The Volunteer: It's not about what you might think

 

It’s about time

Really. Time is what started the whole story. I read about a man in the newspaper who was sentenced to death and called off his appeals. The court obliged him and set the date of his execution. I tried to imagine it, what it must be like for him to know the date of his own death. Would he mark the day on the calendar with a red X? Would he X off each day before that one? What would his thoughts be, his emotions? It was hard to imagine his fear and yet I was drawn to it. To explore it. Time running out, ticking down to zero. By law, he could reinstate his appeals if he chose to, or his devastated family could talk him out of it. So, as the day draws closer, will he buckle? Some might say, Who cares? Obviously if the guy’s on death row, a convicted murderer, he’s no asset to society. 

The choice

Still, given that the self-preservation instinct is purportedly the strongest natural instinct a human being has, how desperate does a man have to be to ask to die? Or how remorseful? Or sickened by himself and his acts? According to one source I read, nationally, as many as one in six who are facing execution ask to die. The first was murderer Gary Gilmore, who was put to death via firing squad in Utah in 1977. More recently, the Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVeigh was a volunteer and serial killer Ted Bundy reportedly told police that he purposely committed murders in Florida because the state had the death penalty. Obviously there are few who mourn the passing of these men. Their families perhaps.

 

The fallout

And what about the family? Suppose you’re related to someone on death row who’s made such a decision? That big red X marks your calendar too. What if you’re his kid or his wife? Or his mother? The questions seemed enormous to me. Research for The Volunteer led me in several directions. There’s the ongoing argument that surrounds the death penalty in general, but more specific with regard to volunteers, there is the issue of whether the inmate is using the system to commit suicide versus the other cold-reality contention that calling an early end to the often years-long appeals process saves money. Statistics I read indicate that confining an inmate to death row is a great deal more expensive because of the heavy cost of the appeals. But appeals aside, according to sources I found, it costs Texas an average of $16,000 to house one inmate for one year. In California, the cost rises to a whopping $90,000 per year per inmate.

The more intimate focus

The story The Volunteer tells, though, is one of family. As parents, in general, we raise our children to be good people. We want them to be happy, but then they grow up, become adults. Whatever authority or control or means we had to keep them safe ultimately slips from our hands. In the blink of an eye, a choice is made, and they are plunged into circumstances that are not just life altering but life threatening.  Hearts are broken; freedom is lost. How much of this is the fault of parenting? Of mothering? In this case an inmate might well be put to death for his mistake, but what sentence does a mother receive?

The Volunteer tells a story about mothers and their children, guilty and innocent. It tells of the crimes that go unpunished. It tells how a terrible act done in one generation might not bear its evil fruit for several. It’s about collateral damage and extenuating circumstances. And it’s about the resilience of life and the human spirit. I think about that a lot, life’s resilience… every time I see a flower sprouting through cracked pavement, it reminds me how tenaciously life holds to itself.

 

 

The Language of Forgiveness

 

A lesson in courage

[caption id="attachment_536" align="alignleft" width="245" caption="In the language of flowers, raspberries signify remorse"][/caption]

I have been fortunate in my life to attend as a support person a handful of 12-step meetings. I say fortunate because of the courage and humility I witnessed at these gatherings. It was a lesson to me. In the pursuit of feeding their addiction, the people in the room had wreaked havoc in their lives and in the lives of people they loved; they were stripped of everything and yet somehow found the courage to face the nightmare that drove them. They found a way  back. In my lifetime I don’t imagine I will ever feel so much bravery again. Each meeting I attended, I was in awe.

Hitting the wall

For some the journey to recovery took years. They lost the love of their spouses, parents, friends, and children. They lost jobs and fortunes. One man told how he’d gone broke as the result of his habit; he had nothing, a room in a rundown motel, a junker of a car. So one day, what turned out to be the turning point day, he forced another car off the road, dragged out the driver and knocking him down on his knees, jammed a gun to his head and demanded all his money. He wanted, needed, craved . . . name a substance, an activity. He said something woke up inside him, an awareness that seemed separate from his body and for a crucial moment, he was a horrified bystander, a witness to the realization that this guy--himself--was now ready to kill to get what he wanted. He backed off before the driver could fumble his wallet from his pocket, and apologizing profusely, dove into his car and drove away with tears blurring his vision. He was remorseful, so filled with shame that for days he couldn’t eat or sleep. He could barely breathe.

Atonement

Finally, he found a meeting. He reached the place where he was ready to atone for his errors. He was desperate for any means to make it up to those whom he had harmed. But the people who most needed to believe in him were too angry, or heartbroken, or worse, they were indifferent. They had given up on him along a road that was tarred over with his broken promises and they refused his apologies. He didn’t blame them and he didn’t quit. The night I heard him speak, fifteen years had passed since he’d pulled the gun on that driver.

 

[caption id="attachment_537" align="alignright" width="300" caption="A gift of blue scilla suggests we forgive and forget."][/caption]

First do no harm

I had a partner once who could apologize with such ease and grace, it would leave me stammering. I so admired that and tried to learn from it. But it was attending the 12-step meetings that really made me think about the whole issue of forgiveness, in particular it was the ninth step that caught my attention: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. I had never thought in terms of an apology causing harm before, but it makes sense. Somebody you love lies to you, betrays you, steals from you time and again until finally you’ve had enough and you leave. You build a new life. Years go by. You don’t think about it anymore; those dark memories no longer trouble your sleep. But then the person reappears, reformed now, or so they claim, asking for forgiveness, opening the door to the past you have worked hard to forget.

Do they have the right?

That’s the question. Should a person offer to make amends if it only serves to reopen old wounds? I heard arguments for both sides at the meetings, but what I mostly heard was how difficult it was to even get to this place. It was hard for these folks to look at themselves and what they’d done much less face the people they may have harmed. A lot of them said the ninth step was the most difficult, the one they had to bypass and come back to again and again. I was intrigued by these stories; the seeds for a novel about the whole subject began to grow, and as I wrote The Ninth Step, it seemed to me that the step is universal in its spirit, in what it attempts to convey: that true forgiveness is offered without expectation of absolution and that even the decision of whether to offer it or not is based on the effect it will have on the person to whom it is being offered.

I’m sorry. Who knew two simple words could be packed with the power to wound as well as to heal? For a very interesting look at how the concept of forgiveness has evolved through the ages, in particular from the view from the world’s religions, check out this Wikipedia entry.