Stories About My Brother
I have a second Substack publication dedicated to my brother’s stories. He’s serving a 19-year prison sentence in Central California.
He’s made mistakes, but who hasn’t?
I want to show that his mistakes don’t define him as a person. Humans are three-dimensional creatures, capable of change and transformation.
A big goal of this Substack is to motivate my brother from behind his prison walls to write about himself. To reflect. To open up about his choices in life and why he made them. I have yet to hear this from him, as he is very emotionally closed off. He was never taught how to convey his true feelings. He never cried as a baby or as an adult.
I’m confident he will start writing. It’s just a matter of time. I’ve given him prompts to think about, as I know it’s not easy for someone to suddenly start writing.
My hope is that he is encouraged by this Substack and from all of the interested subscribers like you who want to know more. It’s not just his story, it’s bigger than that. It’s the hardships, mistakes, and regrets we all go through in life that make us who we are. Once we recognize that, we can become better mothers, fathers, sisters, sons, and friends.
My brother’s backstory
Isaac is a decade younger than me and is more like my pseudo-son than brother. I remember so much of his life as a hyperactive kid with Tourette’s Syndrome. He’s lived quite an extraordinary life.
And by extraordinary, I don’t glorify it. I mean that he never experienced what “normal” kids do while growing up—walking down high school graduation in a cap and gown, going to college, getting a job and learning new skills, and being exposed to different people and ways of thinking.
What he does have though, are enough stories for several action-packed movies, a book, or at the very least, this Substack dedicated to recounting them.
Who am I?
I’m Claire, a writer and aspiring author working on my first book—a memoir. In writing it, I realized what an integral part my brother has played in my life, despite not seeing him very often in adulthood.
I could never keep up the life he led, the drug use, and his need to run from the law. Truthfully, I never really wanted to know. I raised him from the time he was born, so to see him go down that path made me feel helpless and angry.
For me, it’s slightly ironic that my brother is in prison. Long before he became inmate 9023, I had always been fascinated by the subculture of prison. I read books about inmates who faced life on death row, watched documentaries (I was obsessed with “Making a Murderer”) and who could forget the bone-chilling story of Adnan Syed on the most downloaded podcast ever, “Serial.” (Sidenote—Adnan is a free man now.)
Life behind bars
He’s been locked up for 4 years now. He’s up for parole in 2032.
He says he has no regrets, even though he sits in his cell day after day with a seemingly endless amount of time to think and reflect. He should have regrets. If not for himself, then at least feel remorse for what he put my family through.
I worry he’s not thinking or reflecting. I worry he will come out worse than when he went in. The U.S. prison system doesn’t rehabilitate, it punishes.
For inmates with long sentencings like my brother, I imagine the real world starts to feel like a myth.
I created this website to share his stories but to also engage you, the reader, and make this Substack a conversation.
I want my brother to start writing—to share his voice, tell his stories, and live his regrets. Feel free to share your questions with me. I can send them to him so he can respond.
So look out for stories each week or two. Thanks for checking this out, and feel free to share it with someone else who might be interested.