Damien Echols has begun writing letters that will be posted regularly on www.westmemphis3.org. They will serve as a way for him to communicate with his supporters. He is excited to have an outlet where he can share his life and reach out to all who have been supporting him and writing him letters over these past sixteen years.
His letters involve daily musings, informative and distressing anecdotes of prison conditions, as well as personal stories and responses to supporters’ questions and concerns.
Dear Friends,
I have an idea that you may be interested in. There’s simply no way that I can correspond with everyone, it’s not physically possible. It takes me an average of four hours to write a single letter, if it’s to contain anything of meaning or value. If I did nothing but dedicate every waking moment to writing letters I’d still only be able to complete three a day. I don’t want people to think their letters to me are wasted time, or that I don’t appreciate them, because that is not the case. I love receiving your letters. I look forward to them every single day. So, my idea is this – what if I were to respond this way? You could ask questions, propose topics, or tell me stories, and I could respond. We could make it an on-going project.
What I’d like to do is make it meaningful, an open dialogue that goes beyond the case. Most people see me as this case, and see this case as me. I’m not this case. Nor am I the “WM3.” To be perfectly honest, those things play very little role in my life. This project would be about us — about you and me and what makes us who we are.
One of the things I’d really like to hear about is your life’s purpose. Do you know what your life’s purpose is, or are you still looking for it? I’ve been thinking about this lately because I have several friends who seem to constantly be falling into states of despair and depression because they have no idea what they want to do with themselves. That’s a very alien concept for me, because I think I’ve always had some sort of internal compass that pointed out the way for me. I want to know your passion, your reason for being. I want to know what causes you to spring out of bed in the morning, happy to be alive. I want to hear about what brings you close to God.
Okay, that’s it for now. Talk to you soon.
Yours,
D
Damien’s letters are both uplifting and disturbing. In his letter posted on February 9, 2010, he writes of the psychologically and emotionally torturous life on death row. “The outside world is always curious about what it’s like when someone is executed. There’s no way to describe it, but it’s something I’ll never forget even if I live a thousand years. What will haunt me the most is the way the guards and administration react: They get excited. They get off on it. When they know they’re going to kill someone they act like kids on Christmas Eve. And if the execution is called off for some reason, they are furious – as if their favorite toy has been taken away. If they don’t get to kill the guy who was scheduled for execution, they come in and take it out on everyone else. It’s almost as if they expect you to give up and just let them kill you — and are outraged when this doesn’t happen.”
Damien also expresses his spiritual side which he credits as the force which keeps him alive. “I experience the Divine in my life on a daily basis. For me, effort is far more important than belief, and the effort I put forth is to spend every single moment of my life in the presence of the Divine. Lately I’ve been seeing more and more how blessed I really am.”
Damien’s letters touch on a diversity of topics, including health care in prison, prison labor, spirituality, holidays within the prison system, food, guard abuses, and how he survives as an innocent man on Arkansas’s death row.
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