Witnessing Truth

“Truth is beautiful and divine no matter how humble its origin.” –Michael Pupin.

He spoke, his voice barely audible above the noise of the visiting room at the prison. We’d played a few hands of cards and munched on some cookies. We’ve only been visiting regularly for a few weeks, chatting about school and his family, and what he wanted to do when he got paroled.

I’d seen it in his eyes, a dark inner story pent up inside, needing to be told.

Tonight, it was time for truth, raw, unvarnished, naked and real.

Sweat beaded up on his forehead, his eyes locking into me.

He laid the cards down, leaned towards me, and began to tell his story, about how he ended up here, making some bad choices, wrestling with the many demons that had stalked his childhood, sending him down his dark road.

His thirteenth year was the worst, the culmination of so much darkness.

His eyes glistened, and he wiped a tear away, as he kept telling his story, filling me in on where he’d been in his young life, and where he wanted to go.

We were doing his homework tonight, working on an assignment that was past due, a requirement for his real graduation, getting out on parole and moving on with his life. This was his duty, to get real with me and tell his story, with all its darkness and shame. In the telling, he held the keys to the door. Being open with me was his path out, his road to freedom.

“I’m scared,” he said. “I just want to be a kid, to have a childhood I never had. Out there terrifies me.”

“I doubt that I’m ready,” he said.

I nodded, telling him we all find the world scary, challenging even in the best of times. We all have our demons and our doubts, I told him.

“You’ll do fine,” I said. “You have your act together. You’re a good man. You’ve got your support team.”

“I’m here to listen to you,” I said.

He wiped his eyes again, and told me more about his life, unloading his shipload of guilt, shame, and remorse.

“I’ve written this all out, and shared it with my family,” he said. “But, I’ve never said all of this out loud before. It was too hard to say the words.”

He’d brought paper and a pencil, but after he wrote out the names and ages of his victims, he laid the pencil down.

“I’ve got to just say this,” he said. “I’ve got to tell you face to face.”

He paused, looking me, a look of expecting something horrible.

“And man to man,” I said. “I’m here for you now.”

It all came out, one slow sentence at a time. He’d look at me, half expecting me to throw a punch, curse at him and walk out on him. His eyes told me that his sins were beyond horrible, unforgiveable, nearly unspeakable.

But, I didn’t move or bat an eye. I stayed there, glued to my seat, ears open wide, my heart aching as his river of pain flowed across the table and flooded the cold cement floor of the visiting room. I was an audience of one, my mission to listen, not pass judgment, to be here as a vessel of unconditional love.

Truth was being told here, his truth, with an occasional tear falling on his hand of cards for the abandoned game, and the rest of the cookies, now forgotten in the telling of this tale.

I leaned forward, eye to eye, and heart to heart. One man to another. Two survivors, two men on our own journeys in life.

“I hear you,” I said. “I hear your truth.”

His shoulders lowered a bit, and his hand waving the half eaten cookie stopped shaking.

I waited, letting him have his space, room to find one painful word after another. They came out slowly, one story and then another, the autobiography of a strong young man.

Finally, there were no more words. I felt at ease. My brave soldier breathed deep and let it all out.

“Thank you,” I said. “Thanks for being brave. And honest. For telling your truth.”

He nodded, the cloud of shame and guilt clearing, the atmosphere in the room easing up.

“Do you want to finish our game?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “You’ve done great work here, and you’re tired. I’ll go so you can get some rest.”

“Being brave and telling the truth is hard work,” I said. “I’m honored to have heard your story tonight.”

He nodded again, a faint smile lighting up his face. We hugged, and I told him I was proud of him, proud of who he was becoming.

We’ll do this again next week, and he’ll tell me more. Not that I want or need the details. I am merely his witness. He needs to tell his story, and speak his truth to the world. He needs to be free of so much.

–Neal Lemery June 2, 2016

Spare the Rod, Save the Child

Someone recently commented on how they felt children should be disciplined and raised, saying that a good swat on the butt was a good thing, and that “discipline” helped their child learn right from wrong.

“If you spare the rod, you spoil the child.” That’s old thinking, and I’ve seen the harm and the failures in that view of parenting.

I spoke up, disagreeing, expressing my opinion that violence teaches violence, that physical punishment demeans a child and fuels their anger. Instead of building up a child, violence in any form sends a message that they are worth less than others, and that the answer to a situation is pain, tears, and degrading another person. Words are weapons and you are successful when you conquer your enemy on the battlefield.

Parenting is tough work, and requires a wide range of skills and approaches, especially when the child learns more from what you do than what you say. And, yet, the method we fall back on, the one that comes first to mind, is how I was raised, and how I was treated.

As a parent, I have always tried to be a good example, to be, as Gandhi said, the change you want to see in the world.

“How do I change behavior, how do I teach this child that there is another approach to how they are dealing with life?” I ask myself, when conflict arises, when a lesson needs to be taught, when change in behavior and thinking needs to occur.

If I spank, if I slap, if I use loud and demeaning words, then I only teach by bad example, and, later on, I will reap the harvest of shame, anger, and even rage. The family will suffer, and, so will the community. We will have another angry person, whose approach to problems and difficulties in life will be the path of violence, and being able to communicate only through a fist, or a string of mean, vicious words loaded with sarcasm and degradation.

Is that what kind of world we want for our kids, an atmosphere of put downs, power struggles, and pent up fury? Is that what we want to be remembered for as parents, the one who instilled fear, a sense of powerlessness and frustration, the one who struck the match to the bonfire of self loathing and blind rage?

Or, do we want to teach compassion, unconditional love, and a pathway of exploring one’s emotions, and celebrating our humanity? Do we want to teach effective problem solving, self love, and peace making in this world?

That dialogue stirred up some strong feelings, and several voices talked about their own violent and frustrating childhoods, and how they’ve struggled with forging a new direction, a new approach to how they raise kids, and how they deal with their own angers and frustrations.

In my parenting, I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on my own childhood, and the parenting methods of my family. And, I’ve hopefully learned a lot, and I’ve changed and grown. I’ve learned that real parenting is teaching by example, by modeling, and by a great deal of listening and empathy. I’ve learned to talk things through, to name the emotions that are flying around the room, and in the hearts of my kids. I’ve tried to value emotions and the struggles we all have in dealing with difficult situations and conflicted hearts.

I’ve also learned to throw away the paddle, and to not inflict pain. I’ve learned to curb my tongue, and not use the hurtful, warlike vocabulary that leads so quickly to tears, rage, and frustration, as well as a lifetime of self doubt, low self esteem, and a sense of being a failure as a human being.

I’ve learned to say I’m sorry, that I’m not perfect, and that I’m looking for a better way myself. I’ve learned to get my emotions out on the table, so that I can take a good look at them, and see myself in all my glory and all of my foibles and deficits. And then, when I’ve named all of that mess on the table, I can sort through it, and find my path towards the kind of person I want to be, and the kind of person I want my kids to be.

I want to change the world, and I know that happens one person at a time, beginning with me.

So, You Are Really Going to College; I Think I’ll Just Cry

Why is it a big deal to be accepted for a Bachelor’s degree program? Why do I tear up when a good friend of mine shows me his acceptance letter to a university?

It isn’t all that much of a surprise, him being accepted. It really is a given. He’s bright, ambitious, and has been doing some serious academic weightlifting in his first two years of college course work. He hides most of his light under the proverbial basket, but we all know he’s going on to get a bachelor’s degree.

To actually see the letter, and see the grin on my friend’s face, spoke to my soul, and lightened up my heart. Tears came, and I choked on my words.

It goes back to my family, and the feelings I had when I received a similar letter, back when I was more that ready to leave home, and leave my little town, and venture forth into the world. It was a huge milestone for me, and marked the beginning of my adult life, when I could actually go out in the world and live my dreams.

My dad’s parents were hard working wheat farmers in rural Saskatchewan. My dad took me there when I was a teenager, and showed me the foundation of the family homestead cabin. The barn was still standing, but the house was long gone. A lifetime of cruel Canadian prairie winters had had its way with the clapboard house. My grandparents, their six children, and my great uncle lived there for about ten years, as they plowed and planted the wild Canadian prairie, raising wheat, oats, horses, and all of their vegetables.

The prairie wind whistled through the nearby trees, the ones my grandfather planted when they first homesteaded the place. It was summer, but I could only imagine what the wind was like in the dead of winter, with the snow and the forty degrees below zero nights.

The railroad was sixteen miles away, in the closest town. Every fall they hauled their wheat to the grain elevators at the railroad station, and hopefully earned enough money to buy their essentials for the next year.

When the kids were old enough, they would move into town for the winter, boarding with friends, and go to high school. Until then, a one room school house several miles away from their house provided their education.

My grandmother was tough. German, self educated, and the manager of the farm. She cooked all the meals, and also fed the neighbors at harvest time, cooking on a little stove that burned wood, if it was available. But, mainly she fed the flames with tight bundles of straw or dried prairie grass, or dried cow or horse manure. Winter brought temperatures down to forty below zero and blizzards that necessitated the running of a rope between the house and the barn, so you wouldn’t get lost and freeze to death when you had to go feed the animals and milk the cow.

They did all right on the farm, making money most years. They even added a room onto the house, so my grandparents could have a room of their own. Everyone else slept on rough planks laid across the rafters, above the little stove.

World War I broke out, unleashing a strong anti-German sentiment in Canada. The family spoke German at home. Commonly used German words in English became unpopular, and other phrases and words replaced them. Yet, my grandparents were proud Canadians, perfecting ownership in their homestead with their hard work.

One year, they made enough money that they took all the family to the world’s fair in San Francisco. It was quite the adventure, and my dad, the youngest at 6, told stories of the four day train trip, and the wonders of the world’s fair and San Francisco.

I think the trip made a big impression on everyone. My dad and his brothers and sisters all loved to travel, and were all students of the world.

The biggest impression, though, was with my grandmother. She believed, ardently, that in order for her children to get ahead in the world, they needed a good education. And, a boarding high school wouldn’t provide everything they would need to get ahead in life.

She had a dream that every one of her children would go to college. And, not just the boys; the girls, too. She studied, looking at options. She learned that Oregon had a number of colleges, and farming was profitable, land was available. In the 1920s, when their farm was earning good money and land values were up, they sold the farm, and moved to a smaller farm just north of Salem.

A good high school was less than ten miles away, and Salem was the home of a good university. A half dozen private and state colleges were within sixty miles of their new home.

One uncle became a doctor, the other uncle a forester, who would operate his own logging company and also teach forestry at Oregon State University. Two aunts not only earned their bachelor degrees, but also their masters’ degrees. My other aunt finished three years of college.

And this was in the 1920s, the decade where women finally won the right to vote. It was still unusual for a girl to graduate from high school. Women in universities were a rarity.

My dad, the youngest of the six kids, enrolled in the University of Oregon, and then went on to medical school in Portland. He worked nights washing dishes in a cafeteria, putting himself through medical school. His parents paid only for his books. All of his higher education was accomplished during the Great Depression of the 1930s, when farm income was down, and jobs were very difficult to find.

When I was growing up, there were a lot of books in the house, and going to school was seen as the job that my two older brothers and I had. Homework was a priority, and my parents took a keen interest in my schooling.

The talk around the dinner table was “when” we were going to college, not “if”. It was a given.

When I was seven, my mom and dad gave me some money. All of us went down to the bank and I opened up a savings account.

“This is your college fund,” my folks told me.

And, I was expected to put money into the account, from time to time. A bit of money I might earn doing some chores, birthday money, maybe even some money I might receive at Christmas. Later, I’d make a little money helping my mom’s folks on their dairy farm. Most of that went in the bank, too, except the money for a few school clothes and supplies.

My folks added money into it, too, making sure they wrote me a check, so I could make the deposit.

It never occurred to me to take money out of the account. I actually didn’t know how to do that. And, the nice lady who ran the savings accounts and note section of the bank would have made sure I didn’t make a withdrawal. She knew what the money was for, and she’d be on the phone to my mom in a heartbeat if I showed up to make a withdrawal.

My dad’s mother had a stroke when I was in first grade, and came to live in the hospital in my town. Nursing homes were pretty rare then, and my dad arranged for her to be a long term patient at the hospital. She would come visit us a lot, and I remember her urging me to study hard and to learn everything I could. The stroke had made her a woman of few words, but I still remember her preaching to me about school, the flame in her steel blue eyes conveying her passion and her command.

We subscribed to the daily paper, and Time and Saturday Evening Post. There was another national newspaper we also read, and talked about at dinner. We had a big set of encyclopedias and my dad subscribed to the Book of the Month Club. I read most of that material.

In the first grade, our class paraded down to the town’s library and I got a library card. I’d always check out books, and was a big reader in the summer reading program. My mom would read books, too, and I saw my dad reading every night, and also studying medical journals, and listening to tapes of medical lectures.

Having one’s nose in a book was just a normal event in our evenings at home.

My older brothers went to the University of Oregon, and during our visits to them at school, my dad would make a point of walking around the campus with me, letting me get familiar with the place.

When one of my aunts would come for her annual visit, she would bring a book for me and talk about education. She had her master’s degree, and would stay up late at night talking with my dad about science and math, and physics. She became an expert in botany and would go out on hikes with us, and related the Latin names for the plants we saw.

When I was a junior in high school, my folks started taking me to colleges to “look around”.

I picked a different college than my older brothers — Lewis and Clark, and my dad astounded me during the first visit to the campus by asking the admissions staff about their masters’ degree programs.

During my first year and a half in college, my dad would write letters to me, encouraging me, and urging me to study hard. It was a rare letter than contained anything else.

One of my aunts died suddenly in my first year of college. She was the one who would come every year from Texas, or New York, and later, Illinois, to stay with us. She always brought me a book then, and always sent me another one for Christmas. She would read with me, and ask me questions about what I was learning. She had moved to Salem, about a year before she died. We drove to her funeral, which was the day I was going back to school for winter term. Somehow, it seemed like a good way to honor her, remembering her at her funeral, and then going back to college. I studied extra hard that term, just for her.

My dad had a heart attack in the middle of my second year of college. I was home for the last week of his life, and then for the funeral. And, all of my family made a point with me to get me back to school before the end of the term, and even to work on my homework those awful and sad couple of weeks.

Getting an education has just been a part of my life. When I was a kid, any kind of road trip or venture into the big city somehow involved learning something. I always had a book to read in the back seat, and we would stop to read all the history and geography road signs. We’d go to museums, see a play, or a movie, and talk about what we were seeing. I’d be expected to know my way around a road map, and to give a short briefing to the rest of the family on some point of history or geography of the area.

When I got married, my wife and I scrimped and saved, putting a little money away each month for my stepson’s college fund. We bought a set of encyclopedias on time, so he’d have some reference material at home. There was always homework hour after dinner, and we both went to his school conferences.

We did the college visits with him, too, and one summer when he was in high school, we arranged for him to attend a week of living on campus, participating in an enrichment program.

Our foster sons heard the speech, too, and knew we were serious about homework and school. Some of our best conversations occurred during my drive to school every morning. And, our road trips had some good conversations and study questions, too.

Later on, I served on the local school board. And, my wife, the high school teacher, was always promoting opportunities for young people. She organized several trips to Europe for her students, exposing them to a wide range of experiences and cultures. She expanded on her own French classes in college, and spent a summer in France, returning fluent enough to teach French. Later, she learned Spanish, enrolling in another immersion program.

Every year, I find a college class or two to take, and, a few years ago, even took a serious run at a master’s degree in counseling, until I realized the program and my goals were at odds.

We laugh at how many books we read, and the coffee table and my bedside table are usually piled high with books. My favorite gifts to give at Christmas are books, and my favorite store is a book store.

I just retired, but the first week into that adventure, I started a guitar class, and a weightlifting and fitness class at the local Y. Taking some classes seems the right thing to do as I begin a new part of my life.

I’m now president of the local community college’s foundation, working to improve scholarship resources for young people around this county who are working to earn a college degree. One of my tasks is to write an article in the local paper about the benefits of scholarships and endowments to our kids’ future, and our future.

I’ve counseled, encouraged, and mentored dozens, if not hundreds of young people over my legal career here, to make something of themselves, to improve their lives, and to use their brains to get ahead in life. I’ve taught some classes, and tutored a few neighbor kids. I’ve given a few speeches on the power of education.

My wife and I are mentoring young men in prison now, supporting them in their work to improve their lives, use their brains, and get ahead in this world. And, a big part of that work is education. We bring them books, pay for music lessons, challenge them, and have serious discussions about their lives and their goals.

So, when a young friend of mine shows me his letter of acceptance to a university, all of this comes full circle to me. Yes, there are tears. Tears of joy, of gratitude, even tears of grief for those who have passed on.

A few more people show up in the room with us: my grandmother who moved the family halfway across the continent so they could get an education; my aunt, who would make it a point to bring me a book and read to me each summer; my dad and my mom, who helped me save, and encouraged me to use my brains; all the young people I’ve worked with, encouraging them to move ahead with their lives. My younger me is in the room, too; a young man hungry to move out into the world, make something of himself, and get an education.

That young man who is handing me his letter looks a lot like me, at that age. A little shy, and a lot happy, deep inside. There’s a lot of pride and joy inside of him, and he’s not quite sure what to do with all of that.

I’ve seen the result of all this seed planting, and I’m old enough to appreciate the harvest of what these seeds have grown. We aren’t done yet, with all of this work.

So, let me tear up a bit, and choke on my words, and remember all of the good words and many years of quiet, persistent support for others to move ahead and make something out of themselves.

1/10/2013