The days after the visit feel different. The world hasn’t magically changed—my problems are still here, the weight of depression still lingers, the parole board is still a looming wall. But something inside me is lighter, like I’ve been carrying this boulder for years and finally set it down, even if just for a moment.
I catch myself replaying the hug in my head—the feel of his arms, the solidness of him, the way it wasn’t just a wave or a nod this time. It was real. And for once, I don’t feel like I’m chasing shadows of a family I never got to fully have.
School feels a little less like a battlefield. I don’t suddenly become the top student or the most focused person in class, but when the dark thoughts creep in—the ones that whisper I’m not enough, that I’m failing, that I’ll never make it—I push back with his voice. The way he said, “You’re stronger than you think.” The way he looked at me like I was worth every mile I traveled to see him.
At work, when exhaustion eats at me and I want to quit, I remember the patience in his eyes. The way he’s survived decades in a place designed to strip a person down to nothing, and still he found a way to give me hope. If he can carry that weight, then I can carry mine.
Even my depression feels different. It’s not gone—mental illness doesn’t vanish overnight—but it feels less like a curse I’m battling alone. It feels like something I’m allowed to admit, something I can talk about with him, something we both can hold without shame. Because if he can tell me his fears, if he can share the cracks he tries to hide, then maybe I don’t have to hide mine either.
I start writing more. Letters to him, letters I may never send, letters to myself. Stories about our visits, about my dreams, about the world I imagine us building once he’s free. Putting words on paper feels like planting seeds in the dark. They may take time, but someday, they’ll grow.
And slowly, I realize that hope isn’t just waiting for a future where everything is perfect. Hope is choosing to live right now, even in the mess, even in the heartbreak, even when freedom feels impossibly far away.
Because that visit taught me something I didn’t fully understand before: he isn’t just waiting for me to carry him. He’s carrying me too. And together, even across walls and years, we’re holding each other up.
The fight isn’t over. The parole board still sits behind their desks, unmoved by stories like ours. The distance still hurts. The nights still get long and lonely.
But now, when I close my eyes, I don’t just see the walls. I see the crack of light breaking through.
And for the first time in a long time, I believe it: one day, he’s coming home.
After that visit, something shifted in me that I couldn’t put back. Carrying his story in silence didn’t feel right anymore. It wasn’t just my private grief, or our family’s pain—it was a reflection of something bigger, something wrong that too many people were living through.
So I started speaking.
At first it was small—conversations with classmates when they asked why I looked tired after another long weekend trip. I didn’t give them the usual vague answers. Instead, I said it straight: “I was visiting my uncle. He’s been in prison longer than I’ve been alive. He should’ve been home years ago.”
Some people got quiet. Some gave me that pity look I’ve come to hate. But others listened—really listened. And a few even asked questions, questions that gave me the chance to tell them who Bulldog really is, beyond the label the system stamped on him.
That gave me courage.
I started writing about it too—on forums, in essays for school, even in the margins of my notebooks. I wrote about the bus rides, the waiting rooms, the way the parole board reduces human lives to paper. I wrote about the hole in my life, about the way love can survive in places designed to kill it.
And one day, a professor read one of my essays and told me I should share it more widely. That my words had weight. That maybe, just maybe, they could reach people who’d never think about what it means for a family to live this way.
It terrified me. But it also felt like the next step.
The first time I spoke publicly was at a small campus event. My hands shook so badly I could hardly hold the paper I’d written my notes on. My throat tightened, my voice cracked, and I kept waiting for someone to dismiss me, to tell me it wasn’t important.
But when I finished, the room was silent. Not the kind of silence that means no one cares—the kind of silence that means the words landed, heavy, in places people didn’t expect.
Afterward, a girl came up to me and whispered, “My brother’s locked up too. I’ve never told anyone.” And in that moment, I knew I wasn’t just carrying Bulldog’s story. I was carrying hers too. And countless others.
The fight stopped being just mine and his. It became bigger. A movement, even if small. A ripple against a system that thrives on silence.
Every call with my uncle feels different now. I tell him about the people who heard his story, about the classmates who said they’d never thought about prison that way before, about the girl with the brother behind bars. And for the first time, I hear something new in his voice when he responds. Not just hope—pride.
He tells me I’m doing what he can’t. That while he’s trapped behind walls, I’m making sure his voice isn’t. That together, we’re fighting in two different ways—but fighting all the same.
And I think maybe that’s what family is supposed to be. Not perfect. Not whole. But a promise: I won’t let your story disappear. I won’t let you disappear.
The parole board still hasn’t changed. The system still grinds on. But I’m not waiting in silence anymore.
I’m speaking. I’m writing. I’m fighting.
And somewhere, deep in those walls, I know he’s standing taller because of it.
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