with my name on it. Denver was nice. My father took me to his jobs and to the swimming pools on a regular basis. I missed my old life, friends, mother, and siblings. My father had a girlfriend with her own son. He told me that he was driving me back to California. I guess they didn’t want me. We were looking for my grandparents’ home in Watsonville and couldn’t find it. My father pulled over, said he was going for gas and food and never came back. I didn’t want to believe it was true.

While in prison, I wanted to make contact again. My sister gave me his address. He wrote back and told me that he was sorry and that his girlfriend made him do it. The counselor called me out of my cell to show me a returned letter that said “deceased” on it. I didn’t know what to feel. After some time, I wrote the address back to see if I could contact anybody on my father’s side because I didn’t know anybody. My great aunt in her eighties wrote back with so much love and information about my family. We wrote back and forth several times, and she had a mind like an elephant. I created a family tree, received pictures of my great aunts, grandparents, father, uncle, great grandparents, cousins, and more. She gave me all their names and details. Having the courage to write that letter brought some unexpected love into my life.