When Survival Becomes a Silent Prayer

Freedom isn’t the end of suffering; it’s the beginning of learning how to live again. I know, because I once walked that road.

Guest article by Michael Cohen. Follow him on Substack for more by clicking here.

Editorial credit: a katz / Shutterstock.com

I remember that day—July 24, 2020—like it was tattooed on my soul. The heat, the smell of the city air, the feel of sunlight that didn’t come through a barred window. It was the day I came home after thirteen months of federal incarceration and fifty-one days of solitary confinement. That number doesn’t sound like much until you live it. Fifty-one days of silence so thick it starts to sound like screaming. Fifty-one days of watching your mind turn on itself, like a movie you can’t stop replaying. And then, suddenly, the door opens, and you’re set free. Or at least, you’re supposed to be.

I remember walking out and seeing my wife, my daughter, my son, my family, my friends. There were tears everywhere—most of them mine. The kind that don’t fall quietly but erupt from a place so deep you didn’t even know it existed. It was joy, yes. But it was also pain. Relief tangled with guilt. Love mixed with disbelief. After thirteen months of being stripped of everything—dignity, privacy, purpose—being hugged again felt almost foreign. Like I’d forgotten how to be touched. How to exist among people who weren’t wearing badges or holding keys.

I’ve been thinking about that moment again today, watching the faces of the hostages as they returned home—frail, haunted, yet somehow still whole. I watched their families run toward them, arms wide open, tears streaming down their faces. And I cried too. Cried because I know the look in those eyes—the mixture of disbelief and gratitude, the quiet terror that freedom might not feel like freedom anymore.

But what they endured… there are no words. The pain, the hunger, the constant uncertainty. The kind of fear that seeps into your bones and never really leaves. What I lived through—as horrifying as it was—pales in comparison. My suffering was government-sanctioned cruelty in a country that still pretends to be civilized. Theirs was barbarity in its purest form. And yet, the human reaction is the same: the body shakes, the tears come, and you don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or collapse.

When I arrived home that day, I remember standing in my living room, staring at the walls. They looked too bright, too clean. My family was talking—their voices soft, careful, like they were afraid I might break. And maybe I did. I didn’t know how to sit on a couch anymore. I didn’t know how to sleep without the sound of clanging keys and flashlights being shined in my face. I’d been dehumanized, stripped down to a number and a cubicle. I thought I’d feel free, but I didn’t. I felt exposed. I felt haunted.

And yet, watching those hostages today—frail, trembling, blinking at the sunlight—I realized something. Survival doesn’t always look strong. Sometimes it looks like weakness. Sometimes it looks like shaking hands and silent tears. But it’s survival all the same. It’s the body saying, I’m still here, even when the mind hasn’t quite caught up.

There’s something sacred about coming home after being caged. It’s not just relief; it’s resurrection. But it also carries guilt—survivor’s guilt. I remember thinking of the people still inside when I left. The other inmates who didn’t have families waiting for them. The ones whose sentences weren’t being reduced due to COVID under the CARES Act. I thought about how freedom felt undeserved, like I was abandoning them. Watching the hostages return today, I saw that same ache in their eyes. The joy of reunion shadowed by the memory of those who died in captivity. Freedom, it turns out, is never clean. It’s messy, complicated, and sometimes painful.

Five years later, I still wake up most nights feeling the walls closing in. I still hear the echo of the guards’ boots on concrete and walkie-talkies. Trauma has a way of living under your skin—quiet, patient, waiting for the right moment to remind you that it never really left. And yet, my suffering feels small compared to theirs. I had visits. I had letters. I was fed. I had hope. They had nothing but darkness.

What they endured humbles me. It silences the part of me that still complains about what I lost. Because what I lost was time. What they lost was almost everything—safety, dignity, faith in humanity. And yet, they came home. They walked off those planes, broken but breathing.

When I saw their faces—those fragile smiles, those trembling hands—it broke me all over again. It reminded me of the power of the human spirit, that desperate, stubborn will to live even when everything has been stripped away. I saw a part of myself in them, but I also saw something greater: the reflection of every person who’s ever been confined, silenced, or dehumanized and somehow still found the strength to stand.

Freedom isn’t a switch you flip back on. It’s a slow, painful process of learning how to feel again. How to trust again. How to live without fear. I remember that day in 2020 and the tears that came with it. And as I cried again today, watching strangers come home from hell, I realized the truth that binds us: no matter how deep the darkness, coming home is always an act of courage.

And that courage—that fragile, trembling, defiant courage—is what keeps the rest of us human.

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