The Beginning

It was July of 2016 when I received my first letter from Siaosi. It was enthusiastic and written on bright yellow paper. I think he would be happy for me to share it with you:

Thursday 7-21-16. 6:20pm

Hello, Jenny. How are you doing? I’m doing good. I was informed by Pat yesterday that you would be my new pen-friend. Forgive me for writing this letter before I received your letter. It’s just that I’m all excited and giddy for meeting you, you know what I mean, Jenny? I’m just going to write whatever I feel like. I’m curious as to what your first letter is going to read. I can’t wait. Right at the moment I’m listening to Aerosmith singing, “I don’t wanna miss a thing.” I love this song. I put it on repeat and blast it out on the tier for all the inmates to hear.

Look forward to hearing from you,

Siaosi Vanisi

At the time, I didn’t feel it told me much, but looking back now, I see how much it showed me. There were times when Siaosi was less stable, and this would be clear in his writing, but, by-and-large, this was his voice. If you took the personal details out of it and asked me who had written it, I would immediately recognise him.

When I received his letter, I believe I already had my first letter in the post to him. I have no idea what was in it. After his death, I asked Ely State Prison if I may have the letters I’d written him, but they told me that all personal items had been returned to his family. I have yet to discover how I can contact them, let alone be brave enough to try.

What I do know is that I, too, was excited for this opportunity. I had been made aware of Human Writes by a friend, who was also writing to an inmate at the time, and I thought it was such a valuable cause and something I wanted to be a part of. I was intrigued as to who I would meet. The only request that I had made to Human Writes was that it would not be someone who had been convicted of anything to do with children. I was working in a primary school at the time, and I could see complications that could arise as a result. I didn’t want to hold back from sharing about my life; I wanted this to be a genuine relationship, and I felt that there would be other people better suited to writing to prisoners whose crimes had involved children. When they gave me his name, I looked him up to be sure, so I knew exactly what he had been sentenced for when I received his letter.

I didn’t have any particular goal other than to connect with the person I was paired with. I wanted to know them as person, and I wanted to allow them the same of me in return. That first letter, written neatly and carefully on brightly coloured paper, was our first introduction. We would still be writing to each other today were he alive, and throughout the time we wrote, I saw him learn and grow in ways that he may not have been able to without input from the outside world. Better yet, he also taught me a lot. If I had had an aim in the beginning, I achieved it: we formed a genuine connection that benefited us both.