-Keith Erickson, Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga, CA
My Father John Erickson passed away on January 28th, three days before his 73rd birthday. Despite his absence, the memories of my father and childhood fishing trips, have kept my mind and heart afloat.
Having spent most of my life incarcerated, I’ll be the first to admit that I’d lost my way in the world. I failed at maintaining the values that he tried so hard to instill in me, and I pushed him away at times the harder he would love me.
The last conversation we had before Cancer stole him from me let me know that I’d finally found my way in the eyes that matter more than most.
“I’m proud to have been your Father, Son,” were his last words to me.
This was the way I wanted to remember him.
My father was simple. He loved the outdoors fishing and camping, and always talked bout family being so much more important than money and materialistic things of the world. I would watch my father as he’d fish off the banks of the Folsom Damn near Sacramento and it was like watching my very own Super Hero.
In life, I came to understand through countless hard lessons, you take things for granted and sometimes it feels like you can never get them back when they are gone, or when you make a trail of painful mistakes; nothing is more self defeating than allowing shame to determine how your future will become.
Today I have become the man that my father always was. I’m grateful to be able to say this and actually mean it.