"Damn Right, I'm Somebody" by Chris Stain

I received an e-mail from a young man who was a stranger to me about a month ago. I haven’t written about it until today because I have been trying to address some issues that arose from the communication.

The young man is 14 years old and he came across this blog by doing a google search about boys with incarcerated fathers. He wrote to me to tell me his story. I have his permission to share some of it with you. I promised that I wouldn’t quote directly from the first e-mail that I received from him. I want to honor the trust that he has bestowed. I will call him Darius.

Darius has been raised for the past 4 years by his paternal grandmother. Both of his parents were addicts and he never really knew his mother who died of AIDS when Darius was only 3 years old. The two constants in his life have been his father and his grandmother. Four years ago, Darius’s father caught another drug charge and he is currently serving a 10 year prison sentence. There is some hope that his father might be paroled within the next couple of years but Darius is not getting his hopes up.

Darius reached out to me because he wanted to let me know that he feels alone even though his grandmother is doing her best by him. He wanted me to know that he never talks to any of his friends about his father. He doesn’t talk to anyone about his father. He is unable to visit his father regularly because he is incarcerated over 100 miles from where Darius lives. His grandmother has no means of transportation. Even if she did, she works as a nurse’s aide and has very inflexible hours. Darius confided in me that he is struggling a great deal right now. He wrote that he feels like he might “explode.” He doesn’t understand why he feels so angry all of the time. He said that he doesn’t want to cause any “trouble” for his grandmother. I can understand that.

I wrote back to Darius and asked if he had any other trusted adults in his life who he might turn to. I offered a list of possibilities (a pastor, a coach, a neighbor, a teacher). He replied that there is no one who he can turn to. He apologized for “bothering me.” He didn’t know why he had written to me in the first place. He said that he had read a blog post that I had written about another young man who I know named Jamal. He said that perhaps I would also understand his situation.

I wrote back to Darius to tell him that he was not “bothering” me and that I was honored that he would reach out to me. I told him that I would be privileged to be his e-mail pen pal and that he could write to me whenever he felt that he needed an ear. Over the past 4 weeks, we have e-mailed each other quite a bit and I am so incredibly impressed by Darius’s intelligence, his resilience, and his courage. Since Darius lives in a city where I happen to know several people, I asked him if he would be willing to receive a call from a male friend of mine who might be a good ally for him. A couple of weeks ago, the two had a phone call and this weekend, they met for the first time. I am happy to report that they have hit it off famously as I suspected they might. My friend is an attorney and he is also someone who has quite a bit in common with Darius.

Yesterday, I received an e-mail from Darius who wanted to give me the 411 on his lunch with my friend on Saturday. He told me that my friend was “funny.” Apparently, they found quite a bit to laugh about together. He was excited because my friend offered to give him and his grandmother a ride to see his father when they wanted. Darius says that he can’t believe that a person like my friend would take any interest in him. I know that this reflects the sense of apprehension that he feels about having been let down a lot. We will all have to take great care not be disappointments to him. We have a lot to live up to but I think that we will be equal to the task. This is not a happily ever after story. None of us knows where any of this will lead. However, for the time being, a young man has a couple of people who he can talk to. We will listen. That’s easy to do.

I wanted to share Darius’s story here because I think that the individual stories of the impact of incarceration provide the fuel that is needed to incite all of us to greater action. There are millions of young people like Darius across the U.S. They are the orphans of this mass incarceration scourge. Many, many of these young people are in pain and they don’t have the voice to express what it is that they are even feeling. How are we going to address this as a society? These are all of our children. Darius had the motivation to go to his local library to use a computer to research resources to help himself. He did that at 14. That is extraordinary and we should not expect children to have to do this. I also honestly don’t know if I am the only stranger who he wrote to. I haven’t asked. Perhaps he sent a number of e-mails out into the interwebs… I just happened to respond. Yet I know that I can’t respond to the millions of other voiceless children and youth who also need an ear, some encouragement, and important resources. So unfortunately this is an incomplete story; one to be continued…

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  By Jill, April 4, 2011 @ 12:00 pm

  I’m so glad that your friend has been able to connect with Darius. So easy for the system to ignore how difficult incarceration is on the families. A friend of mine was crocheting a blanket for her daughter’s 16 birthday when she was charged with an infraction. Part of her “consequences” were to have the blanket destroyed, so now she can’t send her child a 16th birthday present. On a happier note I am sending a present for her, but it doesn’t make the prison’s actions against this woman and her daughter any less vindictive.

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