Yours for Eternity: A Love Story on Death Row (17 page)

There is so much to do.

I had the oddest discussion with Luis tonight.

I said, “Do you think I am insane?”

And he said, “Oh yes”—but lightly and in a sweet way.

He then said, “Don’t you know that is why I am here—to keep you from flying off the earth? I will keep the points of the eyes (?!)
until you do what you have to do. You are too emotional for this world.”

He knows why he is with me. It makes me feel safe in a way—like the plan is going about as designed.

I love you,

Lorri

January 29, 1997

My love,

I loved the way you described us being by ourselves with just the woods and fields and each other. I keep reading it over and over; it makes me feel so close to you. We’ll spend an eternity doing nothing except studying each other, making love to each other. There is nothing else worth doing.

I like what Luis said about you being slightly insane, and him being there to keep you from flying away. But one day, you will fly away. You’ll fly away with me. And I think that if both of us weren’t just a little insane, we would never make it. I’ve always treated insanity in a joking way, but I think madness is so romantic. And I love the idea of us gradually going mad together. It seems so beautiful.

*

No more Sandman, no more Grand G. I will never go far away from you. I will always be right with you, so you should never have any fear of it being otherwise. I could not live if I were away from you. There would be no reason to even try. I am all yours, I completely belong to you, and you must never doubt it even for a second.

I love you for eternity and belong only to you,

Damien

February 3, 1997

My dearest,

I fear I am so reckless sometimes—you are so much wiser about things sometimes. I lack discretion.
That
is my problem. At a time when all could be and
is
heard and read—I just go about our lives babbling away.

*

Waves of jealousy. They are horrible to me. I’ve lived my whole life without being a slave to it, except for once. Just once and that lasted a relatively short time.

But with you—it could cause me to become stark raving mad. It’s like you said—I remember a thing you have said and it just goes around and around in my head and I torture myself. You have nothing to do with it—because I know you would never want me to feel this way—as I would never want you to have a moment of misery. So I’m going to try very, very hard to make it stop. No, I couldn’t bear to see a picture of Deanna, because I would never be able to stop thinking of her, because I’m sure she was extraordinary, and I know you were crazy in love with her, and I know that I am nothing like her. So I couldn’t bear to have that image in my mind. You’re lucky in that I was never attracted to physically beautiful people—except women—which was wonderful because I never wanted to sleep with them or fall in love with them in that all-encompassing way.

So you could never look upon anyone from my past and think, “He’s beautiful,” because they were all strange-looking—even on the
fringe of ugliness. I veered far, far away from beauty. I found it almost too alien for me—I gravitated toward scars and crooked teeth and malformed bones, gauntness. So being in love with a true, pure-to-the-point-of-scariness beauty is very difficult for me at times. So please bear with me—my jealousy is so young, so reckless—so new and strong, even overwhelming. I don’t know why it exists when we love each other so much—you say it’s the nature of it—and you told me how you hated being with Domini—and that whole situation sounds so miserable and yet it makes me feel better?? That you two were miserable makes me feel better. Why is that? It’s crazy.

To know that I would never change anything about myself—the way I look, the way I think—the way my life has gone (except for not being with you). I wouldn’t change anything so why am I jealous? Because someone else got a piece of you or had an impact on you.

So, I’m going to try really, really hard to stop it. I think it’s corrosive. I do.

I want you to try, too. For you have nothing to ever be jealous of—even though most of the time that reasoning means nothing.

Damien . . . you just called . . . you said something to me that I will never forget, and it means so much to me—more than you even know. You said that you have never been happy until now. I thought my heart would just burst.

You, my dear, have made me happier than I have ever been—and I know we both suffer not being able to be together. But to hear something like that makes all of my “suffering” worth it.

*

Do you remember one of the first times we ever spoke on the phone—the second time, actually. I started whispering to you—and you said . . . “Why are you whispering?”

It’s so funny, it just seemed the right way to speak to you.

Now we do it all the time.

Yes, you are definitely turning into me, I am turning into you.

*

Not to be a nagging lover, but just how much are you smoking these days? On my next visit, I’m going to come back there and have a little chat with all of those who continue to send you cigarettes as a gift. And what’s this about cigars??!! You thought I was going to let that slide, didn’t you? Well, guess again. Maybe you should take to chewing sugarless gum.

*

Damien, we do talk of sanity, insanity a lot—but I honestly do believe you are the sanest person I have ever known. You’re honest and I think to most people, the truth sounds like the ravings of a madman.

But I want you to know—I have never thought of you as insane. I think we’re both a little “off”—but even then—I don’t think we are—we are more aware of who we are and what we are doing than anyone I’ve ever encountered. Think of all the crazy things people around us do—and yet, they look at us like we are crazy.

Yours, forever and ever,

Lorri

February 10, 1997

My love,

You should get a package at the same time as this letter, so I will explain it.

1. The coffee—for the short period that I tried to drink coffee, this was the kind I drank.

2. The “Breakfast drink”—I drink a glass of this every day. Look at all the vitamin C in it!

3. The spoon—I have these lying around everywhere, because they give me one 3 times a day and I never throw them away.

4. The oatmeal cake—when I eat one of these, I can’t stop. I will eat 4 or 5 of them.

5. The pack of oatmeal—I buy boxes of this all the time; it has all different flavors in it, and I like them all.

6. The crackers—I love, love, love these. Yummy.

7. The red pen—I used this to underline things in books.

8. The black pen—I have used this pen many times to write to you.

9. The strawberry candy—you never know what kind you will get when you order this, because they have all different kinds and they send you whatever kind they want.

From now on, I will be forever looking for things to send you. Everywhere I go (where am I going besides to take a shower twice a week?) I will be looking for things to steal for you.

I love and belong to only you for eternity,

Damien

February 12, 1997

My dearest,

I love the gifts you sent me—now the pen you used to write to me is being used by me to write to you. I love this pen. I will use the red pen to underline things. I ate the oatmeal cake tonight—it was completely lalishla! And I will have the oatmeal and the coffee for breakfast. I will save the breakfast drink for Friday. The spoon I will keep with me all the time to stir my coffee and the crackers I will have tomorrow for a snack at work. I want to ask you about the small wooden coffin that arrived with the book. I put the strawberry candies in the coffin—but they didn’t want to stay in there, so I took them out. I couldn’t tell if the coffin didn’t want the candy or the candy didn’t want to be in the coffin. Where did you get it and what is it for?

*

You don’t know how much I love these gifts!

I love you and am yours through eternity,

Lorri

February 28, 1997

My beautiful one,

Our 1-year anniversary? How can a whole year have passed already? But then, in a way, it seems as if so much more time than that has passed. It seems somehow much shorter and much longer than one year. How can that be?

*

Yes, my love, we will be together, and it does not matter if it is while living or in death. Either way, we will be together, so what does it matter? We have eternity together, so this small amount of time that we are separated must not be allowed to make us sad, because it really means nothing. I feel so wonderful just thinking of it. Yes, my love, we can endure this for now, because everything is ahead of us. I am your ghost. No, I do not doubt at all! I have no doubts, my love. I feel it deep inside of me, it’s so huge it feels as if I will explode. I will never again fear losing you, I will never fear anything because I know that I have you.

I love you beyond measure,

Damien

February 28, 1997

My dearest love,

Damien, I can’t spend another summer here—I have to get down to New Orleans. I got my last huge phone bill today. We can be strong, you and I—when we need to. There will be plenty of time for overindulgence. I have been quite proud of us. It makes me feel really good—like we are accomplishing something. OK if we talk once a day through the week and 4 times on Sat and Sunday—that’s only $200.00—we can do that—yes—yes—yes!

And maybe I can come visit you more.

I love you,

Lorri

March 3, 1997

My dearest love,

No, my love, you truly don’t belong here. But neither do I. Just hang on for a little longer, and I promise you that we’ll go to where we do belong. We’ll go to nowhere. And you’ll never have to worry about this place again. Until then, just remember that I love you.

Yours for eternity,

D.

March 27, 1997

My dearest:

I am beginning to think I will suffer almost as horribly as you will in your quest to give up cigarettes.

You are breaking my heart—when you called tonight—crying and saying that no matter what you can never do enough. Do you know how it makes me feel? I can’t even begin to explain it to you. It’s like everything is in vain. I know how you feel now when I ask questions—and you said, “Either you believe I belong to you or you don’t and that’s it.” Well, either you believe that I can’t live without you, and you are the meaning for me to be alive, and I love you more every day—and therefore all you need to do is let everything be—just let it happen. How many times have you told me that?

Sometimes I think we are the same person—sometimes I know exactly how you feel—I’ve felt those exact things. How do you survive it? I wonder how much of it is a strain on you from withdrawal? It kills me that you have to go through this—it does. It kills me if it takes you away from me—even for a minute.

You must always remember, Damien—my life is over without you. I will cease living. Now, I can’t stop crying. Can we stop hurting each other? Can’t we just hold each other so close in our hearts and just find the strength in that? That’s what I have always done.

I keep going over in my head what have I done to make him feel this way?

Was it talking about Domini? Was it being upset about the
football player comment? Or maybe you want to pull away—because I can’t. I have always told you if anything ever happened to us it would be because you leave me.

Please stop. Please stop doubting—it really does cause me so much pain.

You couldn’t know how much I acknowledge what you do for me.

It is I who could never, ever do enough for you.

To be quite honest—I feel I don’t even fit into hardly any of your life . . .

All this stuff has been going on—everyone else knows about it. That guy from Baton Rouge going to see Domini. You arranging with the little people to talk to her so that you might see Seth . . .

A whole world has been happening that I know nothing about. Everyone around you—all these things they are doing for you and they’re all connected to you—and I’m here. I’m nothing and now you say you feel me pulling away. When you doubt me it makes me feel even more invisible.

I am so sad. How could you doubt me?

How could you?

After everything we’ve been through—after everything that has happened.

Maybe you want me to go away.

Maybe you want your life back.

Maybe you want the simplicity of Domini—maybe you just don’t want to tell me.

You can’t just call me up and do that to me—you can’t. Because all I can think now is—he doubts me, he has lost faith, he has lost love.

Hence, I am forever lost.

How can you doubt us? How can you doubt this one thing we have been given in this life . . . this one hope?

I must stop.

No matter what you think—I love you and you will always own my soul.

Lorri

April 1, 1997

My Dearest Love,

No, I didn’t think you were crazy, but now I know that you are. What is all this garbage about me doubting you or doubting us? Where the hell did that come from? Lorri, I never doubted you, I never doubted us. You started jumping to conclusions that I never even saw coming. How could you even think such a thing? How could you let that idea even enter your mind?

And all the talk about me pulling away from you, or wanting a “simple” life??!!! What the fuck?! Lorri, how could I ever even think of pulling away from you? You are my life, you are everything I live for, and everything I’ve ever been through was bringing me to you, there is nothing outside of you, so how could I pull away? I don’t understand it. And how could life without you be simple? Before you came, my life was agony, it was a living hell, because I didn’t have you—so how can you call that simple?

I was trying to explain that no words could ever express how much I love you, and that no action I could ever perform could demonstrate how much you mean to me—and you think I’m trying to pull away from you?! I was crying because there was no way for me to show you what you do to me, how you make me feel, how overcome I was by what I feel for you, and you think I want to get away from you.