The following is an actual letter from an actual inmate to his Aunt who was dying from leukemia and her husband. She died before his release in 2010, and his own mother, her sister, was killed a few years later in a car accident. This letter landed in my hands and somehow I just felt this was something that should be shared again.
Dear Aunt Diane and Uncle Jack,
First of all, I want you both to know that you are always in my thoughts and in my prayers. I wish more than anything that I had something to offer you in way of comfort, that I had expressed my love for you in a way that was somehow meaningful when the I had the opportunity. My life has been a long series of regrets; the alienation of/from my family and loved ones is just one of many, though the weight of it dwarfs all the others combined. And so, here I am, scribbling some words on a page, hoping somehow to reach out to you in this time of need and let you know that I love you both, more than I'll ever be able to show in a hundred years.
I remember you, Aunt Diane, teaching me to tie my shoes. I think I was maybe 4 years old, but I remember it. When I heard your voice on the prison phone the other day, it made me feel like a little boy again. I wish so badly I could be there for you now.
Uncle Jack, I remember going fishing with you, and I remember how I always admire the way you so often seemed to take charge of things. I also remember how your disapproval of me, when I was a young man, not living up to my responsibilities; I remember being angry about that, and now I realize that my anger was misplaced and I regret having let that come between us. I'm not sure if you ever knew this, but I wanted to be a Marine, too but when I hurt my knee in high school they told me I couldn't leave for boot camp that summer (after graduation) and that was when I really began to unwind. I just didn't know how to move forward. When you expressed what everyone in the family was thinking it bothered me, but at the time I didn't understand that it was me that I was upset with. So anyway, I just hope you'll accept this apology for holding a grudge against you over that. It was childish and I regret it.
Aunt Diane, I remember right before you and Uncle Jack got married ( I think it was before because you lived in a tiny apartment?) and you had this huge catfish you had caught I think out at Lake Jacomo. It was on your kitchen table and as I recall, it was bigger than you were! I remember comin' over to your house up the street from grandma's, and J*** and C***** were so little! I want you to know that I have many fond memories of you that colored my tumultuous childhood with hope and joy and that I do love you so.
Now I must mention something of the greatest significance, something Uncle Jack and I have had very different views on. And frankly, given my poor life performance, I recognize that my opinions on this may not carry much weight, but I promise you that in this I will not fail to act accordingly. .I pray for you every morning, every noon, and every evening. I pray that you'll get well, but more importantly, I pray that God will show you His will for you, that each of you will reach out to Him and see beyond the here-and-now, and accept His gift of eternity.
Uncle Jack, I'm not sure where you stand on the issue of God nowadays, and the last thing I want to do is come across as the stereotypical convict who's gotten religion and feels compelled to force his views on everyone else. That is not my purpose here. My motive is purely one of love and compassion, and yes, some degree of personal expiation.
I remember you, Uncle Jack, having a basically atheistic worldview though I don't know from what impetus you arrived at this opinion; whether it was a philosophical question or one born out of some sort of scientific reasoning, or if it was maybe experiential in nature. Whatever the case may be, let me just say this: One of the collateral consequences of my years in prison has been the time I've had to dedicate to the pursuit of an understanding of the issues involved; I've had my own doubt about "the faith of our fathers, " for sure. I've seen supposed religious people engaged in ideologies and actions that were horrible, and people, like you Uncle Jack, who didn't seem to need a God in in order to live honorably. What I've found is that both circumstances ultimately point back to one foundational idea, and that is this. Behind our life, beyond our experience, we are all carried along on the crest of some mighty, moving wave. There is something beyond our ability to comprehend that, in one case, prints upon our lives the knowledge of goodness, and in another, leaves us ultimately free to choose the good or the to choose the bad.
It is nonsense to suppose that we can not know whether something is actually good or actually bad, or actually true or actually false because our minds are enslaved by our senses which we all know can often deceive us. The very fact that we, or can become, aware of these deceptions proves to us that at least sometimes our perception does, in fact, show us the truth. In fact, the whole skeptical ideology contradicts itself by saying that we can not really ever make a reasonable statement about reality simply on the ground that we can be deceived by our sensory experiences. This it itself a reasonable statement about reality, something the skeptic is attempting to claim as impossible.
So, when a man lives his life honorably, something always requires a significant degree of self-sacrifice, we have to suppose that in some way he understands that the value of honor ultimately outweighs the cost to himself. Many people want to call this an evolved herd instinct, and though I do recognize that animals seem to display such an instinct, this does to apply to people for several reasons, not the least of which is that true herd instinct behavior never gives rise to the heroism we see daily in people. It is simply not that potent.
Then we have to ask what gives us this idea of goodness and honor. Is it something we're taught? Certainly, much of it is, but from where did our teachers receive their instruction? From still other teachers? Well, as anyone knows, without a concrete form of information, that information can not long survive subsequent generations and re-generations intact. And without a wave of goodness carrying us all into eternity, we would not long hence degenerate into barbarians.
Anyway, I am not wanting to take up the long argument for the existence of God, mostly due to the fact that I suspect my methods would be rather boring and tedious, or alternatively, fairly erratic in that I would spend too much time on one idea, probably because I understand it much better, and not enough on another.
At the root of it all, though, is that goodness exists, and goodness is not an accident of the universe. Your illnesses are each example of the accident that nature, of its own accord, create. Information theory, the law of entropy, and the impossibility of an infinite regress of causality force us to acknowledge a first cause or Author of Goodness and Order. And this is the only comfort any of us ultimately have, the fact that we are not alone, that our existence is not a nihilistic one, that our love and our joy and our sorrow and our pain are much more than electro-chemical impulses in our brains. We will live on, not simply in the genetic code of our descendants, but in the arms of God. The goodness He imprinted on our hearts, the very goodness we treasure in one another, demands that He holds us infinitely dearer than we can hold our own children, and yet, He leaves us free to choose.
So, maybe you've both already been through all of this stuff, and hopefully, you've heard a much more polished version of what I am hoping to say.
Pascal gave an argument known as "Pascal's Wager." In it, he basically said, "If there is a God and you choose to follow Him, you win. If there isn't, and you chose to follow Him, you still win in this life the rewards of a chaste, honorable life, and you lose nothing in the next."
Of course, over the centuries many people have noted that this is not a perfect argument. I tend to think much of what Pascal wrote was meant to counteract 17th-century rationalism, rather than to present a solid theological treatise. Therefore, I tend to think his point is basically a good starting point for anyone facing these tough questions.
So, in closing, what I pray for Aunt Diane and Uncle Jack, is that I will see you both again. I love you. I'm sorry I never told you. I'm sorry I disappointed you.
Please try to regard this letter as it was intended. I want to express my love for you, my compassion for what you're going through, and my hope for you, that you will come to a place where you can rest your fears and sorrows at the foot of the cross of Christ.
Love always,
your nephew,
