Just Thinking

A few weeks back, a friend of mine flew in from San Diego for the weekend.  We spent the better part of two days together and her visit was a boost of encouragement.  Though it couldn't unlock the gates of this prison nor improve the conditions under which I live, it certainly made it easier to bear the grimness that has surrounded me for the past five years.

A visit to a prisoner always has incredible significance, which is difficult to put down in words.  Routine is the supreme law of prison.  Every day is like the day before; the same surroundings, same faces, same conversations, same odors, same barriers, and the same ever-present feeling that outside the prison lies an exciting world to which you have no access.  A visit is an unforgettable occasion that breaks the monotony and ushers into your heart all things good with the world.

It's hard to believe it has been nearly 5 years since I was a free man.  So much has changed and taken place in the years I've been gone.  My friend's visit prompted moments of reflection to ponder all that's transpired.  Thinking about the past can be far more exacting than contemplating the present and envisioning the future.  But it's a necessary prologue to ascertain how dreadful experiences serve a useful purpose in the broader scope of our lives.

I will never forget the grief and difficulty of those early days.  The day I was arrested, I was put in a holding tank with 20 other men and remained there for nearly two days.  The conditions were abysmal and frightening.  The cell was the size of a small bedroom in a traditional middle-class home.  Garbage was strewn everywhere.  There was one toilet in the corner with no partitions, no privacy.  We had to crap in the same crapper in front of everyone.  The toilet was clogged and there was no toilet paper.  Guys urinated on themselves, fights broke out, and we slept on the floor.  Reality hit so hard that it took my breath away, took my stance and strength away.  That day taught me it's really not your world.  Someone else is in control.  It's not your show and the show can be brutal.  Brutal in its coldness.  Brutal in its love and affection.  Calamity can hit you straight between the eyes when you never saw it coming, even when you were looking straight ahead.

I've never seen freedom since that day.  I never saw or heard from my wife again.  I lost contact with my youngest daughter for almost 18 months until God intervened and miraculously reconnected us.  On that day, I never imagined any of the above would take place.  That day changed me; it changed me forever.

In those early days, I found myself in the most severe depression.  It was so profound I doubt there is a name for it.  The pain made me crazy and dismantled everything I believed.  I was transferred out of the holding cell and placed in a cell where I was locked down 23 hours a day.  The days were long and dark, one after another without end.  I would stare at the ceiling for hours, mumbling over and over, "Jesus, I'm losing my mind."  I could not sleep.  Panic attacks assaulted my normal and steady constitution.  The agony sent my heart into crazy drumbeats that could last for hours, my breath cascading into rapid, thin gulps that left me ventilating in cupped hands.  I never believed such things existed.  In my past, I'd listen to others describe experiences similar in nature and I normally dismissed their words as fabrications and exaggerations.  And then it happened to me.

I felt like I was in the darkest forest at midnight.  And it got worse before it got better.  The first time I was let out of my cell to mingle with other prisoners, all hell broke loose.  I had not showered in days.  When it was my turn, I stripped and entered the rain closet.  It was barely two feet wide and I held a button down continuously for water flow.  I was inside only minutes when I suddenly heard a violent rumbling, voices screaming and shrieking.  Then came a maelstrom of pounding footsteps.  Before I could react, the shower door ripped open and two red dots danced incoherently on my bare torso.  With Tasers pointed, guards screamed at me to get out and lie face down on the ground.  I rushed to join the clothed prisoners on the concrete.  I was the only one naked on the cold, dirty floor.

My depression worsened day by day and became dark and dense.  I felt like I was splitting apart, atom by atom.  I could not see beyond the four walls confining me and they were closing in, squeezing the life out of me.  I could only see the world through smoked Plexiglas; I could no longer see the hope, the vibrancy, the world as it once was.  It was the most helpless feeling.  I was separated from everyone in my life; I could touch no one I loved.

One sleepless night, in the early morning hours, I told God I couldn't take any more.  Sprawled out, I spoke the most desperate words a man can speak.  It was the most honest and sincere prayer of my life.  I didn't ask for a miracle to deliver me from the mess I was in.  I simply asked for help, for strength to get me through each day.  I vowed to God and myself I'd fight back if He provided the strength I needed.  I can't explain what happened in that moment.  There were no fireworks, no audible voice, no feeling of emotion.  I did not feel God's presence.  I felt nothing.  My spirit was completely crushed and broken.  Minutes after my prayer, I fell into a deep sleep for the first time in days. 

I woke late the next morning and began to write.  I wrote and wrote.  I wrote for hours.  I grabbed my Bible and read.  I read and read.  I found some desire to exercise.  I got down on the floor and did push-ups and crunches.  Then dips and squats.  I crawled underneath the tiny table in the cell, grabbed the bottom and pulled myself upward in a rowing motion.  I found some motivation to stick to the regimen.  I attacked it each morning and night.  The workouts brought blood back to my brain.  The reading and writing opened new worlds.  God provided the strength for me to reach through the smoking ashes my life had become and find the will to stop my slide into insanity.  On that lonely ledge, at the end of the world, I found some footing to become defiant with my condition.

The reading and writing birthed life in me again.  It empowered me to rise above the suffocating walls of the jail, granting clarity and vision.  As I wrote each day, I envisioned Paul, Hugo, Dostoevsky, Mandela, Solzhenitsyn; I visualized each man writing in his prison cell.  The writing carried me back to the happiest moments of my life and brought noble ideas back into my den.  It helped turn my tragedy into hope.

Five years is a long period to be separated from those you love.  Loved one's lives march on and people change.  Dreams and hopes prove difficult to fulfill and when misfortune strikes, fate hardly ever provides golden parachutes.  But significant progress is always possible if we dig deep and hold onto belief with every ounce of strength we can find and allow God's intervention into all facets of our story.

My prison years have not been filled with waste.  The lessons learned.  The time spent reading, studying, and writing.  The discipline I've discovered.  The God I've come to know.  I'm a much different person than I was five years ago, totally changed and transformed.  My mind.  My heart.  My body.  My intellect.  My spirit.  My faith.  All of me.  Changed.

I remain highly optimistic behind these stark walls.  I see beyond the heavy clouds and spot the brilliant blue over the horizon.  However wrong my calculations have been in the past and whatever difficulties I still must face, I know in my lifetime I will again step out into the sunshine and walk with firm feet on a free ground.  That future moment will be brought about by the strength of my God and the sheer determination of my faith.

Often as I run lap after lap on the track inside this barren place, my mind wanders far and wide, recalling this episode and that mistake.  I think of my girls as I move in a continuous oval, wading through heat and cold and rain.  As I run I am aware I'm going nowhere as I've been going nowhere for the past half decade.  But my love for my daughters makes somewhere out of nowhere.  In this place, on this track, I'm moving forward even as I'm moving in circles.  Shayne, Abby, and Shelby return in my love, so alive and so beautiful.  I have them still, in my heart and in my memories.  And every step I take is one of unbending determination toward them, a step toward holding my girls in my arms one day again.

In spite of all that has happened, the ebb and flow of life through heartache and brokenness and disappointment, I live in hope and expectation.  Sometimes I have the belief this feeling is part and parcel of my self and seems to be woven into every fiber of who I am.  I see this as an act of grace and the gift God gave me in that cold lonely cell when I lost all will and desire to go on.  I have no other way to explain it.  From that moment forward I felt some hope, and that strengthened and replenished my waning resources of fortitude.  Hope is a powerful weapon when nothing else remains.

I feel my heart pumping hope steadily, warming my blood and lifting my spirits.  I'm convinced that floods of personal disaster can never drown a determined individual nor can the cumulous of failure destroy him.  The past of my life might fade, but it will never go away completely.  Plus, as much as I wish otherwise, my past is just too unbelievable, too convoluted, a mélange of some salacious behavior and years of upright living and compassionate deeds.  I've learned not to allow the wounds of my past to shape me into someone I'm not.  Each day, this past pushes me to get down on my hands and knees to remind myself of how grateful and humble I need to be.

The recollection of another era is a reminder that events lived are not only a part and companion of our history, they're a way to give context to our lives, to our collective past, present, and future.  In another time and place we can look back and say, "God showed up then."  This forges a faith strong enough to look beyond circumstance, beyond trials, beyond chaos; recognizing our harsh experiences are never an end unto themselves and not without purpose.  They are part of something greater.

All of us face days when life is hard.  Days when our opposition and our own imperfections tempt us to take an easier path, avoiding our responsibilities to our loved ones, our children, and to the gift of life God has given us.  We all face struggles large and small.  We all face difficulties and hardships.  When the waters rise and hope takes flight, we must do our best to suspend disbelief and pursue hope through discouragement and disappointment, through negative feelings and a shattered self-image.  When the outcome of our struggle and pain is uncertain, we must not give up nor give in and accept the world as it is; no, we must continue to press forward and seek the world as it should be.