Transcript
Notes From The Pen October 07, 2020 By Jacob Keiter On Jan. 4, 2018, 24-year-old Jacob Keiter, from East Hanover Township, was sentenced to five years in federal prison on drug trafficking charges. Keiter reached out to The Sun from the Federal Correctional Institute in Minersville, hoping to share his story with our readers. This week, Keiter talks about his one true love ... Addiction has run its course through my life for as long as I can remember. As a child, I indulged heavily in sugar and soda. As I grew older, street drugs had a grip on my life for a number of years. Although I remain sober today, and am very proud of my sobriety, I do still struggle with addiction. Today, I am addicted to the love my wife gives me. Prior to the point Julie (my now wife) and I were dating, we were very close friends. I constantly used to tease her by telling her, “one day I will marry you.” As our friendship grew, feelings inevitably developed to the point where I began to obsess over the idea of being with her. We slowly fell in love with one another, regardless of the circumstances that surrounded us. Throughout everything we’ve been through, she has never given up on me and has remained in my corner one hundred percent. The day I self-surrendered to the prison and had to say goodbye to her was one of the toughest days of my life. Being incarcerated, I expected a lot of change and knew I would be losing a lot during this period of time, but I honestly never worried about losing her. Our love is at a level I’ve never witnessed in any other couple. I’m very secure in our relationship. Sitting in prison, you have nothing but time to get trapped in your own head and develop racing thoughts. With Julie being my latest obsession, of course my thoughts revolved around her. These thoughts can quickly become damaging though as you start to overthink things, and from my current position, I really don’t have any control over anything. So, once again, my addiction begins to get the best of me. Communication is available, but limited from prison. We can write letters, e-mail, and use the telephone. Unfortunately, every one of these methods costs money and you don't have unlimited use. Each inmate is limited to just 300 minutes of phone use per month, for $0.21 per minute. Our e-mail service costs five cents per minute of access. This doesn’t sound like too much but these costs add up quickly. I stay in constant connection with Julie through every method available. It’s the highlight of my day each and every day and the only thing that temporarily takes me away from this current situation. We exchange letters and pictures regularly, and each time I call her, I greet her with a, “Hello, my beautiful wonderful wife,” to make sure she continues to feel loved and wanted. We've worked out times and schedules to be able to communicate with each other. But there’s one thing that tops anything else, and that’s a personal visit from her. My wife makes sure to visit me as often as she possibly can, rain or shine. A visit begins with a hug and kiss followed by up to six hours of enjoying one another's presence. We make sure we maximize our time together. We get to enjoy a nice, vending machine lunch together, as this is the closest thing we’ve had to a date in years. Other inmates have told me when they've seen us together there’s a certain glow that radiates off of us. The love and passion between us is real! The visit concludes with another brief hug and kiss. Although I always hate saying goodbye, I know in my heart she'll always be back. Due to the current global pandemic, communication has become even more limited. Phone calls and e-mails now have smaller limits than before and visitation has been canceled altogether. The last time I was able to hug and kiss my wife was Friday, March 13. Even when forced with these obstacles, our relationship cannot be hindered. I am forever grateful for my wife and the support she continues to show me. I am counting down the days to when I will return home to her and finally be able to take care of the way she has done for me. To read parts I through III of Notes From The Pen, go to news.thesunontheweb.com and search “Notes From The Pen.” This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. https://news.thesunontheweb.com/articles/notes-from-the-pen-4/ 10/8/2020
