Connection

 

A thing that makes you ache even deeper than your bones is exclusion from humanity.

We are all travelers on a highway with bypasses and off ramps that lead us to connections in life, a email or letter allows us to share in the journey humanity.

 

Through connection no matter space and time, we can be a part of experiences and maintain passion for life with the people of the world.

 

The trails we make can lead outward, but they also lead inward, often the two become one trail with a gathering force of a essential thing.  I face in myself and my condemnation a passionate and tenacious longing for connection, and the power that invigorates my soul from friendship.

 

A email or letter can change a moment ,

A friend can change a life.

 

There are several organizations and people that understand this in their fight to humanize those of us in the world condemned to die.  As human beings this is what the word compassion truly embodies.

 

The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening, as my wounds heal and pain recedes from me, just as memories do, like landmarks on a distant, foggy shore, I build a life doing time, the most beautiful gift of all is you.

 

Shawna Forde

Arizona Death Row

August 2020