• Welcome
    • Purpose
    • Statement of Faith
    • Prayer Request
  • My Apology
  • TESTIMONY
    • English
    • Chinese Translation
    • Dutch Translation
    • French Translation
    • German Translation
    • Hebrew Translation
    • Italian Translation
    • Portuguese Translation
    • Russian Translation
    • Spanish Translation
    • Turkish Translation
  • Are You Ready?
    • READY OR NOT...
    • 22 Messianic Prophecies Fulfilled From the Tanakh
    • Prophecies Fulfilled by Jesus
    • The Rapture
  • Interviews
    • My Life Story Video - "In His Own Words"
    • Video Interviews
    • Written Interviews
    • Son of Hope Gospel Tracts
  • Journal
    • 2023 >
      • January 2023
      • February 2023
      • March 2023
      • April 2023
      • May 2023
      • June 2023
      • July 2023
      • August 2023
      • *September 2023
    • 2022 >
      • January 2022
      • February 2022
      • March 2022
      • April 2022
      • May 2022
      • June 2022
      • July 2022
      • August 2022
      • September 2022
      • October 2022
      • November 2022
      • December 2022
    • 2021 >
      • January 2021
      • February 2021
      • March 2021
      • April 2021
      • May 2021
      • June 2021
      • July 2021
      • August 2021
      • September 2021
      • October 2021
      • November 2021
      • December 2021
    • 2020
    • 2019
    • 2018
    • 2017-2005
    • 2004-2003
  • Updates
  • Where is David Berkowitz Now?
  • David Berkowitz's Life in Prison
  • Parole Hearing Transcript 2016
  • For Parents, Teens, and Students
    • General Advice for Parents
    • Advice For Troubled Teens
    • Stopping Teen Violence
    • School Projects
    • Jailhouse Interview
    • A Letter to David from Youth Minister Dan Bailey
    • Suicide is Everyone's Business
    • What is Prison All About?
  • For Satanists
    • A Letter to a Satanist
    • Satan's Bible
    • Famous Satanists' Last Words - Quotes
    • Carl Sartor's Story
    • A Satanist Has a Vision
    • Co-founder of Satanic Church...
    • Jailhouse Interview
  • A Letter to a Soldier
  • Ministry Tools
  • Insights and Miscellaneous
    • A Letter to North Shore Baptist Church
    • Jesus Christ, the True Treasure and Pearl of Great Price!
    • He Knows Your Name
  • Inspirational Testimonies
  • Friends
  • Contact
  • Welcome
    • Purpose
    • Statement of Faith
    • Prayer Request
  • My Apology
  • TESTIMONY
    • English
    • Chinese Translation
    • Dutch Translation
    • French Translation
    • German Translation
    • Hebrew Translation
    • Italian Translation
    • Portuguese Translation
    • Russian Translation
    • Spanish Translation
    • Turkish Translation
  • Are You Ready?
    • READY OR NOT...
    • 22 Messianic Prophecies Fulfilled From the Tanakh
    • Prophecies Fulfilled by Jesus
    • The Rapture
  • Interviews
    • My Life Story Video - "In His Own Words"
    • Video Interviews
    • Written Interviews
    • Son of Hope Gospel Tracts
  • Journal
    • 2023 >
      • January 2023
      • February 2023
      • March 2023
      • April 2023
      • May 2023
      • June 2023
      • July 2023
      • August 2023
      • *September 2023
    • 2022 >
      • January 2022
      • February 2022
      • March 2022
      • April 2022
      • May 2022
      • June 2022
      • July 2022
      • August 2022
      • September 2022
      • October 2022
      • November 2022
      • December 2022
    • 2021 >
      • January 2021
      • February 2021
      • March 2021
      • April 2021
      • May 2021
      • June 2021
      • July 2021
      • August 2021
      • September 2021
      • October 2021
      • November 2021
      • December 2021
    • 2020
    • 2019
    • 2018
    • 2017-2005
    • 2004-2003
  • Updates
  • Where is David Berkowitz Now?
  • David Berkowitz's Life in Prison
  • Parole Hearing Transcript 2016
  • For Parents, Teens, and Students
    • General Advice for Parents
    • Advice For Troubled Teens
    • Stopping Teen Violence
    • School Projects
    • Jailhouse Interview
    • A Letter to David from Youth Minister Dan Bailey
    • Suicide is Everyone's Business
    • What is Prison All About?
  • For Satanists
    • A Letter to a Satanist
    • Satan's Bible
    • Famous Satanists' Last Words - Quotes
    • Carl Sartor's Story
    • A Satanist Has a Vision
    • Co-founder of Satanic Church...
    • Jailhouse Interview
  • A Letter to a Soldier
  • Ministry Tools
  • Insights and Miscellaneous
    • A Letter to North Shore Baptist Church
    • Jesus Christ, the True Treasure and Pearl of Great Price!
    • He Knows Your Name
  • Inspirational Testimonies
  • Friends
  • Contact
AriseandShine.org

January 2005

Growing Old

1/26/2005

 
There is a frightening and unsettling aspect to prison life...
Which has nothing to do with having to live among potentially violent men, or getting beat up, raped, slashed with a razor, or stabbed in the eye with a spike.  It is growing old.
 
While the aging process affects everyone, growing old in prison is an exceptional hardship. Men seldom talk about it. But for those like myself who are doing long sentences, and who've already been incarcerated for many years, there's the dread of the world going on without you.
 
For many of us, we're stuck having to live in the past. In a way, the world seems to have stopped for me.  
I am computer illiterate, and I have no opportunities to learn how to use one. I've never operated a CD player or used a cell phone. When I was on the outside, there wasn't even cable TV stations or VCRs.  Let alone DVDs.  It's almost as if I am living in a time warp. The world has become much more technologically advanced than when I knew it.  In a sense, I feel as if I am still living in the 1970s.
 
As time goes on, the people who were once in a prisoner's life often drift away.  Some do stay, however.  But many do not.  Family members die off.  Others realize they could get along fine without you.  Visits become less frequent.  A crushing loneliness can settle in when you begin to realize that you're at the mercy of your keepers.
 
In such a stark situation, some men search for God.  Others stew in anger, or they drown themselves in a sea of regret.  Imprisonment plays heavily on a man's mind.
 
In the more than twenty-seven years I have been behind prison walls, I know of men who haven't received a visit in five, ten, fifteen, twenty or more years.  Some don't even get letters.  And if not for the fact that their names and identification numbers appear on the Department of Correction's public access website, they would exist in almost total obscurity.
 
This is scary.  It's like being among the living as well as the dead.  You're alive within the little world of the prison system, but dead in the minds of the masses. Your space is a small cell, or a bunk and footlocker.  Your future, if you have to spend the remainder of your life behind bars, is an eventual trip to the local potter's field.
 
And even the prison's cemetery is hidden on a desolate hill on State owned land where no one from the general public can go.
 
Day after day, it goes through your mind that the world has already forgotten you. You wonder if someone will claim your body when you die.  You wonder if anyone even cares.

​D.B.

Comments are closed.
    Picture

    Author

    David Berkowitz
    Copyright © AriseandShine.org

    RSS Feed