When I became incarcerated at seventeen, I didn’t know what to expect.  I had no idea how to do this thing called being an adult, much less being an adult in prison.  I was worried and a bit scared to be honest.  I didn’t know anyone who had ever been locked up, and the movies made it all seem terrifying.  At one point early on, I was sure I would die in here, and with a 48-year sentence, that seemed likely.

Once I got to prison, however, I quickly realized it was nothing like the movies.  For me, it felt more like high school.  Everyone seemed to be worried about getting a girlfriend, going to GED or vocational classes, or catching rec time to play softball.  Since I was only eighteen at the time, I didn’t much worry about the education part.  I got my GED at the jail and that was sufficient for me.  So I focused on chasing girls and going to rec.  I did that for a few years until someone recommended I try to get the college scholarship offered here.  They believed in me, so I decided, why not?  Most people didn’t get it their first time anyway.  But I did.  I got accepted into college with a full scholarship for an Associate’s Degree.  Maybe there was something to this education thing… 

I moved into the college wing and that’s when life changed.  I was surrounded by positive people, all pursuing an education.  In the midst of it all though, one person stood out.  Her name was Turtle.  At the time I met her, she had been locked up for eighteen years, serving a Life plus 20-year sentence without the possibility of parole.  She had been incarcerated since she was eighteen years old.  Her daughter was just five when she entered the system.  Meeting Turtle was like meeting a mythical creature.   Everyone knew her story and who she was – and now I was living with her.  At just five feet tall, she didn’t seem like she would be intimidating, but she was, and I was a little nervous to speak to her.  But then she came up to me and offered to help me get a job.  Huh?  I was shocked.  Getting a job hadn’t even been a thought for me.  

I quickly got to know Turtle, and the more I knew, the more she amazed me.  She was raised in a severely abusive household and kicked out at age 12 for being gay.  She got pregnant with her daughter at thirteen and survived on the streets with an infant until she became incarcerated at age eighteen.  She was also illiterate when she got locked up, not knowing how to read or write, but the woman standing in front of me in 2015 was just two classes away from an Associate’s Degree.  Turtle had also completed multiple vocational programs, too many to count really, and led a Celebrate Recovery program, helping others to heal from trauma.  As if her accomplishments inside weren’t enough, from behind bars she also raised an amazing daughter who grew into an amazing woman.  She parented over the phone, through letters, and in the visitation room.  The bond she has with her child is unlike anything I have seen in here.  

It has been almost ten years since Turtle and I first met, and she has continued to amaze and inspire me.  She now has two granddaughters that she is active with who love their Grams so much.  Her daughter is a 32-year-old widow who is just as strong as her mother taught her to be.  Turtle now facilitates multiple programs including three substance abuse groups, anger management, and Beyond Violence.  She is just two classes away from a Bachelor’s Degree and is a mentor in the Prison Fellowship Program.  She is also one of my best friends.  Turtle is the reason I have become who I am.  She taught me not just how to do my time but to build a better life, be a better person, and how to have hope in a hopeless situation.  I owe my life and the freedom I will one day have to Turtle.  I know I am not the only one she has helped.  Countless people talk to her every day about getting into her classes and how they can be better.  If anyone in prison deserves a chance at freedom it is her.  But guess what?  That isn’t her goal.  Her mission is to be the best she can while in here.  She has always just wanted to help those around her.  I am so proud of my friend who learned her ABC’s, got her GED, and earned her college degree all in one little prison classroom.  If that isn’t resilience, I don’t know what is.  

ABOUT THE WRITER.  Ashleigh placed first in our most recent writing contest with this essay. She not only wrote a beautiful piece, she also answered the prompt and shared the actions and life of someone who displayed inner strength. Ashleigh has written for WITS before, and I hope we hear from her again. Ashleigh can be contacted at:

Ashleigh Dye #1454863
Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women
144 Prison Lane
Troy, VA 22974

My hands fill the world with pain.  They cause destruction at almost every turn.  This is something I learned at a very young age.  I remember being a little kid, more than three or four, and my mother had a hold of my wrists.  She was telling me how bad I was.  I had colored all over my closet door.  My hands were bad; they ruined things.  That’s what I learned.

As I grew older, this pattern continued.  My hands kept breaking various objects, and I kept learning how bad I was.  From dropping glasses to shooting BBs through windows, my hands destroyed most of what they touched.  My handwriting was atrocious and remained that way.  I lacked the ability to draw, paint, color, or create anything with my hands.  My hands aren’t a mechanism for art or creation; they’re for destruction.  That’s what I have learned.

As a teenager, the destruction that was left in the wake of my touch was exacerbated.  I used my hands to break hearts, to withhold love, and to isolate myself from others.  One day the inevitable happened, and I destroyed worlds ten times over when my hands gripped a gun and my finger pulled a trigger.

As I write this, I look at my hands.  They look like hers.  Every line, crack, print, swollen knuckle, I got from her.  Seeing these day after day, moment after moment, fills me with pain.  Still, after all these years, my hands cause pain.  Endless, inescapable pain – that’s what I’ve learned.

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Hope inside prison is a rare thing.  You can always tell which people have it and which don’t.  The inmates who don’t possess this precious gift are aimless.  They roam, trying to find the next meaningless activity to fill time.  They have a void that needs filling and anything will do: drugs, sex, cards, fighting.  They’ll do whatever it takes to not think about the circumstances of their life. I know this because I used to be that person. I never engaged in fighting or drug use so it was even easier for me to ignore what I was doing and justify my behavior as a product of me being so young. In truth, I was searching.  I was hurting.  I was guilty and ashamed.  I was overwhelmed by the pain of a 48-year-sentence.  I was disgusted by what I’d done to find myself in prison. Back then I didn’t have the skills I needed to verbalize this to anyone.  Nor was I even aware that I had a problem.  All I knew was what I knew, and in reality that was nothing.  Until one day I encountered the other group of people.

The inmates who had hope were a different breed than I had seen.  Something was strange about them, and I was drawn to them.  They were alive.  They carried themselves in a way I wanted to.  Their heads were held high, and the guards spoke to them with respect.  To me they looked like they had it together.  I didn’t realize at the time that what they had was hope.  It just seemed like they cared a little more about what they did.

It was at this time I began taking college classes and moved into the college wing inside the prison.  I suddenly found myself surrounded – by hope.  It filled the eyes of the ladies I lived with.  They had dreams, plans, and purpose.  It was infectious.  They all had jobs and told me I needed one to.  Nobody had ever told me I needed to get a job inside of prison.  I thought all we did was play cards and sleep.  I wanted what they had, so I got a job as a tutor.  I was now working and going to class and spent my free time studying. I felt myself changing.  It wasn’t an overnight process, but I knew I was experiencing a transformation.  Maybe I really could be like these other inmates, these adults who seemed so successful.

Unfortunately, I still didn’t have a purpose in life.  I didn’t know why I was doing all of these things.  What was going to keep me going?  In 2017, I graduated with an Associate’s Degree and became a certified optician.  I even gave the valedictorian speech, and I got a job working for the Chaplain.  Certainly I was now just as successful as those women I sought to be like.  

Just as I thought my life was coming together, it came crashing down.  I got into a fight, and my actions landed me in segregation.  I wasn’t there long – just 10 days, but to me it was forever.  As I walked back to the hole with hands cuffed behind me and head hung low, a guard said something to me. 

“Aren’t you the girl who works for the Chaplain?” he asked me with condemnation in his voice.  All of the shame and guilt I felt before came flooding back to me.  It was like I was the preacher’s kid who got locked up.  During my seg stay, those words played over and over again in my head.  I had disappointed so many people.  I prayed.  It was all I knew how to do.  I begged God for another chance.  I asked Him to save me, and I thanked him – and I cried and cried and cried.  Then I felt His love.  It filled me up, and I knew that this was what it felt like to be Saved.  I became a Christian in the lowest place I could find myself.

When I got out of isolation, the Chaplain showed me forgiveness and let me keep my job.  I had to work hard to earn the respect back that I had built for years.  I was determined now.  I had found hope in that empty cell.  I knew that no matter what, God would love me.  I now had a goal post, something to hold on to no matter what happened.  I was different, and people started to notice.  I began self evaluations and examining why my crime happened.  I began working on becoming whole.  I purposed myself to help others.  I wrote proposals for classes.  I started working with the Prison Dog Program.  I wanted to give my hope to everyone.  

Then, in 2019, I lost my brother to an overdose.  He was my best friend, but we had been estranged since I became incarcerated.  I never had the chance to make amends with him and that still haunts me.  I think about myself in that moment, and what I would’ve done if I didn’t have hope.  But I did have it.  I took that hope and organized a recovery summit for the prison.  It was days of testimonies, powerpoints, and overdose awareness. 

I hope I changed at least one woman’s life in that time. Two years ago, Virginia passed a bill for people who committed their crimes as juveniles.  After serving 20 years they will be eligible for parole.  I was seventeen when I committed the heinous crime that took my mother’s life.  This new development, compounded with the hope I had, lit a fire inside me.  I can see my future even more, and it is good.  It is full of change, growth, and success.  I hope I can use my life to change the lives of the people who hear my story.  So I write.  I write to impart hope to those who have none.  I write to tell the stories I see.  I write to share my muse with the world. 

Mostly though, I hope…

ABOUT THE WRITER. If you’ve read a lot of WITS posts, you will know – this is the first post that has ever been shared here by a female. For that alone, I couldn’t be happier. If anyone has ever wondered, we rarely recieve any submissions from women, not because we do not support them. I couldn’t be happier about this being written by a female, but I am also thrilled to have one more strong voice on WITS with a different perspective than we have ever shared. I hope that we hear from Ashleigh again. She also came in second place in our spring writing contest with this essay. Ashleigh can be contacted at:

Ashleigh Dye #1454863
Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women
144 Prison Lane
Troy, VA 22974