Meet Clifford…

I honor my wife and her pre-dementia memory by being grateful for our children’s successes.

As a loving husband to a wife who’s suffering from late stage dementia, my heart is broken. 

As a loving husband to a wife who’s suffering from late stage dementia, my heart is broken.

In spite of the struggles with their parents and all my children have endured, I am proud of their accomplishments, amazingly they have found inner strength and courage. I take comfort knowing  my children’s hopes and dreams have exceeded mine.

Living inside the past 23 years, I’ve lost my father to cancer, my son to gun violence, my sister to heart failure, and my nephew to a drug overdose. My daughter lost the grandmother who raised her and was hopeful I would be found suitable and set free, when I wasn’t, as a family we were crushed. My baby needs her father and my wife her husband.

My Pain! My Love! I Am Conflicted!

As a man made of flesh and blood

A living moving breathing wonderful

Creation of the Almighty

I find myself a son born of a man

Growing older now and yes I must admit

Many long years have passed in this

Life for me

As the husband of a precious wife

The privileged father of many beautiful

Children

I must take meaningful time to reflect

Upon all that has happened good and

The bad

My pain! My Love! I am conflicted!

So long ago two people a woman and a man

Together joined hearts a union we made

Never to be voided never to be betrayed

Sadly so often the case! The temptations!

The overwhelming storms, which we must all

Endure

My Pain! My Love! I am conflicted!

Wrong choices! Mad choices!

Moments of stolen pleasures

Never taken without decisive consequences

To one day manifest

My Pain! My Love! I am conflicted!

Now I’m needed! I’m hoped for! I’m expected day by day!

This is my vine of inflammatory consumption a wine

So sweet to the taste but yet so bitter to dispel

From within my inward parts

My Pain! My Love! I am conflicted!

By nightfall I lie awake days on end where is he?

How is she? Like a bad dream I pray! This will

Only be a memory of a sad time that once was and now is

No more! My Pain! My Love! I am conflicted!

So many hearts must be mended, grievous wounds must be made

Clean and whole, a healing balm must appear, a portal

Must be opened!

Receive more inspiring stories and news from incarcerated people around the world.