Doing Life on Death Row: When Death Hits Close to Home

Through the too many years that I've been on Florida's death Row I've become only too familiar with death itself. Since I came in early 1984 over 80 men (and a few women) have been led away and killed by state sanctioned execution. Most of them i knew personally from living in close proximity for years on end, and a good number of those were friends. Just as many, if not even more, slowly rotted away in these solitary cages until old age and illness took its toll and they each died of what is officially called "natural causes', although i doubt whether there's anything "natural" about forcing another human being to "live" in a six foot concrete cage for not merely a few years, but decade after decade.

Then there's those who had enough of this incomprehensible hell society so zealously imposes upon us under the pretence of administering justice and they bring an end to their own misery by suicide. And a handful of others died at the hands of other condemned prisoners getting stabbed to death on the recreation yard. Bottom line, death comes in many forms, but the one consistent element in our environment is that death is always hanging heavy in the air around us, only too quickly dropping down to claim its next victim. That's just the reality of the world in which we live - and die - in. ( Check out my book "To Live and Die on Death Row" by C Michael Lambrix)

Somewhere along this journey I sometimes wonder whether I've grown just as apathetic towards death as our society seems to have. In the early years each execution cut deep within me and for days, even weeks, to follow I would feel that loss as if it was itself a part of me. Back then few of those I lived around died of "natural causes" as that particular fate has only began in the past 10 years or so. as the micro-community that we are grows older and older, just as I am.

I was only 22 when I caught this capital case (be sure to check my case out at www.southerninjustice.net ) and at 23 I was cast down into the bowels of the beast we call "death row". When When I look in my mirror today I see an older man going bald and grey looking back at me, and am reminded that I am now 54 years old and a grandfather seven times over.

Mike, age 22

Time passes for all of us and that includes those family and friends outside who inevitably drift away until we are all but forgotten. That's just part of doing time and each day we are drifting further away from that real world we so long ago left behind. Like the majority of prisoners, most of those who are in my life today are friends I met since coming here.

Pretty much every prisoner knows of that bitterness that coils within our gut as we try to come to terms with that sense of abandonment we feel when we think of family and friends that long ago turned their backs on us. It's not the kind of thing anyone can truly get over.

But its for that reason that the few who do stay strong and stand by us mean all that much more. Myself, I have a rather large family with 9 brothers and sisters and countless others in my extended family. Through the past 30 years most of my siblings have married and are now grandparents themselves. But of all of them, I have only actually met one of my in-laws since I've been here, and my brother-in-law Billy visited many times, became more of a brother to me than any of my flesh and blood brothers ever even tried to be.

Some would say that Billy was the best thing that ever happened to my oldest sister Debbie. They've been together many years and it was meant to be as they made a great pair. Long before I claimed the crown of being the "black sheep" of the family, my oldest sister lived up to that distinction. When i was still a kid in grade school, she had ran away from home at 14 and found her refuge in among the "hippies" of the San Francisco area in the late 60's and 70's. By 15, she was pregnant and institutionalised in a mental hospital due to drug abuse.

But for all her early problems, Debbie is an incredible person whose strength and resilience I can only stand in awe of. She's never had an easy life and yet for all the misery and hardship that life has thrown at her, it has never broken her. Although as strong as the mightiest of oaks, she's long mastered the amazing ability to bend with the winds that blow her way.

Through the years, she comes and goes like the free spirit that she is and yet each time she comes back around its like she's never left at all. That communion we share binds us together, as of all of my family she is the only one who can empathise with the journey that my life has itself become, as although the rest of our many siblings have each stumbled along their own path, each landed on their feet and lived a relatively good life.

Many years ago Debbie met Billy and they became inseparable, fitting together so perfectly that all who knew them knew they were always meant to be, and perhaps for the first time in her life, Debbie found true happiness and a sense of completeness that could only be found by becoming one with your soul mate - and they became each others soul mate, always there for each other as they continued to struggle through life's hardships.

Having found each other didn't make their lives that much easier in any material way as both shared a similar past of becoming lost in that underworld of substance abuse and being alienated from those around them. Like too many others, they struggled month by month to get by and when they could afford it, they would come visit me. Sometimes months, and even years, would pass between visits, but they would come back around when they could.

This past week Billy passed away. As a "disabled veteran" from the Vietnam war, his life was plagued by medical problems, but he got by and never let it drag him down. A few months ago he was unexpectedly diagnosed with cancer and then went quickly. They first put him on life support at a local hospital, but Billy wanted to be home with his beloved wife, and in that last week they moved the hospital bed and medial equipment to their house, and there he remained until his last breath with my sister by his side.

Such is the diabolical nature of death - up until recently I found myself becoming almost immune to that pain that comes from the loss of someone close to you as in my own world those closest to me are dying all the time . Although I try to pay tribute to each that passes, I know that I unconsciously detach more and more as death claims its next victim, and then the next one after that.

But just when I thought I had finally found a way to roll with its punches, death took a different path and for the first time has hit close to home, or as close to what could be described as home since I really have no home to go home to. And once again, I find myself now struggling with that pain that I thought I had long ago became immune to.

Those who know me well - what I call my "inner circle" - know that in recent months I've had a pretty hard time. Just a few months ago I was planning to be married, which was something I'd never thought I'd do again as at 18 I had married my high school sweetheart and that didn't exactly turn out that well. By 21,I was divorced and my life went to hell, and I told myself I'd never again open myself up to that kind of pain again, and I didn't.

But then I met Karen and it didn't take long before we knew that we wanted to spend our lives together. She moved to Florida and visited me every weekend and holiday and I cannot even begin to put into words how it made me feel to have someone unconditionally commit to a relationship, to be there to share our hopes and dreams of what our future together might yet be and in those few hours each week when we were together I miraculously became free. Although the cold steel and stone of this prison continued to confine my body, that communion with Karen set me emotionally and spiritually free.

Just before Christmas last year, prison officials abruptly terminated our visitation privileges. As I fought to have our visits reinstated, Karen returned home to California and went to see her doctor about unexplained pains she was experiencing and in late January was diagnosed with cancer that had already spread to most of her vital organs. The reality of that news hit hard. Although realising that I would never see Karen again was itself painful, the greater pain was knowing what she would go through and the unfairness of it all as Karen was so full of life, so energetic and adventurous that her vibrant nature was contagious, and it just wasn't right. And all those hopes and dreams of a future we planned to share together were suddenly gone.

Like most others here, I don't get many visits and when you lose one of the very few who might visit, it hits hard. And no matter how often I must confront death as those around me are claimed one by one, and no matter how much I might emotionally detach myself from that sting of death, just when I think I might even becoming immune to that pain, I find myself again struggling to find a way to deal with this as those I hold close to me now are gone.

But even as much as I may find myself in pain over the loss of those so close, I realise that the loss of Billy will especially hit my sister hard. Although I may suffer this loss of someone who has become my brother, I can only hope that my sister will once again find the strength to overcome this loss as I know too well that in many ways Billy was her source of strength. As for me, death has found its way of hitting close to home and once again its sting sinks deep down into my soul.

Michael Lambrix #482053
Union Correctional Institution
7819 NW 228th street
Raiford, Florida 32026

www.southerninjustice.net

Doing Life on Death Row

Wednesday, 2 December 2015

Clemency denied and execution date set for Mike Lambrix!!

Monday, 1 September 2014

When Death Hits Close to Home

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