On January 23rd I took a Covid PCR test and, because of the absolute mismanagement of the Covid response in our prison, I tested “Covid Punitive.” I had been going to work, taking rapid tests to get in, for almost 2 weeks without incident (including the time of the PCR) and yesterday, my results were in… I was positive. I can remember a day last week of some sweats and a sore throat, but we had just had flu shots, so I assumed it was associated with that. So, in the prison’s terrible response to this, I was snatched from work, locked in my cell, told to pack everything I own in 15 minutes, chained and shackled, loaded up on a bus with 78 other positives, and taken to another prison without a clue what was happening to us.
There, I sat in a filthy cell where I could touch two walls at once, without anything to clean it with. It has open bars and all night I could hear others struggling to breathe, coughing and hacking. The “mattresses” we use are a pad about two inches thick on a hard metal tray bolted to the wall and it makes your arms numb in the night. We were told we will only have one chance to get out for a shower or a phone call ā once a day. This prison is over 100 years old and this cellblock had been recently shut down. It’s disgusting. But it’s now the “Covid Isolation” unit. I’ve been stripped of everything ā all the meager comfortsĀ I had ā because it’s all now in storage (I hope) and get to deal with this 10-14 day knee in the back (or longer if people keep testing positive). Imagine if you had tested positive and had to pack up your home, hoped someone stored all of it, got harnessed like an animal and moved to some random, filthy house, halfway across town… and, like some here, do it all while you can hardly breathe.
There’s a logical, scientific, and humane way for this prison command to deal with sick people, but instead of seeing an opportunity for compassion, it’s a chance at kicking someone while they’re down. Everyone around here is terrified of the Covid tests. Not because of being ill, we can deal with that, but a Covid positive test result is really a Covid Punitive test result. If you think Covid can make you feel miserable, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet…
Many of you are familiar with Martin Lockett, who has written many blog posts for us over the years. Today, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 2022, is the perfect day to let you know that since his release in June of 2021, Martin has republished his book – formerly Palpable Irony (see Rick’s review here), with a new title: Prison to Purpose Pipeline: How one sentence led to a life of service.
On this day, we encourage you to be engaged in efforts to protect voting rights. Write and call your elected officials. March, rally, organize, mobilize. Take actions that help bend the arc and bring forth the kind of world MLK Jr. dreamed about ā but did not live to see.
āMake a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for equal rights. You will make a better person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in.ā Martin Luther King, Jr.
This is also a good time to watch Martin’s MLK, Jr. speech, recorded while he was still incarcerated.
Is it possible to quantify the amount of, or in the case of amerika’s prison industrial complex, the lack of positivity? Even in the comparative state, measured against the vast amount of hypocrisy, the lack of positivity equates to nothing less than a vacuous state of existence for the millions of men and women held in this country’s prisons and jails.
One example is when we were having conflict with a sergeant at another prison who thought it fell under his job description to shave all the prisoner’s heads on their way back from chow. While discussing the issue with the colonel, I asked if his hair cut was in compliance with what he was saying to me about what the rule states. His answer was a resounding no that he was not in compliance with their own rules. The statement was made without malice. It was to be taken as a matter of fact and not to be challenged. There is no discussion about issues. If you attempt to resolve a problem you’ll likely be punished rather than encouraged.
Of course there is no room for debate when it comes to the ambiguous nature of the language of the rules but looking at the realities of everyday prison life you can’t help but understand why the prisons and jails are full and expanding.
There is a massive drug problem in amerika’s prisons. How can that be, one might ask. Well there may be some coming in through visitors. Some. It’s a given that the prisoners are not taking furloughs out to drugs ‘r’ us. That leaves the source to be pondered. But not very long I bet. In the visitation park there is a poster with six or eight photos of presumably former corrections officers and their criminal exploits which include introduction of contraband, sexual misconduct, etc. At this prison alone there have been murders of prisoners by officers, gang batteries by officers that were surreptitiously recorded and went viral on the internet, falsification of documents to cover up these actions, and myriad other felonious acts, many that go undetected everyday. But let’s have a look at those messages that are conveyed on a much smaller scale.
For instance, smoking has been taken from prisoners as a general rule. There have been fiscal reasons cited for this prohibition – health care costs associated with smoking and so forth. Also the butts lying around, and other trash associated with smoking. But the rules put in place for officers are somewhat more obscured. It began that officers were not allowed to smoke while on the compound. They had to wait until it was their break time and walk outside the gates to smoke. Then, some prisons designated smoking areas inside the fences but away from prisoners. Now it appears there are no restrictions at all and officers are smoking within arms reach of prisoners while they are talking to them. What kind of health care savings could there be in propagating smoking cessation classes for the thirty thousand or so employees of FDC? But that’s just scratching the surface of hypocrisy.
Prisoners are not permitted to carry any food out of the chow hall. But most meals we are given less than five minutes to eat. I cannot remember the last time I was able to finish a meal. Such as they are. But one thing I do know is there are no provisions giving officers free reign of the kitchen for inmates to cook for them. I don’t know that there are overt promises made but you can bet there is some type of quid pro quo. This is commonplace in every prison I’ve been housed at. There is no doubt that when officers trade with prisoners they are breaking rules and laws but when officers trade chow hall food to prisoners that they have brought from the kitchen for favors or other products, there are messages that prisoners get, that lead them to believe something is only wrong if you don’t get caught. Or worse yet, if someone with some sort of authority lets you get away with something its OK. Did I forget to mention that we are permitted to keep food in our lockers that was purchased from commissary? Senselessness. For instance, we are able to purchase peanut butter from the canteen but we have no way to get bread for a sandwich. In the privately owned and operated prisons you can purchase these items, but not in the state facilities. So you cannot take bread or any other food from the dining hall. If you get caught, technically you can receive a citation of sorts but mainly you are made to throw it away. Imagine, throwing away food just so a person can’t eat it. I’ve asked a couple of officers about this and they are always speechless.
I have to wonder, will we ever get to the point where we will want our citizens to become better human beings after we ‘correct’ them? Will we ever provide an environment where that’s possible? We had better get on it because it’s going to take a very long wide turn to make the changes we need.
In a state like Washington that has no functional rehabilitative motivators, House Bill 1344, Emerging Adult Parole, may be a step in a positive direction. Washington’s parole is limited in scope to juvenile offenders and sex offenses, with very few parole cases tied to a failed system from the 1970s and 80s that allowed hundreds to be simply warehoused in prison. With the movement of HB1344 in our legislative session starting January 10, 2022, many more youthful offenders can be moved to a parole system that will provide both a reduction of prison populations AND be a qualifier for meaningful rehabilitation. As brain science has expanded over the last several decades, cases before the US Supreme Court (the elimination of life sentences for juveniles), down to the Washington State Supreme Court (Personal Restraint Petition of Monschke, establishing 21 as the age of majority for culpability of crime in cases where “Life Without Parole” sentencing was given), have all agreed that those below a certain age, notably those between 18 to 21, are more impulsive and less matured and have a higher propensity for committing crimes, and should be handled differently than fully matured brains.
But those inmates grow up paying for those impulses, sometimes in the shadow of decades long exceptional sentencing, where a minute of youthful indiscretion leads to decades, or a lifetime, of imprisonment. HB1344 would move those under this youthful category to a parole system already in place for juveniles. A person at age 40 is distinctly different than at age 19, but the current design of our state’s system provides no recognition of that fact. But what if a thirty-or-forty-something grasps the true reality and gravity of their crime with maturation? For a country that demands a legal age for controlled substance usage, we seem to see the responsibility goalpost travel when it comes to crime. The brain science shows responsibility patterns are the same between an 18 year old, a 21 year old, and even for 15 and 16 year olds. Shouldn’t this also be accounted for equally in all aspects of legal findings?
HB1344 will require a younger offender to serve a statutory minimum portion of the sentence, but provide incentive room for that offender to capitalize on his maturity through positive rehabilitation. If a younger person can show significant change and qualify it to a parole board, he may be granted an opportunity at relief from the incarcerated portion of a sentence. And for a state like Washington that doesn’t do this for all categories of offender, it’s high time we start demanding the correctional system be held accountable for ensuring a quality product is being placed back into the community. Efforts like HB1344 would provide such accountability, while being backed by courts throughout the nation and tangible scientific findings.
As it stands, I know many people that entered this system as youngsters and will leave just in time to collect a social security pension they never paid into, and without a support system that was lost a lifetime ago. Is that the right answer? I suggest it isn’t. And as for victims of these offenders, remorse comes with a much heavier hand when one is old enough to understand the power of that remorse and the room to be responsible with it. Allow time to add that remorse to the benefit of your community and parole to ensure it contributes vibrantly post incarceration. Additionally, values and morality can be fostered through hard work and hope. For a system that currently replaces a young adult’s family structures with bureaucracy, it takes personal determination to learn them. HB1344 is the hope and a parole board will make sure the hard work is present.
Expanding parole is a meaningful step to fixing an expensive and failing system. Please show your support for this bill.
The prison system has always had its flaws, and its also had its fair share of celebrities. No, weāre not talking about the doom and gloom of high profile cases, weāre talking about literary legends; the kind of convict we all want to meet.
But this post isnāt just about who did time (with or without a crime), itās about reading between the lines of why these geniuses were actually arrested. Spoiler alert, there was no justice about the justice system.
And who first? It’s over to the classics. None other than Oscar Wilde.
Many know Wilde for being the author of (my favorite book) Dorian Gray. He was flamboyant and fabulous is ways that would be celebrated today. Despite literal brilliance, he was severely cautioned by publishers to tame down the naughty narrative he was portraying. Shockingly, the books we see in print (which gives 50 Shades a run for its money) are the edited and softened versions. One thing he refused to stay quiet about though was his homosexuality which landed him 18 months in prison. Thankfully, we donāt arrest people for their sexuality now, but there are still cases where a private sex life is used to taint a jury, and we think thatās downright disgusting. Things arenāt always kept to the case details, especially if youāre one of 36 in 100 Americans who are into the BDSM scene*.
Next up is a political prisoner from not that long ago ā Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
Russian novelist and historian Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wad arrested for speaking out against Stalin, but his excruciating stint wasnāt just in a jail. He actually spent 7 full years in a labor camp. In 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature but nothing can account for lost time.
He wasnāt the only prisoner of politics though, Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe, was arrested for sharing unfavorable opinions on government regimes too. Rumor has it that he was a real man of the people though and that instead of being pelted with rotten fruit as was customary at the time, they tossed flowers to him in the stocks.
But sexuality and politics arenāt the only things to get a person in trouble in the history books. Playwright Christopher Marlowe was imprisoned for the crime of being an atheist! Some argue that when you read between the lines, religion can get you into trouble with the law more than other things. Keep an eye on the news and ask yourself if thereās an unfair representation there. You might be shocked when you look at the statistics.
So far weāve looked at criminals who wouldnāt have been considered such today, but thereās room for a quick bit of trivia from some who arguably deserved their stint in prison.
So, what do Chester Himes, Joan Henry and Frank Elli have in common? Theyāre all writers who used their experience to write award winning novels. That might not say anything about the innocent but it does show that the guilty can become worthy members of society after time behind bars. Everyone has a fresh chapter worth writing.
In her remarkable book, My Stroke Of Insight by neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor, PhD, I was taken on her profoundly objective tour of her own life trauma. As a neuroanatomist who taught and performed research at Harvard Medical School, when Taylor had an abrupt eruption of blood vessels in her brain, she witnessed her own brain deteriorate as she struggled through her stroke. This book is a journey of that event, and the eight years after, that brought her from an unsuspecting brain scientist with a congenital defect waiting to challenger her, to a stroke survivor who was able to document everything with a curious mind, and spread a brilliant message. She explains so much in factual science, what her conditions were, and how to recover, all while challenging the reader to objectively explore the subjective elements of living a wonderful life.
The power of her mother’s love is also a noted part of this book. G.G. as she’s known, pushes her daughter Jill through recovery and is always present to support both the successes and failures as caregivers often do. G.G. had to teach her things like reading and math again and a team of medical professionals helped her regain her life’s functionality. There’s a chapter where Taylor describes a list of things she needed most in her recovery and I found this to be an amazing chapter. The things she describes are the same things people need most to live a resilient and fulfilling life, and she showcases these needs in a straightforward way. She combines her personal philosophies and factual findings together to give the reader an outcome needed by all of us – hope and a roadmap to happiness.
This is an extremely well-crafted book, and Jill Bolte Taylor heroically embraces life on her terms and in the best of ways. There’s a lot to learn from this – about brain science, the human condition, recovery tactics – and is a wonderful package of determination to rise from the unthinkable. To read the impact and recovery of her stroke through the eyes of a brain scientist is truly a read worth remembering.
See here for Bolte Taylor’s TedTalk: “Jill Bolte Taylor got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: She had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions — motion, speech, self-awareness — shut down one by one. An astonishing story.”
I have been incarcerated for over twenty years now, a lifetime for many. When I was 21-years-old, I took a man’s life in a fight that I started. Yet, while I unquestionably deserve to be in prison, I never wanted to be a man who belongs here, and IĀ have worked hard to never be. It took some time for the momentum of positive energy and self-discipline to become transformative, but I have not wasted my days. On December 10, 2021 I graduated with a PhD in Psychology and Counseling, but my journey goes beyond academics.
I arrived at Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution an emotionally underdeveloped 21-year-old with little education. I didn’t even have a GED, and I was profoundly self-centered and insecure. ForĀ years I used alcohol, drugs, and lies to cover my shame and conceal my psychosocial dysfunction, but when I arrived here and the heavy metal door shut behind me… and on my life, I was left with nothing but the truth of who I was and what I’d done. I grieved over the loss of my life–as any narcissist would, but deep down, I knew I had hurt so many people, one of whom would never go home. I grieved for him, too, and I knew I must do something different. I could not stay who I was.
Not much real change happened in the first couple years of my incarceration. The system is structured far more around order and security than rehabilitation, and I didn’t know how to change myself or be anything other than what I had always been. Consequently, it took time for me to learn how to be different, and it wasn’t easy.
A transformational moment in my life came while I was in disciplinary segregation after a fight. I had what I believe to be a spiritual experience, which I describe in an earlier blog post on this platform, and it redirected the focus of my life–at that point, although I did not yet know what my future held, I knew there was something more for me. My life was not forfeit. I knew there was a purpose for me that I had to pursue.
I prayed often after I was released back into general population. Nothing too pious or formal, but a sort of running commentary with God. I neverĀ heard an audible response, butĀ whenever I would pray about direction or ask for guidance, I always felt a one-word response in my spirit: Learn. That is all I was given. So… I pursued it with all of me, leading to significant educational achievement.
I earned my GED in 2003, and in early 2008 I was hired as a tutor in the Education Department, a job I still holdĀ today. Through a career development site available in the computer lab, I found a university that offered distance learning for the incarcerated, and I contacted them.
My mother had recently received some money, and she asked me if I needed anything. I could have asked for trivial, comfort-oriented things, but I told her about the educational opportunity I had found, and she was on board. She paid for my entire education, from the first course in my associate degree program to the final practicum for my doctoral program. I will never be able to adequately express my gratitude, for she very likely saved my life.
I use the metaphor of a weed often ā I look back on my young life, and I see that I was a weed. I negatively affected all the good around me, and I was ultimately removed because my impact on those around me was universally ugly. I brought nothing of worth to anyone, and when I realized this, I simply had no desire to live because I knew I was a burden to everyone, especially those who love me. I just didn’t want to keep going if I could not be any better than I was. It was during this low period that these educational opportunities came into my life.
The rest is really history from an academic standpoint. I earned an Associate of Arts degree in 2013, a Bachelor of Arts in Counseling in 2015, graduating Summa Cum Laude with a 3.98 GPA. I finished my Master’s of Counseling degree program in 2017, and I finally finished my educational journey in 2021, completing my PhD program. Moreover, I have accumulated over 350 additional CEU credits toward earning my certification in alcohol and drug counseling. I have everything I need for my license except the 4000 hours of clinical counseling, which I cannot get in here. I am immediately employable in my field, however.
The best lessons I have learned go beyond academic achievement. I have learned what it means to know who I am, to know my purpose, and to find meaning in the pain of my own mistakes. I have learned that I don’t need to wear a mask to hide my flaws or to use drugs and alcohol to numb my emotional struggles. I have learned self-awareness, empathy for others, and acceptance of my weaknesses. I don’t need to force others to view me the way I want them to, and I don’t need to judge others in order to feel better about being me. In my journey from GED to PhD, I have learned how to be authentically me, and there is no greater gift that God could give me.
I have made so many mistakes in my life and hurt so many people, and although my violence was over 20 years ago, it remains powerfully salient for me ā it is a motivating factor in my life. I don’t want to hurt anyone ever again or give space to or be a channel for darkness in the world. I want to be conduit for light and contribute significantly to the good in the world by using my faith in God, my education in counseling and psychology, and my experiences of failure, incarceration, and personal development to benefit others, especially those wrestling with issues of identity and addiction to harmful substances or behaviors.
I look forward to the next step in my journey of becoming all I was designed to be, and I am so grateful to everyone who has helped me along the way, my friends and family, my mother, and the Blue Mountain Community College instructors for whom I work have been life-changing influences in my life. I simply could not be where I amĀ today without all of them ā I am endlessly grateful. I have said it before: although I ended up in prison as a result of my own self-centeredness, prison is not the end of my story.
In her follow up volume to “84, Charing Cross Road“, Hanff takes you on a ride through her adventures in London in “The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street.” After 20 years of corresponding with the Doel family and a burning desire to visit London, Hanff finally cashes in on her worldwide popularity with the publication of “84” and, at age 55 in 1971, decides to walk the streets of a city that was the source of her fantasies… and success.
Following some similar formats in the way of letters, Hanff captures her trip in a journal encased in amazingly detailed descriptions of London’s citywide layout. Personally, as I read this, I wish I had an atlas or Google Maps to virtually share her travels. Helene Hanff has a very distinct personality of an American from New York and her neurotic behavior is cleverly comical as she attends book tour commitments throughout London. With new characters like the Colonel (someone who might be described as a groupie, or a stalker) and the management team of her London based publisher Andre Deutsch who wrangle her through her tour, you also get to meet, as Hanff did, Nora and Sheila Doel… the family of Frank Doel, who was the other half of Helene’s charming 20-year-long letter communications to London’s Marks and Co. Booksellers in “84”.
This follow up has much of the same charm and character as its predecessor and, as before, it showcases a wonderful older generation of class and style with it. Hanff’s encounters with the British lifestyle she’s always envisioned are endearing and highlights what expectations do to someone who takes on her dreams in midlife. A fun and heartwarming ride with Helene through London in the 70s will make you often laugh. While it could be read on its own, I highly encourage reading “84, Charing Cross Road” to truly appreciate all that went into the need for this follow up book. If you like the storytelling of folks like Nora Ephron, you’ll love Helene Hanff.
We don’t see things the way they are. We see them the way we are.
ā The Talmud
Most teenagers can’t wait to turn 18, a time marked by the independence (and adventure) of them moving out on their own, embarking on their dreams via college or serving their country, or the mere prospect of forming new relationships. However you slice it, it’s when youthful adults venture out into Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) to come into their own.
So tell me, when you were younger, did you ever like a guy or girl, a food, or anything, and as time passed, you stopped liking him or her or it? It’s like you “aged out” of who or what you were previously enamored with or entranced by. I mean, I used to enjoy hanging out with certain types of people, and now I avoid them like COVID-19. Unless they’re doing something positive, I classify such types as “Hi and Bye” acquaintances, whom I spend as little time as possible with.
For example, I have some past “so-called” friends who believe I’ll get out and smoothly segue back into our youthful pastime activities without missing a beat. Some even say, “Jay ain’t changed.” Hmm, that’s naive and mildly disturbing given that I will have spent “18 and change” (i.e., over 18 years) in prison, and they expect me to leave prison as the same person I came to prison as?! Although, and most unfortunately, there are some guys who press the psychological and behavioral pause button upon entering prison, and re-press it when they release, I’m definitely not one of them.
Contrary to prevailing frenemy belief, prison turned my life upside down, which as I later discovered was actually right side up. I came to prison because my upside-down outlook on life skewed my perception of reality. Paraphrasing my opening quote, the world did not change, rather, only my perception of it did.
I’ve spent years trying to figure out where I went wrong, and the further back I looked the closer I got to the answers. Pre-prison, I was living my life through my tattered past. As Dr. Phil said, “The past reaches into the present, and programs the future, your recollections and your internal rhetoric about what you perceived to have happened to you.” I learned that I was living my adult life through the tragedies of my negative social environment growing up.
And since my formerly-flawed thinking produced criminal behavior that, in turn, resulted in me having to serve 18 and change in prison, I’m often overtaken with residual guilt, shame and remorse. It’s like a web that wraps you tightly, squeezing tighter and tighter with an endless thread. Don Miguel Ruiz explains this in The Four Agreements:
How many times do we pay for one mistake? The answer is thousands of times. The human is the only animal on earth that pays a thousand times for the same mistake. The rest of the animals pay once for every mistake they make. But not us. We have a powerful memory. We make a mistake, we judge ourselves, we find ourselves guilty, and punish ourselves…. Every time we remember, we judge ourselves again, we are guilty again, and we punish ourselves again, and again, and again.
And then there are those in society who seek to tighten the web even more by reminding you of your past mistake at every corner — without considering the mitigating factors that contributed to your downfall — pushing you to relive the past on an endless loop. They forget that every saint has a past, and every sinner a future. They judge with four fingers pointing back at them. They demand retribution, but when they (or their loved ones) are standing in the shoes of the accused, they beg for mercy and leniency.
But the good thing is: I’ve incubated for years in this concrete cocoon and improved myself in ways that the majority in society cannot because they haven’t walked my Road to Redemption, where I’ve had to revamp and reinvent myself and overwrite my faulty thought processes with success-oriented programming. Every day I use my 18 and change to update my life outlook and further disentangle myself from the web of guilt and shame.
I approach each new year as an exciting new chapter in my life, as one of many phases of my metamorphosis. I am a new creation, a phoenix risen from the ashes, a butterfly ready to explore and perceive the same world (i.e., minus the landscaping of technological innovation) through a different, more colorful lens.
And if ever accused of being the same person I was when I committed my crime, I would simply reply, “True, I am the same essence. But in terms of form, I have changed by leaps and bounds and become someone exceedingly better.” Therefore, my world has changed — but only on account of my perception changing over the course of my 18 and change.
As you embark on the new year and hope to improve some aspect(s) of your life, I want to give you a handful of positive affirmations for 2021 (in the era of COVID-19) from my affirmation stockpile that has helped me develop the right attitude to overcome WHATEVER life throws at me.
God willing, I’ll be released in 2022! Happy New Year!
#ReadChangeLiveChangeBeChange
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Positive Affirmations for 2022
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We have to be greater than what we suffer.
–Spiderman, movie
The world is hard. You have to be harder.
–Unknown
You gotta do what’s best for you with the time that you got.
–Detective Pikachu, movie
I am the captain of my ship, and the master of my fate.
–Dr. Ivan Joseph
Fall seven times stand up eight.
–Japanese proverb
Sometimes, the only way to heal our wounds is to make peace with the demons who created them.
–Godzilla II: King of the Monsters, movie
Sometimes we’re tested not to show our weaknesses, but to discover our strengths.
–Unknown
The darkest nights produce the brightest stars.
–Bumblebee, movie
He knew it was deep. He felt the blade push against his body and knock him off center. And another one. And another. Fifteen times as he tried to get out of the grasp of the two guys holding him. He felt no pain though. All he could feel is the warmth of his blood soaking into his clothes. As his assailants were shot at from the guard tower, Inmate 15422 fell to the ground to dodge the bullets. The sting of pepper spray from the rushing guards started to cloud his vision. He looked at his shirt through the tears and realized his panic at the blood rushing from the holes in his clothing. “Why did these two guys do this?” he asked himself. “Who the hell are they?” And just as soon as it happened, they were gone. The guards fought his hands from the wounds and rolled him on his stomach to cuff him. He could feel the stickiness of the blood that was now pooling and twinges of sharp pains started to creep in. As he was pinned down awaiting medical response, he could feel the cold setting over him. For the first time in his life, he knew real danger and feared for his life. He was the guy who got stabbed in the prison yard for reasons he may never know.
In the rush to move him to the prison’s medical unit, he felt his panic fade. The light became both brighter and more narrow. Being moved down the hall, he started to close his eyes. The life was leaving him and, for the briefest of moments, he examined what tomorrow would bring.
Tomorrow, he would see his mom. He hasn’t seen her in years. She was the rock of the family and took care of him and his two brothers after dad was killed in that car accident. Tomorrow, he’d see dad, too. Mom had been gone for almost 20 years now after the cancer took her. His oldest brother Tim should be there, too. Timmy died of alcoholism a decade ago. Life’s traumas were a lot for Tim and he needed an escape. He found it in the bottom of a bottle when his wife left him. Aunt Claire should be there tomorrow, too. Mom’s favorite sister became his favorite aunt. Claire had that about her, just a spark plug. She passed of heart disease, the family curse, shortly after mom. Then there was Kevin, the neighbor kid who would become his best friend in high school. Kevin enlisted in the Marines and was killed in desert conflict a few years after graduation. Kevin’s family was crushed, but damn, it would be good to see him again. Then it was difficult to recall anyone else. It was difficult to inhale. The cold grew comforting and the peace very embracing. Yeah, he’s gonna see a lot of people tomorrow. He just wishes he could see one last one today. She made his whole world bright and he was gonna walk off this prison sentence and make up lots of time with her. He owed her that, but it seems he’ll be her tomorrow someday…
He felt the warm sun shine on his face as the world became alive again. He was laying in a hospital bed, the curtains parted to let in the light from outside. He realized he wasn’t dead from a prison yard stabbing. The rest of the family will have to wait for him. Each tomorrow led to another one, day by day, until the end of his sentence. Then that tomorrow brought him his release date. He owed his daughter Donna a lot of tomorrows. She was that brightness he was looking forward to. He cried when he hugged her for the first time since she was eight. He saw how the tomorrows piled up and made his daughter into a woman, a mother, with her own family. As they drove down the road, he realized that being temped by any part of tomorrow was a peaceful thing. There are things to look forward to in all of his tomorrows. Tomorrow brought him from Inmate 15422, back to being plain ol’ Danny again. Come life or death, tomorrow has so much in store for him. From being a grandfather, to being a son, he’ll stay just a bit tempted by the taste of tomorrow…
This is an extremely well-crafted book, and Jill Bolte Taylor heroically embraces life on her terms and in the best of ways. There’s a lot to learn from this – about brain science, the human condition, recovery tactics – and is a wonderful package of determination to rise from the unthinkable. To read the impact and recovery of her stroke through the eyes of a brain scientist is truly a read worth remembering.
