As I sit here writing this, today marks the day exactly 25 years ago
when the state of Florida did all they could to kill me. It was on this day
that I awoke in that solitary cell only a few steps away from that cold gray
solid steel door that led into the execution chamber where Florida’s infamous
electric chair awaited. Has it really been that long ago? It doesn’t seem that
so many years have already passed. As I’ve always heard it, time passes quickly
when you’re having fun, but I damned sure haven’t had a lot of fun over these
many years.
When I look around me, not much has really changed. I still awake each
day in a solitary cell not all that different from the one in which I waited to
die, and I’m still awaiting the uncertainty of my faith, knowing only too well
that on any day now the governor could get a wild hair up his spineless ass and
sign a new death warrant on me and so many others, especially since our names
are on the recently submitted “death warrant eligible” list.
But perhaps the one thing that has changed is that I don’t really care
whether they do or not. Somewhere along this never ending journey that I’ve
been on, any “fear” of them coming to kill me has long ago faded away. As the
years passed, I’ve even awoken more than too many days all but praying to
whatever God it was that long ago abandoned me and the countless other lost
souls warehoused around me, and “prayed” that the nightmare would end, even if
that meant ending it by my death.
You have to love that paradox – them that so zealously imposed death
upon me, all but foaming at their mouths like rabid dogs, truly believed that I
was supposed to be somehow afraid to die, maybe even drop down to my knees and
beg for mercy knowing all too well that them, consumed by vengeance are incapable of mercy. But in all thee
years, not even once have I ever begged, and f they came to take me away
tomorrow, I know I still wouldn’t beg and that the joke would be on them as I have
long ago came to accept that if I cannot win my physical freedom through the
politically corrupted courts (see www.southerninjustice.net
), then spiritual freedom from this hell that only man could create through
physical death, would still be freedom.
Today I take a few minutes to look back on that long day and endless
night when at 28 years old, I confronted my fate (you can read about my brush
with death in my essays “The Day God Died” and also "Facing my own Execution" ) and thought was lucky to survive, only to learn that there truly are fates
far worse than physical death – and that the quarter of a century that would
follow that date with death would teach me only too well that had I known what
I know today – that I would slowly rot away one day at a time and grow old and
gray in a cold crypt of steel and stone, separated from and inevitably
abandoned by all who once cared for me, I know without any doubt or a
momentarily reservation that I would had made those cold blooded bastards kill
me that day and spared myself the next 25 years.
But then again, even if I say those words, there’s that bigger part of
me that, despite the circumstances, remains forever hopeful that the day will
come when the corrupt courts will finally do the right thing and rule in my
favor and after the long 30 years, I will find myself back out there in the
real world, and allowed to live what’s left of my life as a free man.
Who knows what tomorrow might bring? But it’s the hope and dreams that
keep all of us going. Sure, objectively speaking, anyone would agree that my
life sucks. But no matter how bad it might get, there are countless others that
are far worse. Although the negativity of my situation does drag me down at
times, especially when I’m foolish enough to contemplate the circumstances. I
also must remind myself that I am far more blessed than most of them I live
among. Too many here in my world truly have been completely abandoned by all
and as the years pass they retreat further and further into that dark shadow of
their own minds, until one day all that remains is the flesh, as the mind and
soul have slowly eroded away.
So, as I “celebrate” my 25th anniversary of a continued life
despite their never-ending attempts to end it, I realize that I do have a
measure of freedom far greater than that many in the real world out there don’t
have – I am free to choose how I want to deal with my fate. No matter what evil
the cold blooded society might inflict on me, I alone am the gatekeeper,
deciding for myself whether I will allow this solitary journey to eat away at
who I am until all that remains is anger and hopelessness – or I can choose to
laugh in the face of death and embrace this unique growth experience as it
comes. And today, in this moment I do laugh and if they come to kill me
tomorrow, I will laugh again. And as long as I can still laugh in the face of
death, I know that I alone remain the master of my own life and nothing they
can do will break me, as if the past 25 years has taught me anything, it is the
measure of strength within myself, and I am stronger than they can ever hope to
be, knowing that what does not kill me can only make me stronger and that at
the end of the day the only absolute reality is death and nobody gets out
alive.
Michael Lambrix
