This is a picture of Paul. This was taken probably less than a year before he was shot and went to prison.

Here’s a picture of Holden. Also taken around the same time as Paul’s, probably less than a year before they went to prison.

No one can promise they’ll never hurt you, because at one time or another they will. The real promise is if the time you spent together will be worth the pain in the end.

No man is worth your tears, And when you find the one who is, He will never make you cry.

Sunday 6/17/12. 5:20 am

When your living my life, trying to accomplish the things put in front of me, have 2 of the most important people in your life counting on you to try and help save theirs, don’t tell me to, “Take Things ONE DAY AT A TIME.” You can’t tell me everything’s going to be okay tomorrow. You don’t live the life they are having to live. Im not talking about 2 young men that went out and killed or raped anyone or molested a poor innocent child. Im not talking about 2 men that were out selling drugs or mugging people or robbing banks and stores. Im talking about 2 young boys who made a mistake and made the wrong person angry. And now they are being made to be around all these people we, as mothers and fathers do all we can to protect our children from. Constantly looking over their shoulder, hoping, praying to God they don’t walk past the wrong person and get “shanked”, or be too scared to even come out of their cell for a shower because it may very well be the last time. They were put there to pay for their so called “crimes” yet are also scared for their lives because a person wanted to make an example of them and put them in the worst place imaginable where they are now trying to survive and pray every night they will make it through the next day because now, in this place that is suppose to “teach” them, they live in constant fear because they are given choices to do horrid things to others by the ones who “run” things or else it would be done to them! Instead of “joining ” with these others, this is, along with everything else to pay their “Debt to Society” another price they are having to pay. They are in a place that’s like its own world. To those there, it is another world with its own rules. Unimaginable rules to us on the “outside” to even think to live by, and with most in that world there are no rules . Not only by those who are suppose to and are paid to “look out” for those in fear of their lives because they just want to do their time and come home, but also by others that are living their lives in that “world”. Yes, MANY belong there and should never see the light of day again, some belong there for a certain amount of time to make up for their crimes, and others don’t belong there and should have been sent somewhere that they could get the help they needed. No one could possibly understand how bad it is and the awful things they see and go through on a daily basis. Im talking of the ones who should have never been sent to a maximum security prison in the 1st place. I’m not speaking of those who belong there, who should never have any kind of freedom again. Im speaking of 2 young men, teenage boys, who received 80 and 50 years and are now considered by the Texas Prison System as “Life Timers”, the ones who will spend over half their life in prison, if they make it that long around those they are forced to be with, they wont even come up for parole before half their life is over. I will never get to watch them come home and hug me or bring their children to see me, never another Christmas or Thanksgiving,…. because i will more than likely have passed away by then. Honestly im sure way before then with my health problems. What the hell happened to the rehabilitation system ? What happened to the attorneys who actually cared about justice? Im lost. I cant leave my sons there. Everywhere i go for help i hit a brickwall. Things were a little easier when i had a car that i coukd go and talk face to face with people. I cant even afford my bills. How am i suppose to get a car? I cant even see them anymore. Sometimes i dont think i can make it. Keep doing these things. Begging for help for my sons only to be treated like a piece of trash. The problems they go through, you cant just call the warden or whoever. They only take it out on them more. Going in their cells, tearing every “little” bit they have up. Dumping things all over the floor. Its those, the ones that shouldn’t be there, that should have atleast got the chance to go somewhere they could get the help they needed, those are the ones that Know just like I do, Tomorrow May Be Too Late!!!!!!!
I’m going to write more later in hopes to help stir up some new idea. I’ve felt like I’ve said so much, but I’ve said nothing about how it was all just a big circus…..they even got the sentencing wrong on Paul’s case and actually added 10 more years. Evidence disappearing out of the evidence room. Holden talking to me on the phone in the yard and seeing his brother staggering out the door saying he’d been shot. Holden dropped the phone and ran over to help his brother. For dropping the phone in the yard he had a robbery charge added…..for going to help his brother. While the old man, who on the stand said how bad he was hurt, told me he was running through his house trying to get to his shotgun to go back, and in his own words, “If I could of got to my shot gun fast enough you’d be planning 2 funerals right now. My heart hurts so bad. I know how much pain my sons have to be in. They don’t deserve the punishment they received and all the lies told about them. And this man was no “Hero”. Anyone who will say, he doesn’t care if its a small child or a pregnant women, if they come on his side of the road he’ll shoot them and it will never bother him. And all this I say, I have proof of. I would do anything to be able to take my sons places so they could come home.
For those of you, if any, that read what I write, I want to say thank you. I really have no one to talk to about what’s going on inside, and inside my heart, and there are times I think I just can’t take it anymore. I’m the only person my boys have and i can’t do anything. In the beginning I thought, surly after someone hears the whole story, or an attorney that’s looking for a case to help her or him get known will surly help. I mean, in this town and with these 2 judges, I found out 2 things real quick, the ones I did talk to, were too scared to go up against these 2 judges and didn’t care about justice, and that life has got so hard, and people so self centered and uncaring they just didn’t care. My grandma, I loved her so, always told me to never give up on people. She would tell me there’s alot of bad people out there, but there still are some left with pure hearts that would make up triple for all the bad ones in the world. Granny, I so wish you were here. I miss you so. There are so many times I don’t think I would have been strong enough to get through a lot of what life has given the family without remembering all you told and taught me.

Saturday 6/16/12

Everything in life changes so fast. There’s never any security about anything. One day, I have my boys at home, my daughter is at home. I think about it all now….and how dumb I was about life, reality, everything, and believe me, I still am about so many things. Everyday is a new life lesson learned for me. Never an easy one. Always a hard as hell lesson…..the people in my life I thought would always be here for me, family I thought would always stick by me through the good and bad. People I thought I could trust with my life I can’t even trust in my own house long enough to go to the bathroom, promises made and promises broken. People take so much for granted. I have taken alot for granted. I never showed the people most important to me how special they were and are. Maybe if i would have done something different, somewhere, at some point in my life my sons wouldn’t be doing 80 and 50 year sentences in maximum security prison. They wouldn’t be thinking I’m breaking the promise I made to both of them that if it took the last breath I had, I would bring them back home. Its going on 5 years now, their 23 and 24 now, and i haven’t accomplished a damn thing. Its just getting harder with everyday that passes to be able to do anything! I get so angry and mad at myself and…..other people. Things just get worse everyday. I thought by now I would have atleast been able to get them an appeal attorney. That’s another one of my “dumb” ideas about life because honestly I thought for sure I would have them HOME by now! They were so screwed through the whole thing but once again I trusted the wrong people. Your appointed an attorney and you “think” they will do whatever they can to help you. Another “dumb” one for me. These 2 men had my son’s lives in their hands and didn’t give a damn about doing the right thing. As usual I didn’t find out just how bad they didn’t give a damn until almost a year later….How the hell can a man, even though, yes he’s a senior citizen, let my sons who he knew both of them, in his house so they could call me about coming home, get away with shooting my son Paul while my son Holden is outside on the phone trying to call me and get away with it?!? Saying Paul kicked the door in? But yet he sat there and had a conversation with Paul about helping him get a job and how to fix his truck. The old man, after all this, when he stopped by the house and saw Paul’s truck said, “There’s his truck that’s not running, right?” In this town its all about who you are and who you know. Everything is political. All the attorney’s stick with the judges. The police with the attorney’s or whoever can benefit them at the time. There’s 4 judges. I for felony crimes, 1 for small drug charges, misdemeanors, whatever, 1 who sets bail for people to get out of jail, and the other judge does the marriages. Its so bad over the things the attorney’s left out of what really happened and what they said they were doing to help Paul and Holden and then I find out they lied about everything! They should have never even been in court here and i asked both attorneys if they filed to move things to another county and they both flat out lied to me and said they did. They could never have a fair trial here when this man that shot my son is being called a “Hero” on every news channel from local to CNN, in every newspaper, and this town is suppose to be more less a retirement community. The judge set their bonds at $50,000 each because he knew they had no one but me to help them. Right! A single mother with 3 kids, never a dime of child support and their dad over 20,000 behind and no matter how hard I fought with the state, even giving them his address, phone number, sending them his business add out of the phone book, still not shit, I get $674 dollars a month to pay everything, the judge knew I wouldn’t be able to get them out. Even when I tell both attorney’s, “We’ve got to move this out of this town!” And i tell them, they have a grudge against my sons. The police would see my oldest son at night walking down the road and pull over giving him hell! He’d come home with marks where they had tazored him for no reason other than the fact they couldn’t get at Holden yet because he was 17 and the judge was pissed because his daughter slept with him. Or they’d see Holden riding his bike and pull him off and slam his head into the cop care trying to blame him for some made up BS that supposedly happened. But it wasnt like I could call the police and file complaints. And this isn’t even the beginning. They would pull my disabled daughter out of class at school and threaten her about her brothers. The principal wouldn’t even call me and tell me. I’d find out when she’d get home on the bus crying.
Well, I have a headache so I’m stopping for now. I’m writing about my life and my kids life, hoping to some how help me mentally. Everyday things are just getting worse and I’m hoping this will in some way help me. And also help me be able to think more where I can go from here to bring my babies home. I never knew how cruel life was until this happened to my boys and to talk to so many people and attorney’s and how easy it is for people to just not care. It hurts!