there for him. He had never met her in person, but I can understand the
feeling of wanting something, anything. Lethal injection was the order…
I wonder how he received the news? When I imagine it I feel it must have
been something like an icy hand that grips the heart, an arctic tremor
that envelops your whole body. He probably wanted to cry, couldn’t
breathe, reached out and found nothing. I looked at the white Rosary in
my hands; did he feel that way as he was weaving this together? I thought
of his arms moving, now in vivid color, the images on them morphing as
he slipped beads onto clear string. All that color being wrapping up with
taut white cord, Jerry suspended in a white room with a sea of colorful
Rosaries shifting below him.
Sister told us that she would have loved to be with him. He
was such a wonderful person, she said. But that day, the day he was to
die, she had a very important meeting to attend in D.C. It was a prior
engagement that she could not miss. When she told us that, my blood
froze in my veins; I looked again at the Rosary in my hands. Did he
weave it together after he had heard the news I had just heard? Tears
running down his face, fear gripping at his heart, despair and strength,
weakness and hope all wrestling around inside his chest? I wanted to
throw that thing away from me and run as fast as I could, I wanted to
clench that thing as close to my heart as I could get it. All the while
I sat there holding it in my hands not too close, not too far, thinking
about what it means to be born into this world in which people suffer
and die alone. How many times do you suppose Jerry solemnly accepted
that reality? ‘I’m probably going to die alone.’ How many times do you
suppose Jerry threw that reality away and allowed himself to hope? To
hope that in this world people could step above that, he didn’t have to be
punished in such a way. Of course in the end, he died alone. The pretty
words of a black and white nun were only that: false prayers and empty
words, red beads that trickled down her neck. Such a woman cannot
transcend into the colorful cell of a convict. Miracles cannot occur in
environments of falsehood. In such a place, things cannot become more
than they are. There is no foundation. Words can only be words, nuns
can only be nuns, and prisoners can only be prisoners. Alone, alone,
alone.
After class I asked Mr. Crossen, “How could she do that? Leave
him alone for some stupid meeting?” He had a heavy look in his eyes, but
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