I know prison. I spent 40 years, 4 months in the Louisiana prison system—ten of those years in a “lockdown” cell (more commonly known as “solitary confinement”).
I got to know prison fairly well, learning not only how to survive but actually thrive in its compressed society. It is no small feat to survive in a world separated from humanity. The social isolation can penetrate deep into the soul forcing the individual to create their own humanity.
I rejoined humanity when I was paroled in 2006.
I am married to my wife of 38 years. We have a beautiful home in the Texas Hill Country from whose porch we can look across an expansive valley and see a Mexico-like range of hills in the distance.
I am still under parole supervision. I have never once had contact with law enforcement, never missed paying my parole fees, never tested positive for any drug use, and every year have paid unto Caesar what is due Caesar.
Fifty-five of my 75 years on this earth have been spent under one form of custodial supervision or another.
In a word, I am intimately familiar with the restrictions imposed by social isolation.
My wife and I are both in the “high risk” category. I survived a 10-hour open heart surgery in 2011 that placed a metal valve in my heart, a pace maker in my chest and unclogged three arteries. My wife survived breast cancer surgery and a bout of near-fatal C-Diff following that surgery.
I sit on my front porch in the late evening with a glass of ice tea in my hand, surrounded by three wonderful rescue dogs at my feet. I accept that I will die under Louisiana parole supervision isolated in what has become a pandemic prison.
As a spring breeze whistles from the sun into the shade, I am forced to look at the sum of my life and wonder, between sips of ice tea, what purpose did a single day in that life serve.
Peggy Lee’s lyrics “Is That All There Is” play softly in the recesses of my brain as they once did when I relentlessly paced the floor of a solitary cell waiting to be escorted to the Louisiana electric chair.
I’m sure most people confined in this new social isolation have also been forced to look back over the landscape of their lives and hear the whispers “only if” as fear and economic woes paralyze their normal thought processes.
Uncertainty about the future, sorrow for a lost loved one, and the fear of a ventilator has forced many—too many actually—to pace the floor in the solitary confinement of their thoughts praying for a way “to get through this.”
“Let tomorrow be better, my Lord – and if you must take someone, please take me and not my children,” they plead, not knowing if their entreaty will be heard.
I am more fortunate than many and less fortunate than some. I am still employed and can pay the bills. My wife and I grieve for those who cannot—those who must pray for the survival of their loved ones while struggling mightily to put the next meal on the table.
I reach down and massage Fred’s neck, my second rescue dog that I may have to put down in the near future. I will hold him in my arms as the lethal injection stops his heart if that becomes necessary.
I wonder how many have not been able to hold the hand of someone dear to them in the moment of passing during this pandemic.
I suspect that most of the loved ones of the more than 83,000 that has succumbed so far to the deadly virus missed the final moment of passing. They are this day, and will be for many more days, torn by the grief that their loved one lay utterly alone amidst the beeps, blares, and human activity of an ICU room or hallway when death came to claim them
The “Is That All There Is” lyrics now play in their thoughts as they come to grips with the grief that only human loss can produce. A loved one is gone and others remain in grave danger.
A sense of helplessness terrifies the soul. Grown men cry alone in the dark as the words of their child burn like white-hot ingots in their brain, “It’s alright, daddy, I wasn’t hungry anyway.”
That is the pandemic prison—the “new normal” where interests of the individual have been displayed by the survival of the group.
Covid-19 does not give a moose f..k about AR-15s, flag waving, and shouts about “my rights.” It’s not afraid of the Secret Service or Seal Team Six, much less some gun-toting yokel on the capitol steps with a glass of bleach in one hand and a strobe light in the other.
The lesson of Covid-19 will be that the Home Castle, not herd immunity, is what saved the group. Even though it will force each of us to confront our worst fears and endure the regrets we have stockpiled in life, the pandemic prison will teach us not only how to save humanity but to save our own souls in the process.
Like so many others, I will die in the pandemic prison, either with the virus or because of it. I am an old man now in the twilight of life. Death is a fixture in my idle thoughts.
Covid-19 has done this to each of us. We have seen the unclaimed bodies deposited in mass graves and the dead stored in refrigerated 18-wheelers. They have forced us to ask, “Is That All There Is?”
But until the final breath I will enjoy the ice tea on the front porch, the love of my wife, the worship of my dogs, and give thanks to the many good people I have encountered along the ramparts of this blessed life.
My advice to others is this: seize the moment, enjoy those that love you, and reserve a special prayer for those locked away in nursing homes and prisons surrounded by fears of the worst. They are truly alone in prisons worse than our pandemic prison.
