Part iII: "Dear Samuel,"
...part iii: continuation from last week.
Magida: So now that we’ve spent all this time talking about your past, and I'm not asking this in a way of rewriting your story, we're only observing here- What is it that you think you needed as a child that would have given you a second chance?
Samuel: Yeah, I believe we as a society need to take more responsibility when it comes to the children around us. I think compassion, empathy, kindness and love are the most powerful tools we have as humans. We need to encourage our kids to communicate, and we need to communicate with them. We need to make them believe and understand how important they are to their family, friends and community. Whenever I asked questions in school, I was often told “because I said so”, I never felt important. There was a real lack of care and connection from my teachers, and I was never encouraged. I didn’t have any direction or purpose until I started hanging out with my friends; who felt the same way. I believe this is one of the main reasons why I started wanting to be a thug. Along with my social environment, broken home and all my backward thinking of how I thought and believed it was not only okay, but “cool” to do as I did. I've been talking to a lot of men over the years, the ones that are changing, and I ask them what they were missing in their childhood, and a lot of men agree with me.
……you have 60 seconds remaining…
Samuel: I'll call you back.
An inmate at the Kern Valley State Prison, Delano, California. This call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded. You have a prepaid call. You will not be charged for this call. To accept this call, say, or dial five now. *BEEP*
Samuel: So, we’ve been doing this project for quite some time now, and covering a lot about my life. We’ve been talking about where we are going from here, and the possibility of opening up the platform to show the lives of some other men with different backgrounds and how they wound up in this position. And, while we generate that content, I think it's important for us to take some time to paint a picture of your life. I don't think our readers are truly grasping the importance of you in this whole series, and we need to change that. Although it makes you uncomfortable to introduce yourself, I think it's important that we share with the readers why I was able to open up and transform my mentality, and that has a lot to do with you and who you are. I believe that because of the things that you’ve experienced in your life, has made it possible for us to communicate in the way we do. Your understanding and being able to relate, has made it easy for us to develop this friendship. So, with that being said, you have some amazing sisters, and an amazing mother who has influenced you and created the person you are today. And before we talk about them, let’s just first share how you four girls came into the picture, so we can get an idea of your parents' mentality from the start. That means sharing a little bit about your sisters that came before you. Can you tell us their names so we can honor them?
Magida: Yeah, so right from the start, I am not going to share their names. I don’t really have any business discussing much about them, and I have to be extremely careful with what I say regarding this topic. I think that this conversation could really do some damage to my family who are reading this. I know it's important to mention them, to give the readers an idea of what my parents were dealing with, but just.... I would like to keep it minimal.
Samuel: I understand that it’s hard to talk about. But, you have to remember, they are your sisters, regardless if you had the opportunity to meet them or not. They are a part of you. Okay, so instead of what I asked, can you at least just mention the incident that occurred, and then maybe this can open up a conversation between you and your family.
Magida: Yes. Okay, so before my sisters and I were born, my mom and dad had four daughters. They were under the ages of eight when they were in a tragic car accident and all passed away. My mom was driving the vehicle. A couple of years later, my parents started having children again, and that’s where my sisters and I come into the picture. Four more daughters.
Samuel: How did you feel or react when your parents told you about them?
Magida: I don’t remember how old I was, but I vividly remember pointing out this portrait we had in our house to my mom. It was a pretty large photograph of four girls placed in this super intricate, gaudy, gold frame. I would say to my mom “I don’t remember when we took that photo.”
Samuel: Did they look like you girls?
Magida: I remember often staring at this photograph, and being like, that’s us. But my oldest sister looked slightly different, and I was older in the photo and I just remember always being confused, it was me, but it wasn't me. If that makes any sense, like, I thought it was us, but there were slight differences that made me question.
…“This call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded”
Magida: One day, my mom said she needed to talk to us, and she took us to her bedroom and sat us on her bed. I wonder if we were all asking questions by this point. I can’t imagine how long she must have been preparing for this day. She had this drawer in her bedroom, the handles were missing, and I think she took a pencil and jammed it in the hole and pulled it open. She proceeded to show us photos of my sisters and their past life together. I don’t remember how I felt. I was under the age of 9, but it was one of the first times I was introduced to death. The concept of being here and then not being here, and trying to wrap my head around it. After that conversation with my mom, I started to sneak into her room a lot, breaking into that drawer to go through her things, trying to learn more about them. I was fascinated by them. One day, I found this yellow 80s Walkman in there, and I don’t know what I was thinking, but I took it into my bedroom. I had it on my head, and I was playing with it. I looked up, and saw my dad standing in the doorway of my room, and he was staring at me. A blank stare, this look in his face that I'd never seen before. He was in complete shock. He stared at me for a minute, and started to cry. Without a word, he walked up to me and aggressively ripped the headphones off my head, tears coming down his face and walked away. I think that’s when I realized that this was a topic that I could never bring up, and if I was to be sneaking around invading their privacy, I was gonna have to be better at hiding it.
Samuel: Did anyone else in your family ever talk about them?
Magida: My dad never spoke a word about them in the nineteen years of my time with him. I've spoken a handful of times with my mom, but I worry that it brings her saddness, rather than joy. So, still to this day, I often sneak around in her drawer to look at photos and try and learn something else new about them.
Samuel: Thank you for sharing. I believe this is a vital introduction, to allow us to have a glimpse into the loss your parents were going through, when you four came into their lives. I hope this opens up a conversation with your family to allow you the opportunity to learn more positive things about them, to celebrate their lives rather than mourn. So, we won’t go into seventeen pages about your life, like we did for me; we’ll keep it shorter. But next week, I'd like you to write up a few things to share, and I know specifically which stories I would like people to read, but I'll let you do your thing.
Magida: Okay. I just want to add, I don't think my mom ever wanted to keep them a secret. I think she wanted to talk about them, I just don't think anyone else was ready to listen to her. Anyway, I will try my best to share some positive stuff about my childhood, but there is some things that outweigh that. But, I do agree that it is time... Okay, I think the warning is coming soon, let's continue this conversation next week. I just have to think about a few things before we speak again.
Samuel: Okay, no problem, be safe.
……you have 60 seconds remaining…
Magida: You too, Bye!