Tawana’s son, Quintel Augustine, has been on death row since 2002. She has boxes full of the letters and cards he’s sent her over the last sixteen years. Mother’s Day cards, letters after his grandmother passed, birthday cards, notes to pass on to his nieces and nephews. Letters of loss and longing and hope. They write to keep each other going forward, putting one foot in front of the other, while living under the threat of death.
You are in here, she tells him often, but you are not a part of this. This is not you. You just have to learn how to adapt until it’s time for you to be set free.
Nobody has ever seen me cry or break, but my husband, she said. Because I’m trying to hold up for everybody else… I’m the strong person trying to holding up, but when I get by myself I break. You know, I’m up in the middle of the night ’cause I’m crying, I’m missing him. I want to talk to him. I want to hold him. I want to touch him.
So, those are the things we go through with our loved ones being on death row.
It’s heartbreaking. He missed out on a lot of family things. Sometimes we don’t want to do nothing because he wasn’t here. It was times that we had family functions and I said, This is Quintel’s seat. Nobody sit there. When I go to church, I take his picture and I say This seat is taken. He’s sitting right here by me.
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