Right before Christmas, I spent a few days visiting someone in prison.
C.G. Jung used to say that by visiting the prisons, dark alleys, brothels, and city slums – as well as the elegant salons, the revolutionary clubs, and everywhere there is human passion, love, and hate – one could become better acquainted with the human soul than by reading a thousand psychology text-books.
Throughout my life, I’ve certainly put Jung’s suggestion into practice. When life or circumstances have invited me into these forgotten, pushed-away places, I haven’t backed off. In those places, I’ve learned lessons about myself and humanity that couldn’t be found elsewhere.
It just so happens that a friend, a good man I cherish and respect, is serving a seven-year prison term in Italy. He has always declared himself innocent of his charges.
After much paperwork and waiting, I became the only person besides his lawyer authorized to visit him. This led to a series of 2-hour encounters over several days. We got to hug each other, chat, laugh, and contemplate life.
We weren’t alone in those encounters. Besides the prison guards, the hall would host other inmates being visited by family, spouses, and friends. It was a room full of emotion, expectation, and pain. Strangely, it was a room full of life.
There was the lank, timid, almost awkward-looking guy, visited by his partner and their two twin sons. I learned that he is serving time for homicide, and they conceived the kids while on a permit.
There was the couple in their 50s who spent the whole two hours crying and kissing, looking like teenagers about to be split apart by disapproving parents.
There was the cool-looking guy who actually smiled and laughed like he was having a decent time- or perhaps this was just the face he put up for his family.
There were many men waiting for their relatives or spouses nervously, as if on a first date. They would set up the white plastic table, cleaning it to perfection, adorning it with a bottle of water and a bag of chips – the only “presents” they could bring from inside the prison.
And there was the mother who, while we waited outside the prison, told her questioning daughter that “daddy works here” and “isn’t it a beautiful place?”
And then, of course, there was my friend.
I have an enormous admiration for this man.
Despite having never lived in Italy, he has learned the language and earned a high-school degree while in prison. He has kept as fit and healthy as possible. He has used this time to contemplate what to do when he gets out.
He hasn’t taken on smoking or drinking, which he sees as temptations that can squander the little money an inmate has while sucking away his health.
It’s hard for me to know what his experience has been like.
He hasn’t been beaten, tortured, or abused. He is a tranquil giant who stays out of trouble, yet doesn’t look like someone you’d want to mess with.
His main source of suffering over these years has been boredom, loneliness, and not being able to see his kids as they were growing up.
He’s definitely been very lonely. When I first visited him, he hadn’t hugged anyone in over 4 years.
But he’s kept his spirit up, and has stayed strong, humorous, and serene through it all.
Every time I visited, there was a gift waiting for me. A handmade card, a collage, a small wooden object. Sparks of creativity and soul, coming from a place where we might think the soul has all but disappeared.
To me, he’s a living reminder that the human spirit is indomitable. A testimony that warmth, soulfulness, and inspiration can be found in the most incredible places.
Thank you, my friend, for being my teacher and inspiration during those visits.
From you, I’ve learned resilience, good humour, serenity, humbleness, and courage.
I’ll come visit again soon.
And as soon as you’re out, I’ll take you to the beach, and we will sit and look at the free, endless horizon, closing this chapter of your life, and letting the healing begin.
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