It was an unusually quiet night, the normally blaring televisions and radios were silent. The typical long-distance conversations between inmates yelling back and forth from several cells away, or the blusterous sound of someone declaring “checkmate!” — were not to be heard on this night. On this night, some of us were preparing to say good-bye to a friend for the very last time.
Hashi was ‘making his rounds,’ saying his final farewells to those that mattered to him. It was a ritual that played out each time someone’s ‘death date’ was upon them, upon all of us, like some Shakespearean tragedy. Thus, is life on Death Row — a series of greetings and farewells. And my turn to say good-bye was approaching faster than i wanted it to.
I could hear Hashi drawing ever closer to my cell, and i steeled myself against the emotional onslaught that was certain to come when i looked into the face of my friend — a dead man walking. I felt i needed to be standing when he got to my cell. I felt it would be inappropriate and disrespectful to be sitting, but it also felt like i had a ton of bricks strapped to my back, and i struggled to rise to my feet.
Within seconds, Hashi was at my cell, his hand thrust through the bars in search of mine. In that one gesture, my resolve dissipated to nothing. I grasped his hand in mine, and reached my other between the bars and hugged him. “I love you, too, brother,” is all i could manage. The damn broke, and my eyes flooded with tears.
Hashi squeezed my hand one final time and told me, “I love you, too, little brother,” and walked away. In that moment, there was a dignity and grace to him that i had never seen. Even in what were to be his final days, he was still teaching, and i was still learning. I sat back down feeling a little lighter, and sat vigil for the next three days.
We all knew that Hashi had about 72 hours to live. And as it is with all who were transported to the ‘death house,’ we prayed for that last minute stay of execution, but God decided to say “no” this time, and at 12:07 a.m., Hashi was pronounced dead by lethal injection.
Several years later, God would say “yes” to me, and i am alive today and no longer on death row. Now-a-days, I ask him to ease the ever-present pain of all the loss.
Contact Info:
Tony Enis N82931
P.O. Box 1000
Menard, Illinois 62259
Institutional Email: Connectnetwork.com
Facebook: FreeTonyEnis
Website: www.freetonyenis.com
Additional email: freetonyenis@yahoo.com
You may also view Tony's Pen Pal Profile at https://www.penpals.buzz/inmate/tony-enis
😢Sad but true. Thanks for drawing me close to death row ad its reality.
Emotionally Powerful! I can only imagine and here I am in deep thought just reading a snippet of your story. I pray all is well 🙏 Godspeed!
You’ve conveyed the emotion of this painful moment so clearly. I can feel it as well. Thank you so much for sharing this with us all.