Rejection. It’s such a negative word but it was a word I used this week in describing my latest venture on my journey to River Bend’s edge. It’s official folks, I have been rejected by a death row inmate as their personal visitor. You read correctly. Someone I may never meet does not WANT to meet me.
My VODR Coordinator emailed me the middle of last week asking how I would feel to be paired with someone who is socially challenged. After a few email exchanges, I found out that the person in question is a man in his late 50’s to early 60’s who has been on death row for a number of years. He comes from the atypical background of poverty, illiteracy, dysfunctional social skills, etc. etc. Later in our exchanges, I found out his name is Jasper (*not his real name). I was surprised to find out that he does not want a visitor from the outside. My next question to my Coordinator was the obvious – why exactly were we even having this conversation?
Apparently Jasper’s psychiatrist and attorney feel that it would be beneficial for him to engage in a friendship with someone from the outside. He is in deep depression and honestly feels he is doomed, so therefore, why bother to make a friend from the outside world? In his mind, it would accomplish nothing.
Loving a challenge as I do, I gave her the go-ahead to include me as a potential visitor. This Monday his psychiatrist and attorney would be paying him a visit and would commence convincing him of why it would be a good to have a friend. My Coordinator even told me they had considered trying to trick him but decided that wouldn’t be fair either.
So I waited with fingers crossed that perhaps I would be able to become a friend to this man. I began to wonder about him. What crime did he commit? What were his interests? What could I say that might cause him to engage in a conversation with me? I began praying for Jasper.
Monday rolled around and I was anxious to check my personal email to see if there was a message waiting. There was. The news was that he was totally, 100% against meeting me. I was so disappointed. What did I expect really? Did I really expect him to jump at the chance to meet me? Did I think he would sit around his cell in Unit 2 and wonder about me and my interests? But the thing that struck me the most was Jasper’s complete acceptance of hopelessness in contrast to my hope of somehow changing his mind.
Webster’s gives the meaning for hope as being: to desire with expectation of obtainment; trust.
Regardless of what Jasper may say, he must still have the DESIRE (why else would he be so depressed and angry?) but lacks any expectation of obtainment when it comes to his personal situation. It occurred to me that our self-imposed prisons are far harsher in the face of reality. He feels “doomed” – his own word to describe himself. I can not imagine waking every morning to the feeling of doom. Nothing to look forward to; no one to share a laugh with; no interest of anything that would help me take my mind off my troubles and look beyond the bars of my cell. Just a dark, oppressive cloud that smothers me a little more each day.
It’s heartbreaking. In his acceptance of “doom” it tells me that Jasper has never known true love. The love that can lift you from the pit of despair, and give you a peace that surpasses this world. Unless Jasper comes to know love, he truly IS doomed. I had hoped to be the advocate of love but for now, it’s not to be. I’m going to keep praying for Jasper though. I’ll keep praying that one day he can receive this love, grace and mercy and realize he is far from doomed. Where there is love, hope abides. Even the bars of a jail cell can not stop love. That is my personal anthem for Unit 2. I have hope for each and every person there.
I’m praying, Jasper.
