4 days to go
by Agnes-Lisa,
February 22, 2004

Today is Sunday.

Wednesday is the day that I am leaving Frankfurt and Germany on a plane across the Atlantic Ocean. My destination is Houston, Texas, but it really is Ron.

This time, I am bringing my brother along. After Ron has already met my father and my boyfriend, he will get to know Lennart as yet another family member of mine who has heard of and about Ron for more than 9 years now. As always, we will go to the South Side of Houston to spend some time with Ron´s family. His mother and grandma, his little brother, counsins and aunts have become part of my life and I am excited to see them again.

On Thursday morning, I am going to sit there in the visitation room of Polunsky Unit in the Livingston jail, about an hour and a half North of Houston.

It will take a while till they bring Ron. Could be anything between ten minutes and close to an hour that they let me sit there waiting. The good thing is that time starts running when he gets in, not when I do. So the fact that they always take their time doesn´t affect our 4 hours. I know Ron doesn´t like me to be there before him but I always am. I see them bring him in, into his cage in front of me, behind the glass, there in that smelly visitation room with dozens of other inmates behind glass and their loved ones on my side of the room. I see him bend down so that they can open his handcuffs through the closed door behind his back. He does not look at me during that procedure. Only when they go will he sit down and look up at me, his face brightens, and we begin our long walk.

You´re here / I´m pleased / I really dig your company / Your style, you´re smile, you´re peace mentality / Lord have mercy on me / I was blind but now I see / What a king supposed to be / Baby I feel free come on and go with me / Let`s take a long walk around the park after dark / Find a spot for us to spark / Conversation, verbal elation, stimulation / Share our situations, temptations, education, relaxations, elevations / Maybe we can talk about Surah 31:18 / Your background ain`t squeaky clean / Shit, sometimes we all gotta swim upstream / You ain`t no saint / we all are sinners but you put your good foot down to make your soul the winner / I respect that / Man you`re so phat and you`re all that plus supreme / Then you`re humble Man I`m numb yo with feelin´ I can feel everything that you bring... (Jill Scott)

Since I visit from out of the country, we have four hours on Thursday and four hours on Friday, three on Wednesday next week and three more on Thursday before I will rush to Houston`s International Airport and back home.

I am looking forward to our visits as much as I am to Christmas or my birthday. Yet I dread this trip. I am beginning to feel it in my stomach, in my head, my heart. You cannot imagine the tension that I feel when I enter that building, when my papers are looked at, when I walk through the metal detector, through high security doors and across the paradox of a flowery yard that is often being gardened by "population" prisoners - that is "not death row" - as I walk past them. Only when I sit in the visitation room, only when Ron enters, the tension and fear lessen, and the sun comes out. I feel at ease, it is almost like coming home. Texas death row has made me fear the authorities, wardens, the jail personnel. My friend who is being kept in maximum security, who is deemed too dangerous to be living, is my safe haven.

I am beginning to get nervous now, and I still have four more days to go till I finally see Ron again, after ten long months. I know now that the nervousness will cease and peace will be around me a soon as I am with him. No matter what possible bad news he will confront me with, no matter how many more visits we will be granted in this life - life is good when Ron is part of it.

god bless you dear.

PS: Speaking of the visits, I want to thank all of you who have helped me to make all of my visits to Texas possible and good..... Helwig, Janusz, Annelore, the Howard Family, Agnes, my brothers, Kristin, Nancy Bailey, Anna, and - above all - Sabine, always.

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