Being a Dad Behind Bars
“Why didn’t you come back?”
It was the first question she asked after not seeing her father for 13 years.
She didn’t ask why he murdered her mother and 1-year-old brother in 2005. Instead, she wanted to know about an earlier incident: when Damian seemingly left for work but instead drove nearly 1,300 miles from his family’s home in Michigan to his home state of Colorado. By himself. He left his wife and three children behind. They would later join him in Colorado but not without distrust and emotional scars.
Today, Damian desperately wants to be a father to his daughter and son.
“As much as I can be in here,” he said.
He knows that’s a tall order. It might even be impossible.
“I can never expect either one of them to ever forgive me,” Damian explained. “I’ll never even ask for that. But I would love to be able to give them my advice on stuff and them value the advice I give them. I’d love to be their friend, to a point.”
Seeing his daughter that day in October 2018 was difficult, to say the least.
Damian described it as “probably the hardest thing either one of us had to do.”
“She took my breath away the first time I seen her,” he recounted.
During the hours they spent together, not much talking happened. And his daughter maintained a death grip on her water bottle, not taking one sip.
Damian has only spoken to his two surviving children a handful of times in the 13 years he’s been incarcerated. But each time, he said, he tries to convey love to them.
His daughter, for one, is skeptical.
“She even asked me once how can I love her.”
About the Author
Andréa Maria Cecil is a career editor and writer whose experience includes six years as Assistant Managing Editor and Head Writer at CrossFit Inc. headquarters. She spent the first 12 years of her professional life as a journalist — starting with The Associated Press in Detroit and Baltimore — before transitioning to content marketing with an emphasis on authentic storytelling. She is the editor of “Speal: A David and Goliath Story” by Chris Spealler that sold 10,000 copies worldwide.
