-Samuel “Shady” Cruz
The question has never been “Why?” because the answer has always been there in front of me. I need you to please sit there and hear me out one last time. This will never be spoken again. I just need to let it all out once and for all. Part of my story begins at the age of seven.
After my mother abandoned me and left me in the middle of the street all balled up crying, begging for her to come back, she did not! At that moment of my life, Sammy stopped existing. It became difficult for me to understand what happened. So, now what I’m about to tell you I need you to understand. You need to do something first.
You need to believe in the impossible. Most of us have forgotten what miracles look like. Maybe because they haven’t made much of an appearance in your life. Our lives have become ordinary. But I know my miracle is truly extraordinary.
From the ages of seven to fourteen, I wish I could say I was an ordinary kid, but I wasn’t! I became a lost child who didn’t know what love was or what it felt like. So the sense of belonging did not exist for me.
So I make it to fourteen years old. Here’s the impossible: my miracle. There she was, my dream, exactly how I always envisioned her: light complexion, beautiful green hazel eyes, speck of freckles across her pretty small nose, blended in to her cheeks. Beautiful!
At that moment I learned what that word meant and what it felt like. Why was I shaking? Why was my body warm? Why couldn’t I speak? Why was my stomach vibrating? As I sat there with her picture in my hand staring at her. Why was my heart pounding? In time, I realized for the first time in my life that love had entered my life. My life became complete. Like any relationship, there were ups and downs.
Then came August thirty-first, 1995. Our lives fell apart. I got locked up. Remembered that seven-year-old kid who stopped existing? He existed when she came into his life and that quickly, he stopped existing again. I passed away that day, as she did too. For two years, it became “the pain of a silent goodbye,” again.
Through those two years of losing, I was trying so hard not to exist, so people could stop reminding me of what I had lost. Just like the first time, she’d show up again in a letter with a child. After being gone for two years, I stood there holding the letter, my hands shaking, my eyes tearing up. I suddenly became afraid of opening that letter because I knew if I did, I’d be taking a chance of losing her again. That’s the irony of it. I was so scared of losing her, that I did.
The truth is, even though I have lost her, I’m stuck! As long as she’s alive, I don’t have the strength to walk away. To understand me, you must go to the beginning, when Sammy stopped existing. She came into my life and suddenly my life was filled with light.
I recall that she once told me I changed her life. The truth is, she really changed mine. Everyone has had a hero as a child. Someone they look up to, admire, someone they wish they could be or that certain woman you love, or parent, etc. It’s easy to believe in heroes. What’s hard is when your hero stops believing in you.
Not every hero wears a mask. Mine has always been there in plain sight by just being there for me. It’s not easy seeing her new life, especially when I’m not a part of it. I’ve been wanting to move forward in my life. But how can I when my hero stole the love I’m supposed to be giving to the woman I’m with right now? I don’t think love is about changing or saving a person. I think it’s about finding that person who’s already the right fit.
Something has been holding me back. I keep making excuses, when in reality it’s her. For these past twenty-six years of incarceration, I’ve been emotionally off because I lost her and it does feel like she’s passed away. She’s always told me, “Don’t worry about me.”
I have always felt I wouldn’t know what I’d do if anything happened to her. I guess that’s what happens when you love someone and care for them, especially when she became your salvation. Truth is, the last person I expected to make me feel again has, but for her to sit there and ask me to forget there was “an us” and tell me, “I am your past,” truly, it makes me wish she never found me again.
She has always seen the best in me. But I’ve come to realize, sometimes when you want the people that you want there the most, sometimes they can’t. Some friendships seem like they’ll last forever and others end too soon. Not every friendship is meant to last a lifetime.
What does last forever is the pain when that person is gone. She’s never known this, but I’ve been close to death in these prisons more times than I can remember and I never feared it because I had nothing to lose. I lost her, but when she came back into my life in 1998 with a child, my reason came back when I let her back in my life.
I suddenly became afraid of what would happen if I lost her again. Afraid of what would happen to her if she lost me again. For the first time in so long, I had something to lose. I realized it not too long ago, when we fought and argued and allowed our stubbornness and anger and uncomfortableness to get the best of us. This is what brings me to all these words I have written and spoken about. I did not want “The Pain of a Silent Goodbye” to end without her knowing what she has truly meant to me in my life.
My life started when she came into my life at the age of fourteen. She has never stopped being that beautiful, brilliant, special, remarkable woman in my life. I’ve never been afraid because she was always there. Even though I was really scared of having her there, she was the reason I knew how to stand up to life in here.
Every time I faltered or made a mistake, the thought of her is what picked me up and kept me going. What I’m trying to say is, even though I hid a lot from her in our relationship, it doesn’t mean she wasn’t a part of it. She was indeed. Every single day, without her I wouldn’t have existed. I was alone in my hate for so long. It was difficult for me to trust anything or anyone, but when she came into my life, I was born. I existed.
I needed her to know this. It doesn’t in any way excuse my ignorance or my betrayal in making her feel otherwise. For that, I am sorry. I hold no blame against her. The truth is, I was asked to forget that “we/us” ever existed, and to be told, “I am your past!”
I became seven years old again. I stopped existing…