My Poor, Dumb Cousin

[Diane]

Question - You say you haven't really seen him in 16 years, how come so long?

[Wayne]

I don't know really. I guess I was a teenager at the time and that would have been right around the time when I was about to get my driver's license. I have this weird family thing where it's just difficult for me to keep in contact with them. Nothing actually happened to cause a rift.

[Youngblood]

He sounds dumb for sure. Thing is, we read about these sorts of things all the time, and you can be sure as much as we shake our heads at them, and call them stupid, not knowing who their families are, they too have families, and once were innocent children.

Aside from the possibility it may have been unintentional, the original act of blowing off a digit, his other actions speak of a violent and dangerous criminal. Sounds like he could use the break from society, and society from him.

Should you reach out to him? No idea...that is your call. No harm, no foul, right?

[Wayne]

I'm just trying to figure out if it'd be worth my time. I mean, he's going to be out someday and it would be great if my REHABILITATED cousin came home and not a new-and-improved criminal.

[Wayne]

Hopefully Allah or Jesus are hanging out in there and get to him.

[CFH]

He might really appreciate it if you visited him in jail. Whether or not the two of you see eye to eye or whatever, it can't hurt.

[Kev]

If you havn't seen him in 16 years I guess you really don't know him at all or whether he would even want you to go and visit him or not.

If you want to offer him some blood support and let him feel like he's not alone then my own thoughts would be to write to him in jail first.

Let him know you're thinking about him and would like to offer him some support if he would like that and tell him you'd like to visit him, or support him in any way.

Then it's up to him. He may be glad of the fact that you havn't turned your back on him and that you are offering to stick by him during his incarcaration.

He may not give two shits and just won't bother replying, or he may be embarrassed about his situation and appreciate you wanting to communicate with him but not feel up to face to face visits.

He's only 20 so plenty of time to turn his life around and we all make mistakes in life.

Are you in touch with his mother and father or other family?

Good luck with it, if you are a lot older than him it may benefit him to have a wiser head around him and someone to instill some positive values.

Write to him first though, it's non threatening that way and is less likely to make him feel awkward about having some cousin he doesn't even know turn up in jail to speak to him. He may not like that, so writing first and/or checking with his parents so that they ask him might be the most sensible approach.

Good luck