Director's notes for Video Letters From Prison

People have asked me about my motivation in doing Video Letters from Prison. Most folks believe it was because of my interest in prisoners and their families or that I was trying to save the Indians. But the truth is really much more personal. I was adopted at the age of 3 months. I didn’t have any connection with my parents—my birth/biological/real parents—at all. (These distinctions make me a bit crazy.) In fact I believe we only get one set of parents – our mom and dad. Everything else is either a blessing or a curse. In my case I was raised and loved by two wonderful people that I called mom and dad, and who gave me some amazing opportunities to grow and become the person I am today. For this I will be forever grateful.

But that can never change the fact that I wanted to know who my “parents” were. I still want to know what they were like . . . and did they ever think about me? This longing is probably not that unusual. Almost every adopted person I’ve ever know has had the same thoughts and feelings. My first wife and I adopted 3 great kids, and my oldest daughter was given up for adoption without my knowledge, so the reality of my life has been surrounded and infused with the questions. How is that we can hold such strong feelings for folks that we have never met? Why does that longing never go away? And what is it that we are searching for when we are searching for our mom or dad or both? It was many years before I found out that my mom had had me, and then just walked away, leaving me in a hospital until she came back to sign the adoption papers.

My dad probably never knew I was born. He was just having a good time with an old girl friend, not thinking about having a baby, and almost surely not wanting to have a baby since he was married with 2 girls at the time. So it wasn’t that these people were somehow grief stricken and longing for me. But the reality is that they were connected to me—even if they didn’t want to be, and I was connected to them—even if I didn’t know it. After I found out the circumstances of my birth, it was many more years until I began to understand what was happening in my soul, and even more, in the soul of my family. Through the family work that my wife was doing and I was involved in, I began to understand that it wasn’t just me who longed for my parents.

The same was true for anyone who had been separated from a parent for any reason: death, divorce, incarceration. I could see that children want their parents no matter what. I even experienced it myself when I was able to participate in a Family Constellation Workshop. I stood in front of a person standing in for my father. For that moment, he “was” my father and I could see in his eyes that he thought I was OK – in fact more than OK – that I was really worth something. This image is still with me 11 years later. After that, I saw how it could change your life if you could be reconnected to your missing parent—how you would gain strength, and be able to have a strong life.

That is why I wanted to do this film. I wanted others to see that no matter what – whether their mom or dad was dead, or missing, or in jail, or just a lousy parent – that we still needed them – we still need the source of strength that comes from them, and their parents and their parent’s parents. That the source of our life is through our lineage, and without them, we wouldn’t even be here. In a way, it’s almost a miracle that we are here at all. It’s so easy for any number of things to happen that could have prevented us from even being on the earth. So when we are here, it is good to have as much strength as we can to negotiate this life. And that’s the story of why I wanted to make Video Letters from Prison.

I wanted anybody who didn’t know their dad to get to know them. It seemed to me that, for these 3 girls, the only way they were going to get connected was through this process. There just didn’t seem to be any other option. I also knew that no matter how much they professed to not like their dad or even care about him, that it simply wasn’t true. They wanted their dad more than they knew, and if I could get these letters to him and talk to him about what was really going on with them, maybe something good could happen. And sure enough, not only did they really want him, but it turns out that he really wanted them, too. But, as it happens so many times in our culture, he didn’t have any tools or resources to help him to connect with them in a way that didn’t continue to hurt them.

I sincerely hope that by showing this film, we can all see the connections that are there, and began a way to help families heal.

Milt Lee - Spring 2010