Unseen Bunkie
(Dedicated to Savanna)
By Michael Overstreet
Not every inmate will share a cell with this unseen bunkie. Its name is Death and it is just as real as any other inmate that has stared through those hard iron bars. The foreboding presence will never ask you for a cup of coffee or something to eat. Nor will it hold any conversations with you or have your back in times of trouble. However, it will rob you silently over time of things like your hopes and happiness. It will fill your mind with doubts, fears, sorrows, and even eventually with hate. This entity will overshadow your days and nights like a blanket of dread and creep into every relationship you have going forward! This bunkie will never have an outdate or get transferred while you sit together in that lonely cell. Looking around, you realize from the faces of those living around you, they too have their own unseen bunkies.
I have spent so long with this roommate, I have learned to try to ignore, deny, and even hate this unwelcomed being that has been with me this entire time. Until I finally accepted, and even began to welcome this ever-present creature, I have been living with. Ultimately, thinking I should have been viewing Death as a welcomed guest after so many years of dark, lonely and miserable days that now seem endless.
It was then that I can only describe as an “Angel of Hope”, came into my life like a cool breeze, refreshing and pure of heart. She began to replace the darkness with light and where I once only had dread and dismay, she filled me with dreams and desires. She swept through my soul like an x ray of love, powered by redemption and faith. Where there was doubt and hatred, I could now see promise and good.
And while Death will always be my unseen bunkie, it no longer has the power it once had over me because of this “Angel of Hope”. Death will one day claim its reward, but it can no longer rob me of my hope and love.
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