Christmas in Prison

What is Christmas like in prison?

I invite you into my experience in this excerpt from my memoir, “Blank Canvas, How I Reinvented My Life After Prison.”

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“Remorse is the poison of life.”
— CHARLOTTE BRONTË

There’s a sadness in the air. It’s not just mine; it belongs to all of us. None of us complains. What’s the point? We’re all in the same boat, all wishing we weren’t. We keep our wishes to ourselves, doing our best to maintain our routines, all the while struggling with what we should be doing, not what our reality is. There’s no reason to say it because we’re all thinking the same exact thing.

We all wish we were home with our families doing whatever each of us does on Christmas Day. There is a collective, unspoken desire that Christmas disappears just for the time we are in prison. We’d like to skip the day or at least be unaware of it.

I should be home but I’m not. I should be waking up next to her, kissing her shoulder, wishing her a Merry Christmas, as she rolls over with a sleepy smile, saying,

“Hi, baby, Merry Christmas.”

I can hear her morning voice in my ear, not yet awake, soft and gentle. I love it.