Knowing Ron has forever changed my life. Many years ago, we found a motto for our friendship, not being able to tell how much or little time we would have with each other here in this life.

We are all angels with one wing
and we need to hold each other
to be able to fly.

Back in the fall of 1994, I was still at high school in Frankfurt, Germany. At that time, I saw a woman on TV who was writing letters to a death row inmate in the US. I wrote to Amnesty International, being committed to do the same. I thought it would be wonderful to being able to help someone by "just writing letters" - share someone's loneliness, frustrations, fears. A few weeks later, I received Ron's first letter.

Our history turned out to be something very different than I had imagined. It is not like I merely help someone. Instead, I found a very close and precious friend who helps me at the same time. A friend who I never want to let go.

During these past seven and a half years, Ron and I have gone through a lot together. In our letters, "we" have lived through seven and a half years of life in Texas' jails and prisons, "we" have been to different schools in Germany and the US, we have shared each other's fears and hopes, good and bad news, depressions and dull waiting periods. We learned to see the world through each other's eyes, providing a "tunnel into your world", as Ron once called it. Through me, he saw cities and beaches, foreign countries and the fast pace of modernity. He showed me what life can be like, how bright light can be and what friendship can mean. We have reminded each other to never give up the hope that we once chose as our motto: that we will, one day, fly. Or at least feel like taking off.

In 1999, Ron was granted a retrial. For many months, we fought and struggled for his life. In my father's company, I flew to Texas and, for the first time, met Ron face to face. It felt like we had always been together. Our letter-writing had brought us so close that those hours in the visiting cell, a window of bullet-proof glass between us, seemed to be yet another opportunity for us to spend time together.

I witnessed part of the jury selection and was shocked. I got to know a system that didn't care about the wonderful, individual qualities of my friend. I met a district attorney whose verbalized aim it was to have Ron killed. I had lunch with state appointed lawyers who asked me for some good reasons they could give to express their opposition to the death penalty and who fell asleep during the jury selection while my friend, eager as a graduate student, took notes.

My involvement in Ron's trial took a very unpleasant turn: upon my return to Texas in order to testify for Ron in court, his lawyers, for some obscure reasons, asked me to not enter the country. They did not inform their client of their actions. The incident is still not clarified. The outcome of the trial, of which I learned at my home in Berlin instead of being there in court with him, came as a shock, although not completely surprising: Ron was sentenced to death a second time. The jury, which did not include one single African American, had only discussed its decision for 80 minutes.

I see Ron getting more tired and at times, even weak. I read about his everyday life on Texas' death row and wonder how on earth does he make it in this place. Very few people in our 'free world' have a glimpse idea of what Texas' death row inmates must endure. Ron more or less manages to not let "them" provoke him too much - or rather not to react to "their" provocations. I see an angel trying to survive in hell.

Ron still keeps his spirits up and even helps others to do so. He is a loving father to his children, he adores his grandmother and mother, tries to be a big brother for his siblings and is the most caring friend to many. Ron is cool and he is funny, he loves music and basketball, he is very smart and also handsome. But Ron is tired.

Ron is being victimized by a system so unjust that the country I live in, and the whole western world, is incomprehensive, appalled, and disgusted. But while I would do everything to support the abolition of the death penalty, I am tired of discussing the politics of it. While I read and hear of statistics, numbers, arguments, I think of my friend Ron. Among all abstract thoughts, I see this very person, this precious man, and am afraid to lose him.

And I read in his letter that one appeal of his is denied after the other. Meaning that from now on, they might try to give him a date for his execution. I feel my heart race and my throat tighten up. I think of the angels with one wings and wish I had two so that I could save him. I think of his lovely grandmother who I have met twice and fell in love with. I think of Ron's victim and know he will not come back to life should "they" take Ron's instead.

This is breaking my heart. I hope and pray that something will happen to make "them" stop. And I remember that Ron wants us to be strong. That he wants us to never show "them" what "they" are doing to us. I cherish every day that we have and will not let anything come between us.