Serving Life

I have said it before and I will say it again I have a weird obsession with dysfunction and abnormalities. I enjoy being in cemeteries and thinking about those who have passed on, I enjoy sad stories with sad endings (don’t worry, I enjoy happy endings too), and I love learning about criminals. I can’t tell you why, it is just that way. Growing up I always wanted to going into crime fighting and solve  murders. I don’t know why you need schooling for that! I think I am qualified after watching every Law and Order SVU episode made, Emergency 911, Bones, Pysch, and Lie to Me (almost done) etc. As of late, Mr. Bird has begun his studying and will be studying for the next four years as he enters Podiatry school, for me that means a lot of empty time… I am one of those annoying people who gets bored watching someone study and asks them what they are doing every 5 minutes, ask them to look at something, or tell them a story. He hasn’t said anything, but I know it drives Mr. Bird nuts! So last night I decided to do something productive (okay at least I considered it to be), I watched a documentary called “Serving Life” on Netflix. The story follows four different inmates who have been charged with felonies and are serving life sentences. The crimes ranged from murder, drugs, sex crimes, cruelty to minors, and armed robbery. The warden (a mini hero of mine) decided to start a program within the prison to teach the inmates compassion, something that many of them had never learned. Inmates could apply to be volunteers in a Hospice program that assisted prisoners on their death beds. As I watched the show and learned more about the inmates, many of the crimes occurred because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They had made that one decision to hang out with someone they shouldn’t. The inmates had forgotten the bigger picture. One of them had been tossed around homes in and out of foster care, he had never had anything stable in his life. He had been arrested multiple times, and was finally locked up for good. I can’t say what he was doing was good, wholesome, or even right! However, knowing that he wasn’t raised in a home with love and consistency he ended up doing the “usual,” what he was constantly surrounded by, made me sympathetic. It was his only view of survival, but it wasn’t right. Watching him take care of a dying patient was so touching, just because it proves people can change. Someone who was so messed up, spent his life in prison, sat next to a dying man and showed him true love and kindness. As I finished the documentary Mr. Bird walked in and I told him I just wanted to go befriend the prisoners who had changed their lives and showed true repentance. He started to laugh at my love for dysfunctional people and posed the question “what if it had been me they murdered?” It was true, I would have a hard time trying to forgive that person for killing my husband and best friend. It would rip my heart in two, but one of the things we have been sent to earth to do is to forgive all. It would be hard, but I would know I would have to do it.

Enough of my prison rants… Don’t worry I haven’t started writing inmates for The People I Find (yet)… If you have the time, I recommend it! It is a little bit different, so don’t watch it with your kids, but it will shed a different perspective!

(C)LVB 2014