My years spent at Attica were bittersweet...
I had good times, and bad ones. As I mentioned previously, it was a learning experience. I was a newcomer to prison, and I was naive. So, in the process of trying to adapt, I did some things well, and other things not so well.
The best moment was when my birth mother came to visit. Making the long three-hundred and fifty-mile journey by car with my cousin doing the driving, it was a fifteen-hour trip one way. They stayed overnight at a motel before arriving at the facility. Then came the long trek back to Brooklyn the following day.
I saw the sadness in her face. It was a look of hurt and pain that cannot be described. My birth mother, who is no longer alive, was a good woman. I miss her. Betty brought me into the world. She carried me in her womb for nine months while having to endure scorn and verbal abuse from my birth father, who made it very clear to her that he didn't want me.
One time, she would later reveal, my mom was so upset at Joe's insistence to give me away, that she struck him repeatedly with her fists. At the time it happened, my mom had once more been begging him to change his mind, but when he stubbornly refused, she lost it.
Even with me still inside her, she fought him, throwing punches in my behalf. "Joe, this is our son!" But her pleas fell on deaf ears. Thus, the arrangement was made before I was born to have Nathan and Pearl Berkowitz adopt me. They had been longing for a child, and now their dream was about to come true.
When I met Betty for the first time after more than twenty years of separation, we had a joyous reunion. When I was maybe four or five years old, Nathan and Pearl told me that I was adopted. My adoptive father, meaning well, also told me that my mother died while giving birth to me. Years later I would learn this was not true.
My Mom then told me the true story behind my being put up for adoption. I realized that my adoption was a good thing. The Berkowitz's gave me love and a safe home. I could not have asked for better parents. Betty simply did not have the means to care for me. Being born out of wedlock, and with a wife and children of his own to take care of, I was an unwanted burden.
My birth mother and I, contrary to media reports, bonded immediately. She has since passed away. And had I not gone down such a dark and destructive road later in life which brought me to prison, she and I would have remained close. In addition, my mother had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the crimes I'd been charged with.
Betty loved me so much that she came to see me behind Attica's stone-cold walls. That was the best day I had in the three years I was there.
D.B.
The best moment was when my birth mother came to visit. Making the long three-hundred and fifty-mile journey by car with my cousin doing the driving, it was a fifteen-hour trip one way. They stayed overnight at a motel before arriving at the facility. Then came the long trek back to Brooklyn the following day.
I saw the sadness in her face. It was a look of hurt and pain that cannot be described. My birth mother, who is no longer alive, was a good woman. I miss her. Betty brought me into the world. She carried me in her womb for nine months while having to endure scorn and verbal abuse from my birth father, who made it very clear to her that he didn't want me.
One time, she would later reveal, my mom was so upset at Joe's insistence to give me away, that she struck him repeatedly with her fists. At the time it happened, my mom had once more been begging him to change his mind, but when he stubbornly refused, she lost it.
Even with me still inside her, she fought him, throwing punches in my behalf. "Joe, this is our son!" But her pleas fell on deaf ears. Thus, the arrangement was made before I was born to have Nathan and Pearl Berkowitz adopt me. They had been longing for a child, and now their dream was about to come true.
When I met Betty for the first time after more than twenty years of separation, we had a joyous reunion. When I was maybe four or five years old, Nathan and Pearl told me that I was adopted. My adoptive father, meaning well, also told me that my mother died while giving birth to me. Years later I would learn this was not true.
My Mom then told me the true story behind my being put up for adoption. I realized that my adoption was a good thing. The Berkowitz's gave me love and a safe home. I could not have asked for better parents. Betty simply did not have the means to care for me. Being born out of wedlock, and with a wife and children of his own to take care of, I was an unwanted burden.
My birth mother and I, contrary to media reports, bonded immediately. She has since passed away. And had I not gone down such a dark and destructive road later in life which brought me to prison, she and I would have remained close. In addition, my mother had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the crimes I'd been charged with.
Betty loved me so much that she came to see me behind Attica's stone-cold walls. That was the best day I had in the three years I was there.
D.B.
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