Will I Be Missed?

Earlier today photographer Amir Ali took pictures of me for materials needed to promote Getting Out by Going In as the emerging leader in providing self-corrective education for our nation’s incarcerated men, women and children. As I sat at my computer reviewing hundreds of headshots, I took a long look at the image of the woman on the screen. Rather than focus on which hair was out of place, or the telltale signs of aging around the corners of my eyes, I tried to put myself in a place one hundred years from now, as a distant relative who might stumble across my picture while researching their family lineage. I wondered what they would think about the image they saw. Would the photograph be so outdated that the viewer couldn’t see the depth of my soul or the clothing I spent so much time choosing? One hundred years from now, will the fashion be as drastically different then as it is from what my ancestors wore in 1911?

When I look at photographs, even those from twenty years ago, I spend less time looking at the individual’s face and more time musing on how goofy and awkward they appear. Their hair always looks awful and their clothing looks uncomfortable. Is that the reaction my image might conjure up in the mind of a viewer twenty years from now? Is that what will happen with your own photograph; the picture of yourself you hope will reveal the best image of you?

Each of us hopes to be remembered when it is our time to leave this earth, as if being remembered provides a link for us to linger on earth just a moment or two longer. In the big scheme of things, however, most of us get forgotten within a generation. Your grandchildren, if you have them, are likely to know very little about you and their children may know even less. Ask yourself, what do you know about your great grandfather? Which ancestor was the first to travel to America? Before that, who were your people and from where did they come? Do you know anything significant about their lives? Do you even recall the details of their struggles? Does anyone remember anything more than the general historical brush strokes defining the five or six decades they walked the earth?

The image on the computer screen before me is one of a woman in the year 2011. I see an image of a woman who has faced struggles beyond her ability and yet, somehow, she has overcome them. Will the viewer see that in my eyes? Will they know of my frustrations, my struggles, and the injustices I faced? Will they even wonder what my life was like, what I chose to do on a Saturday morning, or how great my heartbreaks have been along the way? Will they understand the poverty from which I suffered? The education I struggled so hard to obtain? The school loans which will weigh me down for another 25 years? Will anyone see that in the image?

It is inevitable that we all die. It is also inevitable that future generations believe they are so much more advanced than those previous. It is inevitable that our photographs become nothing more than something to laugh at and clothing to criticize. As we become erased from the world’s awareness within 50 years of our passing, what, then, is the importance of our life? Will it matter what car we drive? What home we call ours? The clothes we wear? Will it even matter where we awoke each morning? Will our affiliations and homeboys and neighborhood truly miss us? Who will mourn our absence? Will anyone visit our gravesite year after year?

WHAT IF the finest life we can live is when we focus all our attention on being of service to our immediate environment? WHAT IF our every day efforts were turned toward making wherever we are just a little more peaceful? A little more tidy? A little more friendly? WHAT IF our every day was spent in a little more prayer? Just one more minute of meditation? WHAT IF we sat up straight and walked tall with the knowledge that our life is occurring this very second, not tomorrow and not when we gain our “freedom.”
When I watched my father’s body shrink to the cancer consuming his healthy cells, I was a 24/7 witness to the slipping away of the  unimportant. The ability to drive his car, for example. When that became impossible, he reluctantly LET GO. When moving about hi s home with freedom and autonomy became impossible, he reluctantly LET GO. When sitting up in the bed became a multi-person task, he struggled but then LET GO. And toward the end, when mint chocolate chip ice-cream spoon-fed to him no longer tasted good, he LET GO of that, too. At the very end, it was only those seated by his side that mattered and, of that he had no choice but to LET GO. One by one he LET GO of all the things he had held so tightly. In those final moments I believe he came to understand that all he would be taking with him was what he created inside his head and his heart. Everything to which he had a tight grip for so many years was being left behind.

A realization we eventually face is that life goes on and memories of loved ones fade until they disappear with future generations.

Yesterday a family member asked, “When was this picture of Dad taken?”

“2008,” I replied, in full knowledge that in fifty short years no one will even know that the image to which he referred was that of my father.

Will I be missed when it is my turn to LET GO? We are all so busy with “things” we cannot take with us that it appears as if the only thing which is missing is the choice to be present in living each moment to the fullest. We are so busy trying to make our mark, gain our freedom, change the system, impress our families, reunite with loved ones, do good in the neighborhood, seek revenge, get an education, get a good job, and be the boss. We are so busy that we miss the point.

WHAT IF all these things are a distraction from the truth; that none of it matters more than how we respect and embrace this very moment of our life? WHAT IF we will not be remembered in fifty years and that is the just way it is supposed to be? WHAT IF it is not about our legacy as much as it is our willingness to be present with our current environment?

WHAT IF we stop the chatter in our brain just long enough to see the peace we can create in this exact moment? WHAT IF our mind was still enough to hear the sounds which make up our surroundings? Would we hear the laughter coming from someone in joy? Could we hear the cry of another in need? WHAT IF all the trappings of leaving a grand legacy or grabbing the most out of life or fighting for our “freedom” for twenty years is exactly what robs us of our opportunity for inner peace?

Sometimes we are so busy planning for the future that we miss the point of the entire exercise of being human. To experience life with the absence of struggle, we must slow down and find the inner peace which only comes through contributing positively to the life of the individual right next to us. When we place our attention to being an example of integrity, peace, calm demeanor, helpfulness, as well as understanding and support, then we are helping to guide the way of those with whom we come into contact.

Will you be missed when you are gone? The better question is who misses the best of us when we are not present? And, what might happen if we really paid attention to the life unfolding right under our noses? Whose life can we make just a little bit easier today through our POSITIVE THOUGHTS? Whose life can we impact with a POSITIVE WORD? What POSITIVE ACTION can we choose which might serve as an example for others to follow?

I suspect it is not so important to concern ourselves with thinking about family going out of their way to visit, or society making it easy for someone to get back on their feet. Those are thought- consuming distractions to the single most important aspect of life; when you are not being of service then the best part of you is being missed. When you are blinded by the illusion of importance of certificates or groups or politics or legal paperwork it is then that you miss the point. Ask yourself, of the people right next to you, how many lives have you made better by a simple gesture, an act of kindness? With whom did you share something without requesting something in return? Was the best part of you missed today?

In one hundred years I will be forgotten. You, too, will be forgotten. And all your friends will be forgotten. I promise you one thing; you will be missed about as much as you miss your great grandmother. But, you do not need to be missed in your life right now. When you choose to be present, the very best part of your life will not be missed by anyone.

No matter how impossible it may appear at the moment, each one of us can choose to be present in the lives of every living thing with which we come into contact. If we are not making that choice, then we are missing our finest opportunity.

As I close the computer file with the images of a woman I recognize as myself, I am reminded that with every moment I am not focusing on the present, I am missed. The fact is; images fade and lives end. The world continues to turn with an entirely new crop of humans who, with each and every generation, struggle to make their mark, all the while missing the point.

Being missed is what happens when we do not pay attention to the subtle details of our everyday life. What matters most in all our lives is not the great works we do, or the great wealth or power we accumulate, or the physical freedom for which we strive. What matters most is how keen our eye is focused on identifying and assisting those in need; those who suffer right next to us.

We are missed when we are not making our immediate surroundings more peaceful, pleasant, supportive and positive for those who find themselves in our presence. When we practice being present to those things within five feet of our reach, it is only then that our legacy is experienced in real time. Rather than ask, “will I be missed?” we can ask ourselves, “what part of life am I missing?”

Not Broken Beyond Repair

Sitting at my kitchen table checking my email this morning, I heard a loud thump on the window behind me. My heart sunk. It was the unmistakable sound of a bird flying full force and colliding in a losing battle into the window, likely causing its instant demise. Pausing my typing for a moment, I looked at the window, but there were no marks which would indicate anything had splattered. I glanced outside, but couldn’t see the ground two stories below. After just a short consideration, I rose from my seat and made my way to the front door, ready for the unpleasant task of burying the dead bird.

From the top of the stairs I could see the white belly of a bird on its back. It’s never pleasant for me to find a run-over cat or even an insect which has died. I have buried countless lifeless critters since third grade when my family lived adjacent to a desert and I attempted to rescue a rabbit who had much of its left side chewed away by some hungry predator. I have accepted this duty in my life, an obligation to assist those in need, human or not. The question always pops into my mind, “WHAT IF that were me? What would I want done?” So, as I approached the belly-up sparrow, I couldn’t help but ask myself, “WHAT IF it were me, what would I want done?”

The bird had the softest looking new feather on its belly which looked like a fluffy cloud or a cotton ball. It was still alive, barely it seemed, as its heart was pounding furiously and its eyes were wide open in panic. Up and down its belly went at it instinctively struggled to get air into its tiny body. There was little doubt in my mind these were the final breaths of this little bird’s life. I began to wonder what the bird was feeling, thinking, and experiencing with this big strange being hovering over it with a curious expression on the human’s unfeathered and beakless face. I took a seat on the ground and was simply willing to witness the passing of an innocent bird because of one fatal flying mistake.

I prayed for the little guy, hoping its transition would be swift. Part of me wondered if it was more cruel to just sit and watch it die, or if I was better off putting it in a box out of the way of the encroaching ants. I spoke in a soft voice, knowing it was likely the bird with its little bird brain was not going to understand anything, but I felt compelled to offer something soothing, anyway. Maybe just for my own sense of doing all I could. “Ok, little guy,” I said. “I am going to pick you up and find a little box and I am going to be there until you leave this earth.” The little bird’s breathing and rapid heart rate spoke of the innate fear all living things have when shocked or knocking on death’s door.

Knowing the bird’s neck was likely broken, I paid particular attention to how I lifted it from the ground. Placing one finger like a splint against the left side of its body, I tenderly scooped up the barely breathing pile of broken feathers with my right hand. I closed my grip gently, just enough to feel its heartbeat and keep it from flailing in fear. Empty boxes are not something I collect or let take up space in my sparse world. I am not a collector or a keeper of things, choosing to get things off to their next owner as quickly as possible. At this moment, however, I was really wishing for an empty shoebox. Well, I reasoned. It would not be too long before the bird took its last breath. So I decided to take a seat on the hammock outside and hold the bird while it made its transition.

The sun was warm on this first day of fall and there were remnants of summer in the morning rays. The sun hit my body with soothing warmth that settled the situation for me. There was no need for me to do anything more than to just sit with this little creature and make it as comfortable as I could until that time when it was no longer alive. The music from inside the house was barely audible but enough so that I had a rhythm to rock to while on the hammock. Soon enough, I began to hum the tune and I placed my gently closed hand at my chest where the sun was hitting just perfectly. The bird’s heartbeat and breathing had slowed, almost undetectable. Six months prior, on March 10th, I had watched my own father’s heart beat slow until its undetectable beat stopped altogether.

As I held the bird gently at my chest, thoughts of my father crossed my mind; grieving thoughts of transitions. But more than anything, my thoughts were to the privilege we can experience if we are willing to help other living beings make transitions with all the tenderness and compassion which can be mustered in a time of pending loss. I hummed and gently swung the hammock back and forth. Now the bird’s eyes were closed, his heartbeat nonexistent and his lifeless body still cradled in my hand next to my beating heart. What a wonderful way to die, I thought.

Every living being leaves this earth sooner or later, but as bird-passings go, this had to rank among the best possible. Here was this little bird that had never had a human touch, never experienced touch at all, unless it was from another bird while tending to a nest or while mating. Here was this little bird, gently cradled in the arms of love, with a huge human beating heart so close to its own, and will the gentle warmth of the fall sun stroking its wings. I felt complete, as if I had done exactly what I would have wanted done, if I was the bird. If I was the bird, I would have been scared, and lonely, and hurting. While I might have been frightened to see a huge giant human approach, I would have liked to have heard a sound which was soft and tender, a voice of understanding or compassion. I would not have minded being placed in a box away from the ants, but would have been even happier to die peacefully as I rested my broken body listening to the heartbeat and gentle humming of someone who cared. Yes, as deaths go, this bird got the royal treatment. His death was better than any scripted plan which could have possibly been written.

My mind drifted to where I would offer a burial for the bird and I adjusted my position in preparation to get up. Just then, the little bird opened its eyes and its little feet moved against the skin of my chest. “Well, then,” I said. “You are going to be here a little longer?” The bird kept its eye on me, not moving its body, but I could feel a tiny heartbeat under my forefinger. “Ok, then. We will just sit here till you decide to go,” I said out loud, happy I didn’t have any neighbors walking nearby who would return home with the idea that they had seen Coach Taylor talking to herself in the hammock.

I think I fell asleep for a bit, or I just drifted off into a pseudo slumber. I remembered the last breaths my father took, and holding his hand. I thought about my own passing, and where would I be and who would be by my side. I thought of the inmates dying in prison and the family they miss and the support they receive from other inmates as they leave this world. I thought of the infants who die in the arms of neonatal nurses because their drug addicted bodies cannot win the fight to live. I thought of the grace which exists when we are of service to our fellow living beings, and of the blessings of stopping the email long enough to be present for an event important in the life of another.

When I awoke, the little bird opened his eyes as well. It seemed he had been napping, too. I loosened my hand from the bird’s body, wanting to assess just what might be broken. A wing? It’s neck, perhaps? I pulled my hand away and just observed. I was more than a little surprised when the little guy rose to its little feet and tilted its head just enough to look me square in the eye, eliminating the assumption that the loud thud against the window had broken its neck. My thoughts were now moving toward what form of a cage I would need to house the bird with the unbroken neck but broken wing or other broken bones which would eventually mean its passing, just not as quickly as I had suspected. Obviously, this bird was not broken beyond the ability to squeeze out a little more living, if only for a few hours or a few days.

“Well, little fella, what are we going to do now?” I asked. It tilted its head as if attempting to understand what the giant was trying to communicate.

I placed my hand back on top of the bird’s body, its legs went limp against my chest and we swung in the hammock a little bit longer while I considered some options. The sun in the fall morning is lovely as it makes its final attempt to keep the breeze warm. In a week or so, the sun will lose the argument and the breeze will make way for the snow which will make way for the spring and a new batch of sparrows in the trees.

It’s not really a matter of fighting against the course of nature, attempting to keep things alive or being angry at the perceived cruelty humans wield upon themselves and others. It’s not really about collecting stuff and squirreling things away, just in case. It’s not really about being busy or getting things done. As I swing on the hammock, I am keenly aware that the emails are of little importance in the grand scheme of things. What is important is this moment, this very moment, as the sparrow and I close our eyes and feel the warmth of the sun.

I am not sure I believe in miracles as I think at their very root, there is a logical and scientific explanation for most everything. This does not mean I do not believe in Divine intervention or the tender touch of an angel which guides our path. Some may call it a miracle. Some will say the sparrow was simply in shock from the unplanned encounter with a pane of glass. Whatever it is called, the unmistakable truth is that the little sparrow rose to its feet and looked at me with the clarity of a perfectly healed and healthy being ready to take flight.

“Well, well well, little guy. Aren’t you a lovely little miracle,” I said. The bird had every bit of strength in its body. I could tell by the way it held its head, its wings perfectly in place, its little feet ready for the next grasp.

I took the bird in my hand and made my way to a wood post. I wanted to set the bird there, just to see what it would do; just how disabled might he be. A smile came to my face when it grasped tightly to my finger, almost suggesting that it did not want me to go too far. I stayed there for a moment, but it still held tight to my finger as it looked at its once familiar surroundings. Then, the most remarkable thing happened; it moved its other foot to my finger so the entire weight of its body was on my hand.

“Is that so, little fella,” I commented. “Not too ready to leave the comfort quite yet.”

I took a nearby seat and just held the little guy on my finger as if it was a trained pet which was purchased at a pet store and knew no different. If the bird was able to say something, I was certain it was expressing gratitude and comfort, a connection between unlikely beings which would never be replicated in this bird’s life. It seemed as if the bird was growing increasingly comfortable with me as its new partner, firmly planted on my finger and not too anxious to explore beyond my care. I wondered what our world would be like if all humans were to treat all beings with a profound concern for their care.

What would be possible if all beings felt witnessed and understood, appreciated and protected? Could it be that man could live in harmony not only with the animals, but with themselves? Could color lines and religious barriers be eliminated if we would all walk away from emails just long enough to make a significant contribution to the life of another living being?

The bird and I both heard the noise that would end the moment we shared. To me, it sounded like the sparrows I had heard for the entire summer. But this time it was a slightly different sound. Call it my imagination, but it sounded as if it was a family member, a sparrow who knew this sparrow, as the call had a slight urgency or longing to its notes.

Both the bird and I looked to the pine tree to source the sound. The call was offered again. As the sparrow in the tree came into view, I had the profound feeling that these two sparrows knew each other and there was a world within the life of birds, a world of community to which I was now a witness. My little miracle of a bird looked at me, tilted its head to get a better look, and then looked toward the tree. I set him down on the wood railing, certain that this was the moment, this was the time. If he was to fly, it would be because he would not resist the call he received from one of his own.

“Go on,” I said. “You can do it.” He hopped two or three times, moving a few inches from me.

Then, at the sound of the sparrow in the tree, he took flight. I didn’t hide my tears. I let them stream down my face. I asked myself, WHAT IF I had not left my computer? WHAT IF I had not been still enough to hold the bird to my heart? WHAT IF I had been too busy to miss this magical moment?

I am now back at my computer, but not as the same woman I was a few hours ago. I realize the blessings in everyday life are there for us if we will only slow down and welcome them. Even inside a small cell of an over-crowed prison, the blessings can be found when we slow down and permit them to guide our every response. There are very few important things in life; being still enough to hear the call of a miracle ranks right up there at the top.

I have turned up the soft music playing in the background in my home. Behind me is the window and beyond that is the tree. My little sparrow has joined his family. I have a deeper knowledge that appearance can be deceiving. Even the most broken among us may not be beyond the repair which comes from love. My little miracle was not broken beyond the repair but he needed my participation in his recovery. And, as I sit down to resume my attention to emails, there is no doubt in my mind that it is I who receives the biggest blessing for my participation in his healing.

Orphaned by Opiates

The more I work with the  men, women and children inside our nation’s prisons and jails, the more convinced I become that there is a series of events which predispose individuals to commit unlawful acts or fall into a pattern of addiction leading to unlawful acts.  Through my work with Getting Out by Going In, the nonprofit leading the nation in inmate self-corrective education, I am able to explore the life reflections of thousands of inmates who are on the road to repairing the mistakes which led them behind bars.

One recurring theme in their communication, particularly in the material I receive from incarcerated women who by their very nature tend to be more emotive than men, is this concept of a childhood fracture.  I have titled it the childhood fracture because it seems that there is a traumatic experience, a singular event which happens and the individual is unable to recover fully which makes it possible for further injury to occur.  It is my experience that after the childhood fracture, the individual is never able to establish a wholeness which would enable them to make positive decisions in their life.  These fractures become, for the most part, a determining factor in the development of our personality.  It either destroys our self-esteem or fuels us to climb above the wreckage we have experienced.

Through my work with prisoners, I have also come to realize that much of my own spiritual growth occurs as I assist others; gently reminding me that I have my own personal prisons and I, too, have my own childhood fractures. The irreparable fracture of my childhood occurred on the morning of my 10^th birthday. Tenth birthdays are big ones as it marks the passage of defining oneself beyond a single digit.  Also, I was keenly aware that at the mature age of 10, I was also nearly age 13. I would soon be an official teenager who had reached the magnificent demarcation point from child to the beginning of adulthood.   I remember the date of my childhood fracture as if it were yesterday.

It was a typically 100 degree summer morning in Las Vegas day on July 18, 1968 and I was sitting at the kitchen table eating the marshmallows out of my bowl of Lucky Charms when my mother descended the staircase.   As I led my spoon deep into the avocado-colored bowl on the search for buried sweet treasures, I kept an eye on my mother as she went about the routine I had come to find comfort in observing.  She always wore a zip-up robe; floral with two pockets. Her closet, the left side, had nearly a dozen of such wardrobe items for her to choose from.  Each Christmas her mother would present her with a meticulously and ornately wrapped box, always the same size, and in it would be the new year’s version of last year’s gift; a zip-up robe and a pair of slippers.

I watched in wonder as my mother seemingly floated, angel-like, into the kitchen.  Gently pulling a coffee cup and the instant coffee from the cupboards, she would set the water to boil.  Before long, the cup would be filled and the intoxicating and mysteriously adult aroma of coffee would find its way to my anticipating nostrils.

“One day,” I would say to myself, “One day I will drink coffee, just like my mother.”

Shoveling the cereal into my mouth with my eyes trained on the art of drinking coffee, I keenly observed every detail of the morning ritual.  First, you had to hold the cup just right with your right hand gently grasping the handle and pinky finger subtly extended.  You had to sip, not swallow.  And after the first sip, you had to look very relieved or satisfied.  I hadn’t completely figured out what the expression meant, but it was one which I hoped I could experience when I took my first sip.

This was the fine art of drinking the morning cup of coffee as taught to me by my mother.

But there was something else I always noticed about my mother.  Her physical beauty was unparalleled.  As she sat at the head of the table, I observed her perfect profile, the fine features which could have made for a movie career to rival the likes of Elizabeth Taylor.  My mother was the petite china doll who married the hotel and casino manager who was more than a decade her senior. Eleven months after their nuptials their first child arrived.

I, however, was not like my mother.  I was the fearless, athletic, energetic, and far-from-dainty offspring born to at 19 year old debutant and 30 year old confirmed bachelor.  I had enough energy to light up the entire hotel/casino which I called home for the first years of my life.  I danced on the hotel stages to the delight of the hotel guests, sat in the kitchen eating specially scooped ice-cream and watching the chef in the big white hat slice the beef for the dining room waiters to serve, and I frolicked poolside generating massive amounts of attention as my perfect-looking mother sunbathed nearby.

When my mother became pregnant with my brother, we moved out to the suburbs where I was joined not only by one brother but by a total of three siblings over the next six years.  I was the eldest of four and although there was only two years which separated me and my brother, we were decades apart in maturity level.  He was quiet and didn’t poke and prod at life like I did.  As time went on, this hunger for life experience placed me with the disadvantage of perceiving a world which was not understood by my younger siblings.  I saw things which escaped their life experience, and my traumas came from this keen awareness of nuances and unspoken communication exhibited by my parents.  I watched the morning rituals while my siblings were busy watching Johnny Quest on the family television in the other room.

“One day,” I said to myself, “One day I want to be as beautiful as my mother.”

But I quickly realized I was not like my mother and the older I grew, the less I was becoming like her.  I was an unstopped force of enthusiastic energy which was neither manageable nor containable.  My shoes, for example, were always destroyed within a week of getting them. I would climb, hike, build or just plain overlook puddles of mud or destructive rocks.  My mother’s shoes were size 5 ½ and lined up just perfectly in her closet with never a scratch, never a blemish. Her hands, too, were those of a princess while mine were hands which didn’t look at all like the magazine pictures of the models for nail polish and wedding rings.

Nor did my hands look like the hands on the dolls I discovered in my mother’s childhood closet when I visited my grandmother.  The fact that she even had a doll collection made her different.  I had troll dolls with fuzzy hair standing strait up out of their heads.  My collection of the oddly shaped rubber creatures was complete; a dozen or more trolls with every possible brightly colored afro.  I would give the members of my troll family warm and bubbly baths, would wash their hair, then braid or cut their boldly colored manes and make clothes for them out of napkins or toilet paper.

Oh, how I wanted to be like my mother but the sheer force of my existence was too great for me to be anything other than what I was destined to be.  I was “athletic,” my father would say, as if being athletic was an acceptable excuse for not being a “real girl.”  That, however, was not the fracture of my childhood.  That was simply the foundation on which the fracture occurred.  The childhood fracture came on the morning of my tenth birthday when my world was rocked; my heart split in two, and the ground beneath my feet began a subtle shaking which lasted more than thirty years.

The coffee cup had been placed on the table and my mother’s gentle hand drifted into her pocket.  This was not uncommon, as she might be reaching for a tissue or piece of scrap paper with a reminder note tucked away which she suddenly remembered.  But there was an unusual sound, a plastic sound of rattling which I heard very distinctly above the sounds of my brothers’ argument ensuing in the other room. Instinctively I knew this sound emanating from her pocket was not good, not healthy. And I perceived a threat at the sound of the rattling.  The pill bottle emerged, caressed in her alabaster hands with the gentle fingertips.  My focus intensified. What was this strange new element being added to the morning routine?

The cap came off the bottle with ease. She navigated a pink pill out of the collection, replaced the cap with expertise which comes from practice and lifted the coffee cup in her hand.  The pill was inserted into her mouth, her head was jerked back a little and then the coffee cup reached her lips.

The crack which happened within my heart at that exact moment in time was a visceral experience for me.  It was that day the world turned grey.  Colors lost their vibrancy and my innocence evaporated.  The crack deep within me was made larger and cut deeper into my world as I kept a keen eye out for anything which supported my new belief that the world was not safe.  Mother yelling at my brothers in a shrill voice was immediately shifted to a syrupy sweet, “Hello,” when she picked up the ringing wall phone.  What was real, I wondered.  Who was my mother?  Was she angry or sweet?  What did the pill bottle do that I could not do for her?

People now ask if my mother is still alive.  That is a tough question.  My brother states that my mother is nothing more than a remnant of the women that raised him.  I have come to terms with the idea that she is a walking pill bottle.  Her 40 year reliance on increasing levels of opiates has certainly diminished her ability to function in the role I wished she could have assumed.  When I think of my mother it is easier to think of her as the troubled and powerless little sister, the one family member who had lots of potential but never could quite pull it together. Consequently the lives of the entire family are altered by the drama with which the family rallies around.

As I type, this my family has called neighbors to go see if my mother is dead, lying in her recliner chair with her morphine patch attached to her arm and her Oxycontin bottle tipped over by her side.  Likely, she will be awoken from a drug-addled slumber and we will receive the report that she was just “resting” for the last four days. I am well aware and certain that one of these days we will get the call that my mother has worn her last morphine patch.

There was one time when I got to truly “see” my mother.  We had done our only failed attempt at a family intervention and she reluctantly agreed to go into a treatment facility to prove to us that the medications she was taking was for pain and not an addiction.  After three months of hard detox she was moved to a rehabilitative ranch.  She had been weaned off the hardest of narcotics and was being stabilized with medications to address the underlying mental illness.  When my mother met me outside the ranch home, it was as if I was meeting a stranger, a dream come true, and the mother I had always wanted.

For the first time, her eyes were clear.  Her speech was understandable, not slurred or forced.  Her mouth was not dry, her jaw did not twitch.  She didn’t wring her hands nor did she shake them back and forth claiming they didn’t work right.  She was not the hyperactive whirlwind I had come to tolerate but, rather, she was slow to speak and had a peaceful elegance about her every move.  It was the only time I remember getting a clear and present experience of my mother, one absent a steady stream of doctor’s prescriptions and rattling pill bottles.

During my visit at the ranch I listened and observed for signs that this was truly the new life she had sought to create.  I was neither disappointed nor upset when the words she spoke indicated this would be a short-lived experience.  I suspected her sobriety would not last; I suspected it was just a moment in time, a rare and precious moment to be memorized and burned into my heart and soul for constant reflection. She did not claim responsibility for her addiction nor did she have a plan for getting support to maintain her sobriety.  A week after our visit, she left the ranch and took a flight back home as a “cured woman” with the enthusiasm and promise of finally having the life she had dreamed was possible.  Within a week, however, she was back in the waiting room of the variety of doctors who willingly wrote scripts just to get her out of their offices.

I am more privileged than most children of addicts.  I caught a fifteen minute glimpse of the mother I might have had, were it not for the doctor’s prescriptions and her addiction to their remedies. That day at the ranch I actually met an extraordinarily beautiful and highly intelligent women who might have created a very different life experience.  Many children of addicts never get that; never see who their parent might have been… if only.

My childhood fracture could have broken me, and in a way, I must admit it did.  I suffered through a world of greys and depression until I reached well into my 40’s.  But this fracture, as disabling as it was, became the fuel in the engine of my life’s purpose.  It became the catalyst for my work with our nation’s incarcerated, 80 percent of whom have drug and alcohol related crimes.

Personally, it is still a challenge to think of my childhood as a blessing but as a result, I have a purpose which drives me to greater levels of excellence.  I feel compelled, driven and committed to identify and deliver a simplified way for any individual to make positive decisions in their life.  I suffered great emotional pain as a child, hoping and wishing for a mother who was not there.  And while my mother is less than 300 miles from where I now live, she cannot be there in the ways a child dreams and hopes.  She is preoccupied with carefully managing the cocktail of patches and pills and wandering her home all night and sleeping all day.  My mother left this earth long ago; escaping in the only way she knew how from the pain which was too great for her to bear. I am an orphan.

The blessing I now experience is that through my pain and suffering in my orphan-hood, others who suffer from a similar plight as my mother are benefiting.  I was orphaned at the hand of opiates on my 10^th birthday, but I am a good sister to anyone seeking the simple tools for altering one’s addictive destiny.  I am an orphan, yes, but I have a family which encompasses a world of humans now better off for my suffering.  I made the choice not to be broken beyond repair and to use my childhood fracture as my greatest strength. This is the message I am compelled to share with incarcerated men, women and children.  You may be broken, but you are not beyond repair.  You may be damaged, but not beyond your ability to contribute great things to your brothers and sisters, no matter who they are or what their struggles may be.

I do not judge my mother harshly.  What if her role in this life was to provide me with the catalyst for my work?  If I did not suffer through her addition with her, would I have been motivated to seek a solution to our nation’s struggle with addiction.  Being an orphan is as painful as we make it.  It is also the privilege of strengthening a weakness until it becomes of great service to the maximum number of those who suffer.

FROM MY PRISON WINDOW

Dear Rilen,

I am writing you this letter but am also going to publish it on my blog on the internet so it can be shared with others.  I will also make copies of it to send in the mail to the men and women who write GOGI seeking help in their journey toward internal freedom. This story may eventually find its way into a GOGI book of inspirational messages, as well.  The story I am going to tell you is actually a dream I have had; a recurring dream, one which has played over and over during my sleep, as if calling me to somehow find a resolution to the desperate helplessness I experienced under the circumstances of the dream’s events.   I know you will understand the dream, as you have experienced a similar life experience to that of the girl in my dream.

It is early morning in my dream. The sun has not yet crept over the hills in the distance.  I am a little girl, no older than 8 or 9.  By the way I am dressed and the buildings, the horse-drawn carriages, and the women with the bonnets and big dresses, it seems in the early 1800’s. Maybe it is Ireland as the people are fair skinned and the landscape lends itself to images I have of the terrain of Ireland where my ancestors lived before immigrating to the United States.

The dream takes place in an active village with possibly thousands of residents; a large enough place for a child to escape being seen, if so desired.  While the buildings and people are clear in my mind, the dream starts from an isolated prison cell. It is me in the prison cell, a little girl locked away from the village she can only witness from a small window a few feet above her.

I am very aware of how I came to this place and I am not angry as much as I am desperate; powerless and anxious.  My tattered clothing and matted hair are of no consequence to me.  I care very little about the filth on my knees or the dirt under my fingernails.  I don’t see the smudges on my face, nor do I care about the remnants of sleep in the corners of my eyes.  The ripped and torn dress I am wearing is brown, not because it was made from brown fabric, but for the three years which it has been on my body, it has never been washed.  I am hungry, but I do not care. I just wish my stomach would shut up so I could think more clearly.

The fact that I am an orphan does not bring tears to my eyes, as that is the least of my concerns.  I didn’t cry the day they died and have not cried since. It is not as if I am cold, it is just that tears serve no purpose. The week will die, only the strong will live.  I will not cry about being locked in this cell, either, but a sense of anxiousness and desperation is overpowering to me and I want nothing more than to rip off the bars and jump through the window onto the street below.   I have always been able to fix problems, but here I am, locked away and trapped.  Still, I will not cry.

My little brother needs me.  He is not strong, not nearly as strong as me.  He is tender, like my mother; too tender for his own good.  He was born sickly and was only two years old when momma was killed.  It’s been up to me to care for him. I am his mother now.  He is too trusting and too vulnerable.  I have to watch him all the time or he is spotted by people who approach us wondering where our mother is. I am his only protector, the one who has kept us alive for what seems to be a lifetime. At night I soothe his tears with gentle humming, like my momma used to do.  And I hold him in my arms and gently rock him until he falls asleep.  When he sleeps, I leave our secret hiding place and I go find our food for the next day.

It is easy to find food if you know where to look. When the shops are closed and everyone has gone into their homes for the night, it is in the rubbish bins in the back where you can find the freshest and widest varieties of delicacies thrown out by the shopkeepers who must offer fresh goods to the morning’s customers.  If I get there right after the shops close and before the others come to scavenge for food, I can return home in just a few short minutes.  If I am late, or the supply is short, I must look elsewhere for our sustenance.

On this particular night, there was not a morsel of food to be found behind the shops.  I had arrived too late.  But, if I ran quickly, I could get to the back of the bakery before the carts left and take a loaf of bread, which would feed us for a couple of days, at least.

I am a fast runner, but more than fast, it is important not to be seen.  I am really good at moving unnoticed. Three years of practice has nearly perfected my skills.  Grabbing a loaf of bread was not a problem. It felt warm in my hands. I tucked it behind my back into the waist of my clothes and suddenly felt the firm grip of someone stopping me dead in my tracks. My heart started to beat wildly.  I looked up to see the red face of an angry man.

“You little thief,” he said with a tightening grip that hurt my arm. The bread dropped to the ground and I was led away.  That was how I ended up in the block building with the window overlooking the village as it came to life.

Was my brother awake, yet? Was he crying?  What was I to do?  What would happen to my little brother?

With all my power I moved one of the blocks near the solid wood door over to the wall just under the window.  If I tippy toed and used the bars to pull myself up a bit, I could see the street outside.  I would raise myself up until my arms gave out, looking onto the street to see if I could spot my brother.  Until night fell, I repeated the same effort, pulling myself up to see if my little brother was looking for me.

That was always the end of my dream.  The helplessness was a profound feeling which permeated my thoughts long after I awoke.  Over and over in my mind I thought about that dream, the hopeless circumstances for the little girl and her abandoned brother.   For years this dream bounced around my head and heart during my sleep and my waking hours. And it always created the same feeling of hopelessness and desperation.

Every time I thought about this dream there was no sense of wishing things different.  I didn’t spend time wishing the man outside the bakery didn’t catch the little girl. I didn’t wish that her parents had escaped being killed. I never even considered the possibility of the little boy being stronger.  I never wondered what life could have been like for them if only a nice lady in a pink hat would have found both of the children three years before.  The fact is, the dream was the dream and their appeared to be no option or resolution to be found.

Today, however, while I was closing my eyes and thinking, thoughts of the dream came to mind.  I played out the dream in my mind, the moving of the stone, the grasping onto the cold bars to pull myself up.  In my dream, I had always imagined that I was in solitary, locked away from the entire world.  To me, there was no one in that room but me.   As I sat and considered this in my quiet and contemplative state, I decided to expand the possibilities beyond the limits of my dream’s reality.   In my mind, I saw the little girl lowering herself from the window.

“Come on now, Dear,” the woman’s voice said.  “Your little brother is not going to be wandering the streets.”

As I turned and took a seat on the stone, I could see the other people in the room.  A warm and tender woman, who had addressed me was not the only person there.  There were some men, and even a few children about my age, some even younger.  I was not alone.  There were others, just like me, locked away for breaking a rule we had no choice but to break.

In my awaked state I wondered what would have happened to the little girl if she had the ability to use the Twelve Tools of GOGI?  WHAT IF I was her? How would I use those tools to find internal freedom? I began to LET GO of the urgency to escape.  I began to FORGIVE my mother and father for dying.  I began to CLAIM RESPONSIBILITY for remaining calm.  I began to do my BELLY BREATHING, which gave me increased level of internal power.  I acknowledged that I was BOSS OF MY BRAIN and I could control my thoughts and reactions to anything.  When I started to drift back to desperation I would acknowledge the emotion for no more than five seconds then move on to a new productive thought as I used my FIVE SECOND LIGHTSWITCH.

I chose POSITIVE THOUGHTS, POSTIVE WORDS and POSITIVE ACTIONS as I observed and began to converse with the other individuals in the holding cell with me.  I considered the WHAT IF, realizing that any one of these individuals might be able to, or might know someone who might help me save my brother.  When I felt my heart heavy and sensed water try to make itself into my eyes, I would have a REALITY CHECK and acknowledge that being in the room with others was far more advantageous than being locked away alone.  And my ULTIMATE FREEDOM came when I was able to comfort another one of the children who began to cry.

As I thought about the dream and of a possible ending, I considered a Christian Bible teaching that states that when we do something to the lowest of individuals, it is as if we are doing that very thing to God.  When the little girl turned her attention to the good she could do, not the good she wanted to do, that opened the way for more good to occur.  She could not directly impact her brother’s wellbeing from inside the wall, but she could positively impact the life of an individual seated right next to her.  If she tended to those she could assist, who is to say that the favor would not be extended to her loved one?

WHAT IF one of the individuals who were being held in the same cell was released that evening and they went to the secret place and found the young boy?  What if the young boy was fed and washed and cared for until the return of his sister?  By focusing on what she could do with the situation before her, and by being of good service to others, the girl was creating the possibility of magical outcomes.

I don’t think I will have the dream of the little girl in the prison cell anymore.  I think the message is clear.  I am to do what I can with the situation at hand.  I am not to be concerned with things outside my window, things I can not directly impact positively at this exact moment.  And while I may feel powerless in certain areas of my life, I can also create the possibility that the favor of kindness is extended to the things which matter in my life as I tend to what matters in the lives of others.

Love,  Coach Taylor

What’s Your Personal Prison?

As GOGI continues to expand and earn credibility as the cost-effective and replicable solution to the failure of our jails and prisons to “correct” the behavior of 2.3 million law-breaking citizens, I am being asked to expand the GOGI message beyond prison cells into the boardrooms of our Nation’s leaders.  This coming month, as the founder of Getting Out by Going In (GOGI), I will speak to hundreds of inmates one week and have the opportunity to address an equal number of tuxedo-clad men with their sequined-adorned counterparts the following.

Speaking to prisoners is easy and natural for me.  I have done it for a decade; choosing only to speak after sufficiently listening to their needs and combining their desire for information with my studies in psychology and spirituality.  As I prepare for the task of sharing the “GOGI phenomenon” with those gathered over a chef-prepared meal delivered by underpaid waiters, the question arose in my mind, what could these very different audiences possibly have in common?

The prisoners are individuals tucked away by the courts for not playing nicely on the playground of society.  The other audience has full advantage of all that society offers and can be found tucked away in trendy vacation spots, adorned with expensive clothes and jewelry as they temporarily get  away from their finely appointed hilltop homes. How could these two audiences have anything in common? And what could I possibly say which might touch the hearts and souls of both groups of individuals?

For the answer, I consider the obvious.  Prisoners are oftentimes poor, undereducated or inadequately raised. Each of these men, women and children behind bars seek their physical freedom, as if walking beyond the wall would eliminate every problem they had ever experienced.  On the other side of society are those individuals with their physical and financial freedom intact who seek a different kind of life experience, one which they believe comes through their careers, their increasing number of possessions or prescription drugs and a 5 o’clock drink.   As diametrically opposed as they may seem, both groups of individuals are laboring with the same prison, the external search for internal freedom.

In a very real way, each of us suffers from our own self-imposed prison.  I say self-imposed because how we respond to life’s inevitable unfairness, inequity and misfortune is the determining factor in our level of personal imprisonment.  And it is through my work with tens of thousands of incarcerated individuals over the past decade, I have come to realize that prison is very much a state of mind, rather than a place, a situation, or a condition imposed upon us by any person other than ourselves.  What’s more, the personal prisons created by physically free individuals are oftentimes as debilitating as those created by someone behind bars.

The Twelve Tools of GOGI were created over the period of a decade through listening to the incarcerated; listening to their life experiences, their excuses, their reasons and eventually their resolutions to create something better for themselves and their families.  Through many pat-downs and countless trips behind the heavy prison doors, the Twelve Tools of GOGI were developed by me and the inmates to aid any individual willing to explore a new kind of freedom; GOGI’s path toward internal freedom.

The Twelve Tools of GOGI are: LET GO, FORGIVE, CLAIM RESPONSIBILITY, BOSS OF MY BRAIN, BELLY BREATHING, FIVE SECOND LIGHTSWITCH, POSITIVE THOUGHTS, POSITIVE WORDS, POSITIVE ACTIONS, WHAT IF, REALITY CHECK and ULTIMATE FREEDOM. It is through the application of these inmate-developed tools that I have personally witnessed the lasting transformation in the lives of individuals who had given up all hope of living a “normal” life.  The freedom now experienced by Teri, a GOGI Graduate and certified GOGI Coach who once lived under a freeway in a drug-induced stupor, far exceeds the illusion of freedom of some of my most financially successful private practice clients.

As I prepare to be heard by the tuxedo-filled rooms of our Nation, I realize the message I offer to the elegantly-dressed is the same message I offer individuals wearing State-issued blues.  We all seek a freedom which is only found within.  What we wear, what we drive and where we wake up each morning is insignificant if we do not have the ability to turn within to realize our freedom.

As GOGI continues to prove that even the most difficult changes are possible, it is my prayer that this positive culture, this organic self-help virus called GOGI can spread out beyond the cells of our prisons into our Nation’s board rooms as well as our children’s classrooms, creating the possibility of internal freedom in the lives of all men, women and children… incarcerated or not.

GOGI The Hawk: A Story of Getting Strong

GOGI THE HAWK
A Story of Getting Strong
By Coach Mara Leigh Taylor
Getting Out By Going In (GOGI)

One advantage of the aging process is that, if you are mindful and pay attention, a purposeful life comes more clearly into focus. If your goal is wisdom and internal happiness, rather than fight against the sands of time, you begin to pay attention to the events and circumstances in your life, gently linking them to a subtle meaning of personal importance.
It is a shame this process of observing rather than reacting to life comes after a half century of trial and error living, but alas, this appears to be the process of the human existence for most of us. In hindsight, I would have benefited from listening to anyone who might have told me that the world around me was not my adversary but my greatest teacher. But, even if someone shared those words of wisdom, I was not interested in listening and probably would not remember their advice anyway. In my youth, I would not have thought much about the baby hawk which prompts me to share this story. Now, however, I can see how the hawk in this story is the story of all of us, if we are willing to look beyond the obvious and into the metaphor which unfolds in every event we witness.
This spring was particularly windy in the mountain area where my father made his home. When I relocated to his cabin to care for him during the final months of his life, I left behind one of the biggest cities and all the chatter which comes with millions of people living in a tightly packed area. Life in the mountains permits a person to really think about the importance of things and between the 300 year-old Ponderosa Pines and Quaking Aspens, there is an offer of mental space for those who wish to indulge in such organic pleasures. In the mountains you are subject to nature’s laws, not the laws of humans scurrying from one appointment to the next on over-crowded manmade freeways.
When the wind picks up in the mountain, humans close their windows and remain inside until Mother Nature’s temper tantrum is over and peace is resumed. For the critters of the forest, however, they must cling on through any adverse weather and fight for their very survival. After one terribly destructive windstorm which stirred up chaos in the mountains and ripped ancient trees from roots, a county-employed meter-reader came upon what looked like a dead bird on the side of the road. Upon further inspection, he noticed it was a newly hatched hawk, complete with baby hawk fuzzy feathers and a body that could be held in one hand. When the worker went to remove the dead carcass from the street, however, the little guy not only showed signs of life, but he struggled to get away, his instinct for survival was intact. Not knowing what to do with his new responsibility, the county worker started placing calls to find someone, anyone, who might help this prematurely nest-ejected bird with the strong will to live.
After a series of calls, the county worker was referred to the Mountain Man. Don has lived on the mountain more decades than most people have been alive. He raised hawks as a child and was sometimes referred to as “Poppa Bird.” Cutting the county worker off an unnecessarily long explanation, Don gave the county worker precise instructions on how to transport the little fella to his home. Prior to the arrival of what would be identified as a 3-4 week old infant Cooper’s hawk, Don created a “hack station”, which was a netted cage on the third floor porch of his A-frame cabin. This cage would restrict the hawk’s mobility just long enough for Don to assess his readiness to return to his community. When the hawk first arrived it had been transported in a dark and barren box. Don left it in the box for a while, alone and confined, hoping the hawk would settle into his new circumstances with little resistance. The Mountain Man needed the hawk to come to understand the opportunity it was being given to live, but the hawk need to participate in the process if success was to result from all the effort extended in his behalf. The hawk would need to remain calm and begin the process of building the muscles needed to survive on the outside world. After some time, the side of the box was opened which enabled the hawk to explore its new confined setting on the porch. For quite a while the little guy simply tilted his head left and right, assessing things and occasionally puffing up his chest to ward off anyone trying to get too close.
I took an interest in the hawk and the transformation I hoped would happen. Here was an innocent bird, thrust into a cold and unforgiving world with no skills, talents, or teachers. He was on his own; a far cry from the warm nest he probably shared with his 3-4 siblings and protective mother. But, this was his last chance. If he could not make it here, he would undoubtedly die without ever experiencing the exhilaration of flying over the tops of the trees in the cool mountain air. I looked at him and wondered how his life would unfold.
As his box was placed facing out toward the world, I glanced beyond the barrier to what the hawk might see in the world around him. There were a variety of birds in the nearby trees, flying free and doing what forest birds do when the winds have subsided. My thoughts drifted to the other birds. What if they actually noticed the hawk, wondering about the misery it must be experiencing being locked in a cage? Certainly the birds flying free could not understand the role the cage played in the life of that bird. If it were not for that cage, the hawk would have been the dinner meal of some predator. The only chance the hawk had to remain alive was to be locked away for now. But being locked away was no guarantee of survival, either. In the absence of understanding of the process or a clear explanation of the goals, the hawk would need to trust, have faith, and then do the good works which would enable his freedom.
Of course, I named the rescued hawk “GOGI”. (All rescued animals are named GOGI in my world. There has been GOGI the Squirrel, GOGI the Parakeet, GOGI the Dog. And now there was GOGI the Hawk. ) Safe under the watchful, and tough-love care of Don the Mountain Man, GOGI the Hawk was going to need to learn tools he never had the opportunity to learn. He would need to grow muscles he never knew existed. He would need to think thoughts he had never thought before. He would need to have associates to which he was unaccustomed. And, if he was going to live, he would need to remain behind bars long enough develop the muscles for survival. Then, he would need to prove to Don the Mountain Man that he could fly free and live a good hawk’s life. His success, however, was completely dependent upon how he responded to his new environment.
GOGI stood still in the corner for quite some time, instinctively assessing if he was intended as the next meal for the enemy which had trapped and locked him away. His first action was to thrust his baby-fuzz body against the netting which was restricting his freedom. His little feet hung on as he struggled for release from the web-like hold of the netting. Would he survive, I asked myself? Could he possibly understand the opportunity was being given in being plucked from certain death? Would he instinctively come to learn that he needed to build the internal muscles which would permit him to get out of his cage by going inward for the answers? Knowing a supportive environment helps in all healing and learning, I was grateful Don was the one to provide the cage, but environment is not always a controllable element. Even if GOGI were to have been caged by a less-skilled Poppa Bird, GOGI had to have the will to live which was stronger than his instincts to fight like hell for escape. GOGI’s success was entirely up to GOGI and the effort he put forth.
Days passed with GOGI inching toward a modicum of comfort. His growth seemed almost hourly. As his adolescent feathers began to come into place, all the baby fuzz drifted into the gentle breeze. During the daylight hours, probably bored into a state of self-amusement, he learned that hopping from one end of the cage to the other afforded him different views of his world. He learned his talons, his little feet, were strong and could hold his body while he navigated narrow spaces. He learned his vision was superb as he instinctively began to focus on small objects outside. He learned his cage, while not optimal, was still a place for him to grow and learn. He learned to jump. Then he learned to jump with his wings extended.
The most unfortunate aspect of Mother Nature is the “survival of the fittest” design. In the world of hawks, less than 3 percent of all youngsters live beyond one year. Most get eaten, caught in wire, or otherwise disabled and devoured. Not unlike our National recidivism rate for incarcerated men, women and children, GOGI the Hawk has only a small chance of survival unless he spends every minute of every day in keen preparation for his day of freedom. If GOGI is to earn his way into that small 3 percent of survivors and soar free in skies well into his adulthood, he is going to need to be diligent in the learning of tools he will need for his survival. Once he proved ready for the wild, the netting would be cut and he could come and go as he pleased. He would leave the safe confines of the netted porch to test his wings. He would have his opportunity at freedom where he would use his flap- flap-glide flight style as he flew freely among the tips of the trees. Would he make it out there as a free bird? He could, if his skills were developed enough. Would he live to be one of those 3-percenters who live longer than a year? He could, if he took every opportunity to learn. His youth would be his only enemy; that one thing which might cut short his opportunity for a long life. In his youth, he might overlook a detail, or believe he had a certain level of immortality. His youth was his biggest vulnerability, offset, perhaps, by a willingness to observe and learn.
There is a wisdom which comes from living a long time and learning to pay attention to the lessons available in all things in our world. For GOGI, if he paid attention to the world around him, if he absorbed each and every lesson he could learn, he just might make it in the free world. But GOGI’s success was going to entirely up to him. He would be free to make the choices which would give him a long and fruitful life or he would make choices which would mean a short life. When the time was right, the Mountain Man unzipped the cage and GOGI the Hawk was given his one shot at freedom.
In my willingness to observe all aspects of life as having meaning, observing the rescue of the little hawk reminded me that cages can be a lifesaver. Feeling trapped can be exactly what we need to build the correct muscles. Being locked away can be the biggest blessing of our existence. It is my secret hope that GOGI will live to be the oldest Cooper’s hawk on the mountain. It is also my prayer that he becomes the father of other Cooper’s hawks that are taught skills and tools of survival from their master father.
In a very real way, GOGI the Hawk has been my teacher and I know for certain there will not be a day I do not look upward, hoping to witness the beauty and elegance of GOGI the Hawk soaring strong and free against the blue sky. The reality of his fate, however, will only reside in my imagination.

Lost Lady and a Mustard Seed

On February 22, 2007, my home was severely damaged by an electrical fire.  With the economic downturn and bank failures which followed later that year,  became impossible for me to secure adequate funding necessary to repair my home in a timely manner.  As a result, I had to pay for repairs in a piecemeal manner, from personal strategy sessions with clients who hire me to help them increase the likelihood of happiness in their lives.

And if the worry over funding my home reconstruction wasn’t enough, my used car’s transmission had been increasingly defiant, refusing to move from one gear to the next with the ease to which I had grown accustomed over the previous two years.  After seeking the opinion of a several dealerships familiar with the make and model, I knew that it was only a matter of time before I would have a hefty bill for the replacement of what was refusing to be the self-repairing transmission.  Six thousand dollars was what one dealership quoted.  In a seeder part of town, Miguel and his father, proprietors of a little neighborhood shop next to the railroad tracks, said he could rebuild the dying transmission for a little less than three thousand dollars.

The time I spent each day worrying every time a gear slipped was inordinate, as if worrying about it would actually reverse the steady decline of its operation.  No matter how much I thought about the transmission, it wasn’t going to change the course of needed repair.  Eventually, I would be writing a check for the repairs on my single source of transportation. Whether it was six or three grand, every penny I was making was going into securing that I had a flushing toilet and electric lighting in my burned-out home.

The endless thoughts of my transmission woes followed me on one of my frequent trips to a nearby Home Depot for one repair part after next.  Danny, my home repairman, and I drove – carefully – along a major thoroughfare, making certain I was positioned in the far right lane in case the car failed to move forward.  I was coasting up to a stoplight hoping it would turn green before my car came to a full stop.  When you aren’t sure if the car can move forward, stoplights are not your friend.

Out of my peripheral, I saw an elderly woman standing on the corner under the bus sign.  I would not have paid much attention to her but something kept my attention on her every move.  At first it was nothing more than a glance, but turned my attention to this well-dressed woman at the bus stop. It was getting dark.  I didn’t see frequent buses running and I suspected that night vision was not her strong suit.

I pulled my beleaguered auto over to the curb, gently guided it into the parked position and asked Danny to keep an eye on the car while I saw if the woman needed help.  Not wanting to frighten her, or insult her, I called out, “Excuse me miss, do you know if the bus is coming by soon?”

She turned away from her fixed focus on the road ahead and looked toward me.

“Oh, I don’t know, I certainly hope so,” she said with obvious distress in her voice.

“Have you been waiting here long?”

“Oh, yes, a very long time,” she replied.

It was Sunday and I suspected the bus was not running any longer.  I could see the woman was chilled, the grocery bag she carried seemed heavy and there was no indication she would be boarding a city bus anytime soon.

“If you want, Miss, my friend Danny, and I have a car right over here, and I bet we are going in the direction close to your home.”

“Oh, that would be just wonderful,” she said with a sweet smile of relief.

I walked slowly with her back to my car.  Danny slipped into the back seat and the woman gave a sigh of relief as she sat down and I closed her door.  The woman reached in her purse and offered a couple of dollars to pay for the gas it would take to get her from Manchester and Sepulveda to Western and 54^th, or, at least, she thought it was 54^th, but it could be 45^th, or somewhere in that general area.

“Alzheimer’s is trying to eat my brain,” she offered. “But I go to the casino and work on numbers.  Watching the numbers on the machine keeps my mind sharp,” she explained.

“Do you have someone we should call, to let them know you are going to be home soon?” I asked, knowing there was a great many homes between 45^th and 54^th streets and it wasn’t the safest area in the city.

“I have a daughter in Lancaster,” she replied, “but no need to call her.  I will be just fine.”

The car got quiet.  Danny was observing the frail woman and her gentle hands holding her bag of groceries and her vintage handbag.  She seemed quite relieved to be out of the cold, trusting out of necessity that she would make it home.

I began wondering what my life would be like in fifty years and if someone would stop and take me home if I got lost.  It was then I realized, I wasn’t paying attention to the transmission any longer.  There were bigger challenges faced by less fortunate individuals than myself.

The woman’s story unfolded.  She had been a registered nurse for the better part of her life.  During her career, she had discovered two vitamins that, she believed, if everyone took, they would “live a very long time.”  Fruit Essence and Bone vitamins, she said.  Well, unfortunately, neither of her favorite vitamins was being manufactured any more, but there was a store a bit further from her normal route of shopping that had something like it.  She had gotten on the bus to track down that store and those essential supplements.

Somehow, she had gotten on the wrong bus. Nightfall arrived, and she found herself standing on a strange street corner, she said, praying for a nice lady to come to her aid.

“Are you’re sure I can’t give you a couple of dollars for gas?” she asked, again.

This time Danny interjected.  “She won’t take your money, ma’am, but since your prayers seem to work pretty well, she sure could use a prayer that her house and car gets repaired.”

Without missing a beat, the woman bowed her head and took on the countenance of someone who knew exactly how to dial the direct line to the Almighty.

“Our God, you have told us that all we need is the faith of a mustard seed, Lord, and our needs will be met, Lord,” she began.

Her fragile hands moved like a skilled pastor addressing a full congregation, and her voice was filled with the conviction of someone who knew every word was being heard by a power greater than any human.

“This fine woman needs her home restored, Lord,” she continued. “She needs her home restored, Lord, so she can do your work, Lord.”

My mind drifted to the events this woman must have endured in her life which had created such a deep faith and direct line to the Powers that Be.

“We have the faith, Lord, now you do your work.  Amen,” she concluded.

“Amen,” Danny and I repeated.

“Oh my, we are close now.  I know where I am now,” she stated as she recognized some of the brightly painted buildings.

“Yes, we are very close, now.  We are at 50^th Street.  It was very lucky we were headed in this very same direction, wasn’t it?” I asked.

“That’s Jesus,” she said, “I just prayed and asked that some nice lady would come my way and help me out.  That was the Spirit that brought you to me,” she added.

On the way back to the safer side of town, I didn’t worry so much about the transmission or the needed repairs of my home.  My problems were, in fact, relatively petty.  I was not lost in a physical sense of the word, but maybe I had gotten a little lost in the superficial importance of earthly things.  And, the woman with the faith of the mustard seed got me back on track.  Imagine that, a frail woman at the bus stop with a bit of Alzheimer’s fixed my transmission problem.

Is “Less” Actually “More”?

It”s been a decade since my first visit inside a prison. It was Terminal Island Federal Prison in San Pedro, California, in 2002 where I first passed through the metal detector and was viscerally assaulted by the sound of the heavy metal doors slamming shut behind me.  Since that time, I have experienced a great many things behind bars, all leading to  the reason for this blog.  Somewhere along the way, amongst those who have no freedom, I learned how to find mine. I hope you enjoy the journey on which I now embark; sharing my experience of internal freedom with you….