April 17, 2013

Today is the Phillie Phanatic's 34th birthday. And for those of you who don't follow baseball, he is the big green mascot of my favorite team, the Philadelphia Phillies. But I'm not here to talk about baseball right now. Today I want to reflect on my visit. My brother JJ came up to see me on the 15th and it had been quite awhile since we've seen each other. Never in my life would I have imagined we would be so close. I was a terrible brother growing up. I was very jealous of him and I tormented him for years. But I thank God for the closeness and love that we have. He came up and brought Rachel, his girlfriend, this is the girl that helped save his life. And they brought my 13 month old baby niece Lucciana, but I call her Baby Lucy. Baby Lucy was so adorable. I loved meeting this little angel and I was a little uncomfortable at first, I am not used to being around babies, but eventually I got the hang of it. We took 1 overpriced photo ($3) that I'll have to post at a later date. You can probably see the photo at my Facebook page or my brother's. He'll post it soon enough. Check out my Facebook page and it should be on there. Anyway, we had about 4 hours together in the visiting room, which was pretty empty. I ate a whole bunch of overpriced vending machine sandwiches and drank orange juice while I watched Lucy devour a few cheese puffs. That little girl likes her cheese puffs. I don't know how babies can eat baby food, the jar of peaches really stunk. But that's baby food. What people on the outside don't understand is that in here, when you don't get visits, you feel forgotten, unloved, alone. People can write to you, you can use the phone, but having no contact with the people you care for, it sucks. And before this my last visit was in October when my aunt Cindy brought my mom up. Mom's still recovering from hip surgery, getting better & better each day, so she'll be up in the summer. She no longer needs her cane now. Now all she needs to do is quit smoking. Seeing my family made me feel alive again. It hurts that my family doesn't know my daughter very well, and that most of them have forgotten she exists but not being able to be there for her is one of my greatest regrets. I have a saying that I look at every day and I try to live by it, "vivere senza rimpianti", means live without regrets. And I try, but I look back on the past and I regret so much. I took a man's life. And just because I didn't mean to doesn't change the fact that it still happened. I won't see my daughter grow up and live her life, I'll never see Baby Lucy grow up, and I am currently missing my 3 nephews' childhoods. Please try to remember that even though a lot of us committed crimes and we deserve to be here, it doesn't change the fact that we are human, we do have feelings, and we do hurt. For the 4 hours of my visit, I forgot my pain, I forgot my regrets, and I just lived in the moment with my family. I hated seeing them go, but I know I'll see them again before winter comes. I know people get busy out in the world. They have lives, jobs, families, commitments, just remember that we still exist in here. Don't forget us. 'Cause sometimes we really do feel forgotten. Well, I think I have rambled enough for today. This week, I don't feel forgotten. Ciao.