Holidays locked up are a mix of emotions – happy to be alive, sad to be here, indifferent to being surrounded by people you don’t know instead of loved ones. When I was free, holidays were usually spent celebrating with family, eating too much, drinking too much, and regretting it the next day, all with a smile on my face.
As a child, I loved Halloween. I’d dress up in my costume on October 30th and sleep in it just to be prepared. I loved candy, especially free candy, and I wanted to be ready to go. Those memories are engraved in my head.
October 31, 2018, changed my Halloween memories of free candy. People in the free world were dressing up in costumes that day, and I was in Dallas County Jail dressing up in a suit and tie for my final day of a capital murder trial. It was the day the jury would make the life or death decision. They could either send me to spend the rest of my life living in prison or sentence me to death by lethal injection. There I was in a courtroom on free candy day, dressed to impress and hoping for the best.
Death was their final decision – forever replacing my joyful memories of Halloween. October 31 is now just a dreadful anniversary…
ABOUT THE WRITER. Kristopher Love has never written for WITS before, but he submitted this piece to our last writing contest. I am not a judge, so I don’t look at the entries very closely, but as I was going through the returned material, this caught my eye. I hope Mr. Love continues to pursue writing. He can be contacted at:
Kristopher Love #999614
Polunsky Unit
3872 FM 350 South
Livingston, TX 77351
