Thinking about Love

I read an interesting column the other night about society losing “its loving feeling”.  The writer asked “where is the love?” and concludes sadly, “it isn’t front and center”.  He then points to “where it isn’t”.  It’s not on TV anymore with shows like “The Bachelor” dominating ratings.  And online dating?  He compares it to ordering off a Chinese takeout menu (I have a personal opinion about online dating but I’ll keep it to myself).  We’re a nation obsessed with how her or she “makes me feel” not about what love requires.

Shakespeare defined love as “a smoke made with the fumes of sighs”.  The old bard’s still got it.  He’s saying love is elusive and indefinable and can render us speechless.  Neil Young sang “only love can break your heart”.  Neil’s a pretty good bard too.

Love is a hot topic of conversation in this place.  Too often the discussion ends up degenerating to physical attributes, sex.  But, here’s a universal truth:  everyone wants to be loved.

A few months ago, at the deepest part of my funk brought about by my exchange of letters with my ex, a few of the younger guys came to me trying to cheer me up.  “Get over her” (or more colorful words to that effect) they told me.  They just couldn’t understand heartache caused by losing a woman.  So I tried to explain it.  She was as much a part of me as I was.

Here’s what I’ve discovered the past few months.  I’d rather be heartbroken than not give a damn.  See, I still love my ex.  Doesn’t mean there’s some magic “happily ever after moment” coming in the future.  But, I realized on the worst day of my life I did the most loving thing I’d ever done and I did it without giving a second thought to what it would cost me. 

Two different news stories hit me last night.  In the first, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s former housekeeper recently spoke out.  Apart from expressing her own remorse over what happened, she said the following:  “I know Arnold is hurting.  He did something wrong, but he loves Maria more than anything.”  Unfortunately, we do stupid, selfish, irresponsible things at times and hurt the ones we love.  In my case, I can offer no excuse.  I would do anything to set back the hands of time.

The second involved actress Tatum O’Neil who was promoting her recently released autobiography.  She has had, to say the least, a difficult life.  Now in her late forties, she was given drugs by her own father at age eleven.  Years of severe drug addiction, depression and suicide attempts followed.  At one point, her children were taken from her.  She was estranged from her father for over twenty-five years; only recently beginning the healing process, they have slowly begun to reconcile.

Ms. O’Neil was asked “why now”, why reconcile.  Her response was telling.  “I’ve always loved my father.  No matter the mistakes he made or I made, I always loved him.  And when you love someone, you forgive them and rebuild.”

Her words hung with me for a long while that evening.  As I write this, I am spending my third Father’s Day incarcerated.  I have not heard from or seen either of my sons in almost three years, sons who mean more to me than my own life.  Yesterday my three closest friends from home came for a visit.  My spirits were buoyed by their time with me.  I realized I’m not forgotten by them or their spouses.  Their children are friends with my sons.  I felt, for the three hours they were with me, the old connection to family and friends.

They know the father and husband I was.  They know the love I feel for the three people I left at home.  They also know what I’ve been through and the sorrow and heartache I carry. 

As we finished our visit up and they were encouraging me to “be strong and keep the faith” I told them I would always love my ex and my sons.  “No matter what”, I said, “I’ll never give up on them.”

It’s a question of faith.  Love, simply put, comes down to faith.  In the remarkable song “Hallelujah” one line states –“your faith was strong, but you needed proof.”

I have been rendered heartbroken at times the past few years.  I’ve wanted to quit and give up on myself and others.  But I won’t.  All the proof I needed was realizing God wasn’t giving up on me.  Love isn’t from an Internet dating service.  Love is knowing God believes in you so you can have the faith to believe in others, even at the risk of heartbreak.

Fraternizing 101

We had a troubling incident hit on B side Thursday.  “A”, a mid-forties, married, black lawyer from Richmond, was taken out of the building in handcuffs and led to the hole.  Right now, he’s “under investigation”.  People are pretty tight lipped, but it’s obvious this isn’t your run of the mill visit to the hole.  They don’t take guys out in handcuffs or “cease all movement” on the boulevard when leading an inmate from the building to the hole.  “A” broke a major DOC taboo.  He was fooling around with an officer.

I’ve had an interesting three year experience with “A”.  The day I was arrested and hauled to the Henrico Jail, he was already there.  That was his second visit to jail.  Both times, wheeling and dealing with client trust funds.  He knew all the “big hitters”, the top criminal lawyers in Richmond and had heard me speak at a continuing ed seminar a few years earlier.  A likeable guy, he was none the less, a first class bullshitter.  I knew that when I saw him at the jail so I had no illusions what dealing with him entailed.

June, 2009 rolls around and he tells me “I’m going home; getting my law license reinstated”.  I’m there; mired in deep depression and despair just into my first year of imprisonment and this guy – with his second conviction under his belt – is heading home to rejoin the world.  Sure enough, the next day he’s called out.

Two months later, I get introduced to receiving hell.  For the next four plus months after my transfer I suffer, genuinely suffer, in the worst conditions imaginable battling each day to maintain my dignity, humanity and sanity.  Then, on November 20^th in ’09 I’m transferred to this Shangri La and who is the first person I see as I’m pushing my cart up the boulevard?  “A”.  The bullshitter leaves this July 15^th.

He and I view the world – this world – differently.  He carries himself around the compound like a political candidate telling fellow inmates how he’s going to say this and that to the warden.  Me, I avoid discussions with the administration.  They have a job to do, but so do I.  There job is to hold men here and enforce sentences according to their interpretation of the law and DOC procedures.  My job is to get out of here as early as I can and point out the insanity of the system that keeps them employed.

“A” thinks he can work with them.  He plays up his legal contacts all the time.  Yet, his knowledge level is low.  That’s the thing I’ve learned about bullshitters.  They talk a good game, but they don’t back it up with facts.  “A” comes to me when he’s asked about the law.

“Pride goes before the fall.”  I’ve lived that.  There’s a reason Micah told the people of Israel that the Lord wants His people to seek justice and “walk humbly before your God”.  Hubris kills.

“A’s” been bullshitting a female CO.  She’s attractive enough.  Of course I define attractive through the eyes of someone still reeling over heartbreak from love lost.  But, she’s OK.  She treats the guys well, very pleasant and fair.  But, she’s an officer.  There is a weird psychological occurrence in prison in which guys believe females on the compound dig them.  I don’t get it and the vast majority of times it’s just guys fooling themselves.  But it does happen.  Female officers, female counselors, female psychologists and teachers, fall for inmates and engage in inappropriate relationships.

“A” and this officer had such a relationship.  It was common knowledge.  He’d end up in the office with her and the lights would turn off.  Something happened recently that even went further.  No one knows exactly what – but “A” crossed a line and the fraternization came out and now he’s in the hole and she’s under investigation. 

As I’ve written before, prison life imitates the “real world”.  It’s not called fraternizing out there, but it’s the same thing.  One only has to turn the TV on and see “Aanold” or John Edwards or Congressman Weiner (there are so many jokes I could make here) who followed their groins instead of their brain.  It’s not just a man thing.  Each of those men was involved with a woman.  And those women they were involved with all knew those men were married.

And the really strange thing is, I don’t get it.  We spend our lifetime looking for that one person and then we look for physical intimacy elsewhere.  “A’s” jeopardized his release and his marriage for a couple of carnal connections with an officer.  She’ll probably lose her job.

It all comes back to my alter-ego Dr. Gregory House.  In an episode from five or six years ago, his former lover shows up with her husband who is dying.  House is a broken man – physically, with a damaged leg and Vicodin habit to dull the pain; emotionally, with a broken heart from losing this woman.  He’s fragile and, in a recurring theme season after season, finds it nearly impossible to love another woman.

As with every “House” episode, he finds the correct diagnosis and the husband’s life is saved.  His ex comes to see him and says the following:

“You want the truth?  I still love you.  I always will.  You are the one, the only.  But this life is easier.”

Fast forward.  House is alone in his home.  There’s the background music, Mick Jagger singing:

“You can’t always get what you want

             But if you try some times
             You just might find
            You get what you need.”

House pops a pain pill.   It dulls him.  But, it doesn’t completely take away the ache he feels in his heart for this woman he loves.  Pain, loneliness, heartbreak suck.  Yet, they are preferable to the quick empty feeling of fraternizing.  Ask Arnold if it was worth it; or John Edwards.  Ask “A”.  I think they’d tell you they’re just a bunch of weiners.