Life Lesson

My friend DC learned last evening that his father passed away.  Death is never easy to grasp; in here it is even more difficult.  For fifty years DC’s father has regularly visited.  With his age and health deteriorating his visits to spend time with his incarcerated son became less frequent.  Recently, DC’s mom traveled alone or with DC’s wife for their regular monthly visits. 

When DC took me aside last night and told me the news, I found myself struck by the grace and dignity he possessed.  Later that night as I prayed, I stopped and wrote a few things that in the light of this beautiful, warm, January day surprised me.

But first, a little about DC’s dad.  I had the privilege of meeting him once, up at visitation; but in truth I knew him well through DC’s stories.  He was an infantryman in the United States Army and served in some of the bloodiest battles in Korea.  He served his country and fought and watched friends bleed and die all the while being repeatedly referred to as “boy” and “colored” and being denied basic civil rights living in the segregated south of the ‘40s, ‘50s and early ‘60s.  We, as a people, tend to gloss over our failures, our evils, our sins.  I’ve learned in this experience that too often we like to see things neatly, “us versus them” and the “us” is always right, always justified.  That, I believe, is why it’s so easy for “us” to justify our anger at a whole host of peoples overseas, why “we” so easily support this nation incarcerating two million.  “We” are honorable; “we” are decent.  “They” are terrorists, “they” are criminals.

The truth is, there is no “us” or “them”, there is only “we”.  We all fail, we all have the capacity to hurt and be hurtful.  We all can act a little more humanely.

So DC’s father and mother moved to the District married in ’46; drafted he was sent to Korea.  They raised a house full of children; buried two.  DC’s dad bought a liquor store on the edge of Georgetown.  Kept it his whole life.  Never robbed, never burned during the riots.  DC’s Pop was respected in the community and DC – he was feared.

Years passed.  There was the day in 1968 when his dad came to school and picked him up.  Driving home his dad lowered his voice and gently said “Paul’s coming home.  He was killed over there.  We have to be brave for mom.  She needs us.”  Paul was DC’s older brother.  DC idolized him.  He was drafted by the Phillies one week, the best pitcher they’d ever seen in D.C. they told the family.  Two weeks later the army drafted him and Paul ended up fighting and dying in Vietnam for a war that made no sense, fighting for “freedom” for a foreign people while his own family was denied equal rights in the nation’s capitol. 

Years later, DC asked his dad about the war, if he was angry about Paul dying for such a senseless cause.  “I don’t think nothin of it”, he said.  “I respect your brother cause he went, he fought, he did what he thought was right even knowing the risk.”  DC told me that story a few months after we met during a particularly tough time for me.  “You’re a stand up guy…even in here.  My Pops says that counts for something.”

DC’s dad.  He turned DC’s life around.  As I’ve noted in this blog, DC was one of the most feared, brutal inmates in the Virginia Prison system for years.  A week ago, I began writing a story – an essay really – built around DC.  I’ve been stuck for an ending.  See, my view of DC, the man I know today has largely developed as my faith has grown.  For obvious reasons, I call the story “Damascus”.  I’ve always been intrigued by Paul’s faith journey.  The Apostle Paul was ruthless in his pursuit of members of “the way”.  The blood of dozens was literally on his hands.  And then one day, on the road to Damascus, on the way to attack more Christians, he was struck down.  Why, I wondered, can church people, “good people”, accept that God could change Paul, but not someone like DC?  (You’ll have to wait for the story to come out to get my answer).

This afternoon I found my ending.  DC came by the cut while I was writing.  He just needed to talk about his dad.  So I listened as my friend spoke.  “My daughter was with Pops when he died.  He gripped her hand and called her close and said ‘tell you daddy to remember the goose’.  Then his hand went loose and he was gone.”

DC then told me what that meant.  Back in the early ‘80s, when DC was at Mecklenburg Corrections Center and in the middle of eighteen months of segregated living, i.e. “in the hole”, he was called to a surprise visit.  Visits in segregation are non-contact.  You talk through phones and Plexiglas.  “It was Pops.  He’d come down by himself to see me.”  For hours they talked.  Finally, his father with the phone close to his mouth asked DC why.  “Why do you keep doing this to yourself in prison when you got so much waitin on you out there?”  DC hemmed and hawed.  He had no answer.  “Figure it out son, before it’s too late.  You figure it out and we’ll get you out of here.  And you and me’ll share a bottle of Grey Goose and we’ll talk.”

Ten years later, DC had figured it out.  His dad was at another visit only this time the man sitting in front of Pops wasn’t the same angry, brutal man behind the Plexiglas.  Instead, his dad saw the DC I know, a man of peace, kindness and decency.

“It was about fear, Larry”, DC told me and I felt as though I was looking in the mirror.  Fear had driven me to my own self-destructive meeting with prison and divorce.  “I asked Pops why he came to see me that day in the ‘80s.  He told me a guy called him.  Said he’d just gotten out of prison and knew me.  And he told my Pops if I didn’t get reached soon either the state would kill me or another inmate would kill me, but I’d never make it out.  He just got in his car and drove down to see me.”

There are times in this experience when I’m not sure I can make it another day.  And then there are times, like these past twenty-four hours, when I thank God for this.  I don’t know why all this has happened, but I know I’m a better man for meeting guys like DC.  And I know life; death; pain and joy make so much more sense to me having been put in this place.

DC’s hurting right now but he’s also very much at peace.  He’ll have his time with his dad.  And I promised him, after we’re both out, we’ll go see his dad and have a glass of the goose.  May God bless DC’s Pops.  May God bless DC.  May God bless us all.