You can look at someone and never actually know what they’re going through. The same could be said of time. We look at it without fully comprehending it. With both people and time, we never really know what we have until we don't have it anymore. It feels like a moment or a year can pass and you can’t fully understand where the time went and how it was spent.

For the past two years, I've been holding in emotions about time spent that prevent me from living every day. At first, I was angry I put so much faith in a situation and it didn’t go the way I expected. People tell me that this is the life he chose and it will all work out. But, I am tired of excuses and empty promises.

I am a sister who has a brother that is incarcerated at this very moment for a crime he didn’t commit. He was given two consecutive life sentences for something he didn’t do. Evidence points away from him, witness testimonies don’t mention him, and officers of the court were told personally by the accusers that he was meant to be framed. This is where you'll tell me that justice will be served but, what is justice really? Is justice supposedly believing in a system that aims to serve and protect? I cannot believe in this system that was flawed from the beginning. In two years I have lost faith in the system.

As time passes, you realize how important it is that you spend every waking moment enjoying it. It is easy for it to get cut short and your life flashes by and you realize you did nothing impactful, hurt a lot of people, missed out on a lot of opportunities, and didn’t live enough. I would guess this is how my brother feels. I feel for him. No, I don’t know what it’s like to be trapped in a cell for most of the day for a long period of time, nor do I know what it's like for every second of every moment of your day to be dictated by someone that has already labeled you a deviant. But, I do know what it’s like to pick up a phone preparing to call someone and realizing that they can’t be reached.

I've learned quite a few things with the passage of time. I've realize how little I have had with my brother and how much of his time will be spent in a cell. I realize that everything happens for a reason and even when you think time has been wasted, there is someone in the background making plans to make it up. But right at this moment, I am calm. I embrace the 15 minutes calls I get from him and I realize how much time we have.

Yes I have an incarcerated sibling, but I keep the faith that it won't be for long.