Love and Loss

I had this boyfriend named Steve. He had two kids who lived with his mom because he was in and out of jail for heroin and the chaos that goes with it. The kids’ mom was dead from an overdose.

Anyway, he and I shared a wall for a few months while in jail, and we could reach each other with a newspaper and would pass the TV remote back and forth that way. He realized I wasn’t sleeping and was listening to me having nightmares at night, so he started to sleep on the floor up against where my bed was. His body heat would warm the thin steel wall. When he still continued to hear me whimper in my sleep he purposely got his hand slammed in his cell door and it was shattered. They gave him pain meds because he had surgery.

Every morning, afternoon and night he would pass me his pain meds inside the remote so that I could sleep without the nightmares.

I was later transferred to a different jail and we continued to talk. One day his letters stopped coming. My friend Gerry sent me a letter with a drawing in it and he told me Steve died of a heroin overdose.

The morning I was transferred I knew I was going to be. I was the only girl in that area. It was about 5 AM when the CO (corrections officer) came to get me. Gerry and all the guys woke up to wish me luck and say good bye. I remember I was holding onto Steve's cell door and this male guard was trying to pull me off, it was so early and I was screaming Steve's name and begging them to not take me away. Finally, I let go and was semi dragged down the corridor while sobbing, when I got to Gerry's cell he was crying too...

Of all the traumatic moments in my life I would have to say that one probably tops them all.

I loved Steve. Steve loved me. No one had ever sacrificed themselves for me the way he did and no one has since. I often look up at the stars at night and wonder if one of the glistening beams is his soul staring down at me. I try to be good, not for you, not for blood, not for my kids, but for Steve. He watches me. He wanted better for me then what I had been dealt. We had dreams, aspirations. Sometimes while staring up at the darkness of the night I wonder if he was the one God had sent for me and that because he is gone I have lost that chance.

Et je t'aime encore –And I love you still