If you can laugh at least one time a day, it’s not that bad.
I remember I planned on taking my life because I couldn’t endure being incarcerated anymore. As I made plans for my demise, my friend, Loco was sitting in the day room with Bow Wow. Loco’s mother was battling cancer, so he shaved his head to stand in solidarity with her. We began talking and out of nowhere, Loco said this, “I think about killing myself every day.” I was shocked by what he said, because I felt isolated, thinking I was the only one feeling like that. Well, I asked, “Why don’t you do it?” He said, and I’ll never forget this: “If you can laugh at least one time a day, it’s not that bad.” I admitted what I planned to him, and to this day, I still use what he said to help me through my incarceration. I’m in love with a woman from a country at war. She has a heart of gold and the strength of a superwoman. One day, she wrote me this: “I had to run into the bomb shelter. I’m good, how are you? Oh yeah, I posted an article on the blog today for you.” My mouth remained ajar reading that, because I knew no matter what, if this woman could love me while dealing with all of that unimaginable insanity, I gotta put a ring on her hand. No matter what prison brings, I’m above it all, by educating myself to truly see my value in this life I live. I call somebody every day. Visits, well, I’m in Virginia, and the majority of my family is in New York, so I get a yearly visit, if I’m lucky. Movies. I’m a Marvel Comics fan, and all I want to do is cosplay, dressing up like Luke Cage to watch the latest Marvel movie. Fruitvale Station. That movie showed me the impact of my crime on the family I hurt. It broke me in so many ways that I cried for hours, then my celly asked me this life-changing question: “What would you say to those you hurt?” That pushed me to work on making amends and writing my autobiography about my life. I grew up watching my stepfather physically assault my mother, and place a gun to her head. That traumatized me, because when my cousin said these seven words, I lost my mind: “Your mother is not a good woman.” I’ve been in prison since that sad day.
