The Day the Music Would Die …

Backstory:  It’s the winter of 1977, just between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I’m home from my first semester at college. There’s a benefit concert over in the chapel at Vassar College which is less than five miles from my home. Ah, Vassar College. Recently (in ’77), made coeducational, most of the women dreamed of being the next Gloria Steinman or Betty Friedan. The guys who chose to attend Vassar in those early years were way too artsy and sexually ambiguous for college girls, even Vassar girls, so picking them up was as easy as shooting ducks in a barrel. All you had to do was mention Joan Baez or Judy Collins, be pro-ERA and abortion and you were in. We loved going to Vassar.
           
There’s a benefit for some cause and Don McLean and Harry Chapin were playing; each a solo, acoustic act; each with a few hits already. Chapin wrote and sang the soulful ballad of a father looking back on not being there for his son in “Cats in the Cradle,” and “Taxi.” But, it was Don McLean we were going to see. He had a beautiful ballad about Vincent Van Gough that I found myself humming as I ran on those fall college days:

                        “Starry Starry night

                        picture palate blues and greys
                        look out on a summer’s day
                        with eyes to dark to see …”

It was McLean’s other song, his ten to fifteen minute FM dirge about the death of Buddy Holly that we all wanted to hear and sing along to. We were all young and brash, too brash really. We were middle class kids whose fathers all worked for IBM. We were all in college and had the world waiting on us. We knew nothing of war, disease, or distress. We had all the answers. Problem was, we knew none of the questions. There we were listening to a guy not much older than us tell us about dreams dying:

“A long, long time ago

                         I can still remember how that music used to
                         make me smile.
                        And I knew if I had the chance
                        That I could make those people dance
                        And maybe they’d be happy for awhile
                       
                        But February made me shiver
                       With every paper I delivered
                       Bad news on the doorstep
                       I couldn’t take one more step
           
                       I can’t remember if I cried
                      When I read about his widowed bride
                      But something touched me deep inside
                     The day the music would die …”

And we sang “American Pie” and we thought we knew everything he was talking about. And you know what? We didn’t have a clue …

Fast forward to the present.  It’s Thanksgiving, my sixth one behind bars. I listen to a lot of old music. No offense to “artists” today, but music is all over-commercialized, over-dubbed, and recorded. You want music that matters; you turn to Dylan, the Dead, the Allman Brothers, and Bob Marley. Hell, I sit around now wearing out a Jimmy Buffet compilation and the guys look at me like I’m listening to big band swing music (check that, they don’t know what the big band era was and “swing” music gets a glazed over stare). Still, they gather around me for lyrical pearls of wisdom.

I keep a three ring binder full of song lyrics, close to one hundred and fifty songs. I use lyrics daily; like trying to explain poetry to guys in the creative writing class, I pull out the Beatles’ “Let it Be” –
           
           “When I find myself in times of trouble
            Mother Mary comes to me
            Speaking words of wisdom
            Let it be.

And in my hour of darkness

            She is standing right in front of me
            Speaking words of wisdom
            Let it be.”

I don’t know what Lennon and McCartney had in mind when they wrote that, I just know as I read the words guys who never heard that haunting piano accompany Paul nodded and said, “he’s talking about peace, and patience, and mercy.”

The music. There are a thousand lines that remind me of her, of us. “Time in a Bottle,” sung at our wedding; dancing on our deck as I whispered “Tupelo Honey,” in her ear. There’s holding both our sons mere seconds after they entered the world and quietly singing “Forever Young” as if with those words I was armoring them for adulthood. Funny, but I can’t watch “Parenthood” on TV because they use “Forever Young” as their opening music.

It was the music, the lyrics that kept me going so many times in here. I don’t know how many nights I wondered, “can I get through this?” and a song would come to me. I couldn’t shake Springsteen’s “Reason to Believe” when I doubted my God, my hope, and my faith:

“Lord won’t you tell us tell us what does it mean

            So at the end of every hard earned day people
            Find some reason to believe …”

When I’d try and find it again it was Seger and “Running Against the Wind,” and Marley’s “Redemption Song” and “No Woman No Cry” that helped me click the laps off and find my balance.

Music. I talk music daily with Saleem and DC (old Motown stuff like Wilson Pickett and James Brown; the Supremes, Marvin Gaye), and Craig and Omar (the 70’s and 80’s before disco and rap and techno and syrupy pop sung by Barbie wanna-bes). It was during one of those conversations when a buddy said he couldn’t make it and reach his dreams outside. I looked at him and just hit him with Springsteen’s “Atlantic City” –

            “Well everything dies baby that’s a fact
            But everything that dies some day comes back …”

He looked at me for the longest time and then said, “you’re saying I died in here, but I can get it all back?” “Something like that,” I replied and I watched him roll those words around in his head and find that glimmer of self-confidence and hope he needed to try and get clear of this place.

Sounds stupid, right? Until you remember how Scottish soldiers carried their dead king off the battlefield singing the Psalter “God Our Help in Ages Past,” or churches for centuries beginning Advent Season with “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, Come to Set Thy People Free …”

Freedom. I tried to count all the references in the Bible to God freeing “the prisoners.” The captive, you see, are in God’s loving arms. The music frees the captive’s soul.

            And I keep thinking about Don McLean. He thought the music died:
            “And the three men I admired most
            The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
            They caught the last train for the coast
            The day the music would die.”

The music didn’t die. It was always there, always with words giving meaning to the confusion that too often is our life. So the guys come around all the time and ask questions – I get bombarded with questions – and I try and give straight answers. Somehow, to make my point, to close the case, I hit them with a lyric. And a light goes off, and they get it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about music during this Thanksgiving season. I’ve learned a lot in here, and there are blessings even in difficulties. The music keeps playing and I keep going.

            “Well it’s all right, even if they say you’re wrong

            Well it’s all right, sometimes you gotta be strong
            Well it’s all right, as long as you got somewhere to lay
            Well it’s all right, every day is Judgment day”
            “Well it’s all right, even when push comes to shove
            Well it’s all right, if you got someone to love
            Well it’s all right, everything will work out fine
            Well it’s all right, we’re going to the end of the line”
            “Well it’s all right, even if you’re old and grey
            Well it’s all right, you still got something to say
            Well it’s all right, remember to live and let live
            Well it’s all right, the best you can do is forgive.”

I think the Traveling Wilburys had it right. 1977, Vassar College, and I heard that the music died. Thirty-six years later with failures and disappointments a mile high and I feel more hopeful. And, the music still lives; the words still give meaning even in here.

            “Yes my guard stood hard when abstract threats

            To noble to neglect
            Deceived me into thinking
            I had something to protect
            Good and bad, I define these terms
            Quite clear, no doubt somehow
            Ahh, but I was so much older then
            I’m younger than that now.”

                                                        Bob Dylan, “My Back Pages”

A Day in the Life

A friend I hadn’t seen in over three years came out for a visit the other weekend.  I think he was a little embarrassed at first that it took so long to get the courage to come out here.  But, he sees my ex every week at church and, I think, there is a difficulty for folks dealing with me while she is in their midst.  So, I end up being placed in exile.  I’ve come to accept that.

He asked how I was “doing it.  How do you pass the day, not lose your mind?”  I had to laugh.  If I think too much about what I’ve lost, think too much about my memories of my ex, our kids, holidays, travel, I would go crazy.  Instead, I told him, I focus my attention on what I do in here.  Days roll over to new days, but I keep the same schedule.

What’s a day like in here?  For every guy, it’s different.  There are the disciplined guys, the guys who work, set schedules, seek books and hobbies to keep their minds fresh.  They seek meaning in their confinement, redemption for their lives.

Then, there are the sleepers.  They waste away, sleeping twelve, fourteen, even sixteen hours a day.  To them, prison is an exercise in passing through with the least exertion of energy, the least amount of thought.  Nothing is different.  They sleep, eat, watch TV and perhaps lift weights.   They plan on going back out, picking up exactly where their lives stopped on their arrest.  There is no redemption; there is no growth for these men.  They feed the system.  They go out and come back.  Prison, by its very organization, leads to a majority of its prisoners fitting into the second group.  These are the hustlers, the predators, the prey, the refuse that makes up so much of the prison class.

I’m in the first group.  From the day I decided that I wouldn’t quit, that I would fight and hope and believe, I created a schedule.  I live each day on the same schedule.  Disciplined living, I’ve found, can overcome the despair of this experience.

So I told my friend I get up each morning at 3:55.  No alarm clock, I just wake up.  A quick trip to the bathroom to shave, teeth brushed and then yoga.  I then read the Bible and pray and meditate for 45 minutes.  5:15 shower and writing until breakfast at 6:45.  I get another hour to write before 8:15 work call.  Three hours every Monday through Friday I teach adult basic ed.  Every afternoon, after lunch, I workout for an hour.  Then, its college tutoring or college classes.  Dinner, reading and at least two nights a week of college classes until 8:30.

I always go to sleep after 10:00 pm count, ending my day with prayers.  It’s a regimented lifestyle.  Other than an hour or so at night – and the morning sports and news – I avoid TV.  A couple of books and magazines read each week.  Each night, the “USA Today” and a crossword puzzle.  There’s music.  Guys are constantly exchanging CDs.  I have the “old stuff” – Marley, Dylan, The Eagles and Allman Brothers.  I’m the go to guy for classical music and jazz.

There was a time when I couldn’t bring myself to even listen to music in here.  So many songs, so many lyrics, reminded me of, well of her and us and our life together and our kids.  The upside of having a strong memory is you remember.  The downside is the same.  Now, I hear “The Band Perry”, or “Lady Antebellum” sing about love and whispers of what was cross my mind. But I can handle it now.  I jot down the lyrics, I write what’s on my heart and I maintain the regimen.

Dr. Victor Frankl, in his remarkable book “Man’s Search for Meaning” chronicles his survival in the Nazi concentration camps.  Finding meaning, in your circumstances, he argued, gives you freedom.

My schedule, how I do my time, get through each day, in spite of my circumstances, helps me find meaning in here.   Victor Hugo, in his masterpiece “Les Miserables” wrote:

            “Liberation is not deliverance.  A convict may leave prison behind, but not his sentence.”

Hugo understood more about prison than he realized.  The path to liberation rests not in the opening of the gate but the disciplining of the mind.

In My Pocket

We wear state issued blue button collared shirts.  The shirts come short sleeve or long sleeve.  In this hot weather I’m a short sleeve inmate.  Anyway, I carry a few index cards with me whenever I head out.  The other day Opie saw me looking through the stack.  Opie – being Opie – quickly goes and gets “Live” and two other guys and they circle around me.

“Whatcha lookin at in you pocket Lawrence Old Bag” (this is the respect I get).

So I show them.  One card has scribbled song lyrics. There’s a verse from “No Woman, No Cry”, the great Bob Marley song:

“My fear is my only carriage

So I got to push on through”

There’s John Prine, Bob Dylan and a Van Morrison verse that reminds me so deeply of my feelings for my ex.

There’s a second card with Bible verses I try and remember when things are bad:  A verse from Job 2, words from Habakkuk 3, and these paraphrases:

God works everything for our good according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).

God is in control of everything (Psalm 103:19).

I also keep little reminders, things that have hit me when I’ve been struggling.  There are short things like:

·         Don’t lose heart because you don’t understand why.

·         Don’t make quick judgments; trust; have faith.

·         Have a sense of gratitude even in your despair.

·         Pray continually.

·         Don’t judge another’s actions.  You don’t know what they are feeling.

·         Forgive.

There are things I have experienced and learned during this trial that I’m grateful for.  I realized for one thing I wasn’t living the life God intended me to live. I got way too hung up on pleasing other people and making myself look good than doing what I knew was right.

I also know I wasn’t the best listener or most patient husband and father I could be.  There’s this wonderful imagery in the Bible about losing our life in fact leads us to a more abundant life.  I think about that a good deal.  The most selfless things I’ve ever done have occurred after my arrest.

I wonder sometimes if my ex and my sons know that I loved them so much I didn’t care about my charges, sentence or future.  It’s funny, the guys in here will tell me I was a fool for walking away from everything and pleading out my case, yet they’ve all individually come to me and said “I don’t know if my dad would’ve done that for me.”

My cousin sends me quotes in every letter she sends me.  A good number of them find their way to my locker door or in my stack of note cards.  It may sound trite, but words help.  You realize through another’s words that you aren’t alone.  Somebody else out there has felt what you’re feeling and dealt with it.  There is no exclusivity in loneliness, heartbreak, despair or hope.  We’ve all been there and really, we all can appreciate when someone’s hurting.

Last weekend my three closest home friends came out for a visit.  As I mentioned before, I hadn’t seen them since the beginning of my “winter of discontent”.  At one point I realized I’d been talking almost nonstop for an hour telling them how I was, what goes on in here, how I’ve made it through.  I apologized for dominating the conversation but they preferred to hear what was happening “in here”.  I am, they told me, still part of the old circle.  Their wives still care about me; they worry about me; they’re in tune with what I’m going through.  It was nice.  It reminded me why I tend to be the exuberantly hopeful guy in here.  I know in my heart good will come of this.

At a moment of deep despair a few months back, “Live”, my gang leader friend spoke to me about love and hope.  He said “you can’t ignore how you feel.  The heart feels what it feels, hopes what it hopes, no matter how stupid it sounds to the brain.”  “Live” was right you know.  I put that on a card next to my three main prayers.

Redemption's Song

Bob Marley had a wonderful moving song called “Redemptions’ Song”, with imagery of slavery, hatred and the ultimate capacity of man to overcome. With the soft strumming of an acoustic guitar in the background, Marley over and over with his Reggae lilt sang “Redemption’s Song”.



One of my closest friends in here is DC. I’ve written a good deal about him over the months. He is the gentlest man I ever met. I consider it an honor to have him as a friend. I’ve hinted at scenes from his life in blogs: his boxing skills, his excessive sentence (39 years served to date), his marriage.


With his permission, I tell you the rest of the story. Redemption is not just a word. I have learned from watching this remarkable man, no heart is truly beyond redemption. No one is beyond God’s grace.


In 1972 DC – as an angry 18 year old black boxer from the District of Columbia – was arrested for multiple armed robberies of banks and convenience stores. At least two people died during these crimes. He was ultimately convicted of one robbery and sentenced to twenty years. When he started his “bid” he was just nineteen, recently married and the father of two little girls.


“I was angry and I loved to fight”. I have a hard time hearing DC say that. He has a very soft voice and always smiles. But, the fact is, he was brutal and merciless.


For the next 13 years, 1973-1986, DC preyed on weaker inmates in the system and added time to his sentence. Twice he was arrested for attempting to rape female officers. Five convictions for assaults. He was one of the most vicious, brutal men in a brutal prison system. He spent years in “the hole”. He had years added to his sentence. Yet, every available visitation day, his wife and daughters would arrive for visits.


In 1985 he murdered a fellow inmate during a prison riot. His release date was pushed back to 2022. His wife arrived for her visit. DC looked me in the eye and said: “She cried softly and said I know the man I love wouldn’t do these things. If you aren’t going to fight for that man, tell me and I’ll give up and move on.”


DC was angrier than ever. He told her, “I don’t give a shit what you do”, and he stormed out of his visit.


Something happened over the next few days. The man, the real man, the one his lay minister mother prayed about every day, the one his father remembered by a baby picture he carried in Korea when he was stationed there, began to fight back.


DC began to fast and meditate. He began to fight the anger and bitterness within. In a tearful reunion with his wife, he vowed to never strike another person again.


That was 25 years ago. In 25 years, DC has never broken even the smallest, most insignificant rule. He is a committed pacifist. He is a man of peace.


I’m not sure when DC will be released. Last week he had his “annual” parole hearing. He shows no worry. Even after 38 years he says, “When the time comes for my release, God will make it happen.”


His wife? Every month his wife comes to see him, just as she has for 39 years. Now she is joined by her daughters, their husbands and grandchildren.


His mom and dad come down quarterly. His father told him a month ago “I didn’t miss a day prayin’ for you all these years.”


It’s not a pretty story, but it is one of the most amazing and inspiring stories I’ve ever heard. That’s what redemption is: powerful, overwhelming and possible for anyone. Don’t think a man like DC can be redeemed? The success of the entire Christian church rested on the shoulders of a man whose life work was to persecute believers. Then, one day he suddenly was redeemed. If God could redeem Paul, He can redeem anyone.

Don't Give Up the Fight

This week I did something in a legal pleading I never considered doing before. In my Petition to the Virginia Supreme Court challenging my sentence on Sixth Amendment grounds, I deviated from mere arguments on the application of the law. In my conclusion I quoted from both Bob Dylan and Bob Marley and urged the Judges on the court to address the unjust results that are so prevalent in multitudes of cases involving the incarcerated.



I normally shy away from political statements in the legal documents I draft. Perhaps it was because of my legal training or it may have been reading “jailhouse lawyer” documents that were heavy on flowery language about freedom but lacked basic knowledge of statutes and case holdings. In either case, I urge guys to focus on what the law says rather than go on some self-serving “it’s all about me” tirade that focuses on using big words without making a point.


I changed my rule with my own pleading. I did so after two guys spoke to me about my incarceration. The first guy is one of my GED students. He’s 22 and an extremely bright kid. His last grade completed: 8th. He was in and out of alternative school and juvenile detention. Yet, placement testing indicates he reads at a college level. He always has a book with him, philosophy mostly. This week we were discussing Immanuel Kant.


He told me “you’re the smartest guy I’ve ever met”. I told him, if I was so smart, I wouldn’t have done what I did and risk my family and my freedom!


But then he said this: “You’re smart enough to tell these people prison isn’t the answer.”


The second man who spoke to me was one of the law librarians. “Ty” has been locked up since the mid-eighties for a series of store robberies to support a drug habit. In his early sixties now, he is ineligible for parole because of his multiple offenses. He has six more years before he’s released. Ty is one of the men I hold in deep regard. He is a kind, wise gentleman who has seen and overcome a great deal of brutality in the prison system. I trust his opinion and value his friendship.


He was watching me craft my arguments for the court when he told me that “so many of the men in here fighting their own cases take their cues from you. They hear you talk about changing the system, speaking out, not losing hope. They’re starting to believe things will get better”.


There is a Bob Marley song called “Get Up Stand Up”. Over and over, with the reggae beat moving on, Marley sings “don’t give up the fight.” I listened intently to that song the other evening as I put the finishing touches on my brief.


Supreme Court Justice Steven Breyer in a television interview with Fox News said the following:


“Judges are not politicians. You can’t hold your finger up to the direction of the political wind to judge with justice.”


I have made that point to the Virginia Supreme Court. Whatever politicians may say, the simple fact is the current level of incarceration and the length of sentences handed down is neither just nor moral.


In all likelihood, the court will reject my Petition. That’s alright. I will fight on; next step will be the United States District Court. Too much hinges on my situation: my own personal freedom and the hopes of a great many men in here that the system isn’t completed corrupt.


In an article recently in Sport Illustrated, Saints quarterback Drew Brees was profiled as “Sports Person of the Year”. He and his wife have worked tirelessly for New Orleans recovery from Hurricane Katrina.


His road to success wasn’t easy. He faced numerous obstacles and disappointments. He was counted out many times. But, he never gave up. He always had faith.


At the end of the day, faith is a good enough reason to keep fighting for what’s right.

Jah Provides the Bread

Somewhere up above Bob Marley is smiling. For those that don’t know, Marley was for a time the most known reggae performer on the music scene. He brought reggae music into mainstream, middle class America. I still recall listening to Bob Marley and the Wailers sing “Rastaman Vibrations” and “No Woman, No Cry” on my stereo as a college freshman back in 1977.


His music was born of struggle and oppression, music from Jamaica and other Caribbean islands. It was exotic, rhythmic and spiritual.

Marley was a Rastafarian. Rastas, a quasi-Christian sect, consider former Ethiopian King Haile Selassie to be the Messiah restored. They also smoke marijuana religiously (sorry for the pun). Rastas also are known to wear their hair in long dreadlocks.

In 1999 Virginia DOC implemented a hair profile for inmates. Prior to that time inmates were allowed to wear their hair to any length. Facial hair, full beards, sideburns and goatees were permitted. DOC deemed long hair and beards a security risk. Inmates, they reasoned, could hide knives, razor blades or contraband in their hair. Inmates with full beards could escape their shave and make it difficult to track them down.

The new hair policy required hair to be kept close cut, above the collar, off the ears. All facial hair was prohibited except groomed mustaches.

A number of Rastafarian inmates objected. On religious grounds they refused to submit to cutting their dreadlocks. DOC responded as they typically do: the protesting Rastas were placed in solitary confinement until they agreed to cut their hair and comply.

1999 became 2000. 2000 became 2001. Each year came and went but eleven Rastas held to their protest. There had been more, but men were released, their sentences served, their dreadlocks still in place.

Eleven men, kept separate, deprived of many basic needs most take for granted: daily human contact, fresh air, daily showers, access to telephones. DOC’s goal was to break the Rastas. Their tool was isolation and deprivation.

Word went through DOC prisons about the Rastas. Inmates who didn’t know the name of the Governor knew of the Rasta 11. Other Rastafarians in the system shaved their heads (a practice followed until this day). The Rastas were heroes. They were “buckin the man” for Jah.

2005, the ACLU agreed to file suit on behalf of the Rastas. Meanwhile, one man died while in solitary. Ten remained. Ten continued to refuse to cut their hair.

What is your limit? How much will you endure for your religious convictions? I realized, as I learned of the Rastas early on in my prison stay, how truly courageous these men were. In my entire life of “freedom” I had never met anyone willing to risk it all on principle. My life had been one of compromise. “It’s not worth it!”

My friend “Black” is a Rasta leader. I’ve watched the Rastafarian community (it is a recognized “religion” according to DOC) continue on as their brothers remained “in the hole”.

In “No Woman, No Cry”, Bob Marley, in his haunting Jamaican accent sings

“Good friends we had
Good friends we lost along the way
In the great future
You can’t forget your past
So dry your tears I say.”

Then later in the song over and over he sings

“Everything’s gonna be alright
Everything’s gonna be alright.”

I often wonder what makes ordinary people do extraordinary things. What would make a young man run head long into enemy fire to rescue a friend? What would make Big S go to trial instead of pointing out the real defendant? What would make eleven Rastafarians accept the hole for years rather than cut their hair? What would make me sign everything I owned over to my wife?

Character is revealed, not when things are easiest, but when we have he the most to lose.

Thursday, November 18, 2010. The front page of the Richmond Times-Dispatch announced “Inmates Released From the Hole”. DOC gave in, surrendered, to ten dreadlock Rastafarian inmates. They were being released from solitary confined and transferred together to serve the remainder of their sentence in two-man cells with daily rec time at Keen Mountain Prison. They’ll be kept separate from the rest of the inmate population because the hair policy remains in force for all other inmates.

In a documentary about Marley’s life he is heard telling an interviewer “Jah provides the bread”. Jah, to the Rasta, is the name for God. It is a basic tenet of faith, whether you are Christian, Jewish, Muslim or Rastafarian, that “God provides”.

So often we think everything we have, everything we’ve accumulated is a direct result of our own hard work. We fail to understand that at our weakest we are truly strongest. No power can overcome Jah. Eleven years in solitary. Eleven years deprived. Eleven years Jah provided the bread.

I started playing a CD. Bob Marley’s singing “everything’s gonna be alright.” I can tell he’s smiling.

I Shall Be Released

A great many tunes go through my mind whenever I run. It’s like I have an iPod in my head sometimes. Early on in here I bought a portable CD player/radio and a handful of CD’s. I bought music I know and love: Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Allman Brothers, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, to name a few.



Music, songs I know, helps get me through. That is, until this past week. I noticed that all the new shows were using songs that mean something to me, songs that remind me of what I’ve lost.


This past week “Parenthood” used a classic Dylan song, “Forever Young” in an episode. I sang that song to both my sons’ moments after they were born. It resonated with me as my prayer for them.


“May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true,
May you always do for others
And let others do for you.
May you build a ladder to the sun,
And climb on every rung
May you stay Forever Young.”


That song plays on in my head each day as I run the track. Only now it is from a father who is separated, alienated from his sons. I hear that song and my heart breaks a little more each day.


A new show, “Raising Hope” was on the other night. A baby refused to stop crying. A woman came in and began quietly singing Loggins and Messina’s “Danny’s Song”, a beautiful ballad about a father seeing his first born and telling his wife even though they have little, he is fulfilled.


“Even though we ain’t got money
I’m so in love with you honey
Everything will bring a chain of love.
In the morning when I rise
Sweet tears of joy to my eyes
And tell me everything’s gonna be alright.”


I choked up. I used to hear that song all the time when I held my kids, when I watched my wife sleep. Now, the loss of her, the emptiness, the loneliness weighs me down. I feel as if in mourning. I’m not complete without them.


My folks come monthly for a visit. They mean well, yet they don’t realize (or don’t want to realize) the pain they cause me with each conversation reminding me of what I lost. “She is shopping with. . .” “The kids are doing . . .” I go a week, maybe two, thinking the pain, the sorrow, the emptiness, is lessening, then the visit and the songs begin again.


I was down this afternoon after the visit. Big S went outside with me. I told him how I feared I’d never get over the loss of my wife, how I still loved her even though I knew I’d never see her again. I told him how much I missed my sons; “how much more”, I asked him, “can I lose”? We walked around the track. His words helped. I am blessed with a friend like him, part son, part best friend.


I began running sprints and the song came to me. Dylan and the Band:


“They say every man needs protection
They say even man must fall
But I swear I see my reflection
Somewhere so high above the wall.
I see my life come shinin’
From the west down to the east
Any day now, any day now
I shall be released.”


There are lonely, difficult days in here. Sometime I have to remind myself God’s way isn’t like my way. Sometime I have to expect that my hardship, my struggle – as difficult as it feels – is still part of His promise to me.


I hate this place. I hate the damage I’ve done to the three people I love the most. But, everyday gives me hope. I am reminded of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge over Trouble Water”:


“When you’re weary
Feelin small
When tears are in you eyes
I will dry them all
I’m on your side
When times are hard
And pain is all around
Like a bridge over troubled waters
I will lay you down.”


Days in here come and go, but my hope remains.