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Fridays are my day
at the local youth correctional facility.
In the morning, I work in their garden, helping young gardeners tend to
their chickens, vegetable plots and herb gardens.
We plant, weed,
water, and harvest, and then preserve and dry the results. Most every week, we cook, enjoying the bounty
of our work, and treating the young men to fresh, nutritious produce and the
concept of healthy nutrition and living.
The real gardening
comes in our conversations, the camaraderie of young and older gardeners,
working and learning together, truly being in community.
They are learning
where food really comes from, and how to be invested in that process, being
self sufficient and healthy. The
metaphor of the garden is not lost on them, as they work to become strong,
healthy, productive farmers of their lives.
I also work with
some of the young men individually, being the “surrogate parent” and being the
visitor they need and wouldn’t have otherwise.
I’m the “family” who shows up with some baked goods or candy, and just
visits for an hour. Sometimes, we play
games, but mainly, I just listen, offering the compassionate ear of the uncle
or dad who is missing in their lives.
I’m tender and kind
to them, being the encouraging voice, the cheerleader, the supportive dad they
wouldn’t otherwise have.
Today, one of my
young men and I restrung one of the guitars there. It is a “state” guitar, which means it’s the
guitar that gets played by those who don’t have their own instrument. The guitar is played a lot, and replacing the
strings has become a regular task for me.
The guitar gets loved to death, played hard by
lonely, frustrated fingers pouring out the emotions of the neglected and
abandoned, the incarcerated, the young men who have no other way of expressing
themselves. I’m like that guitar, a
place where the emotions of these young men can have their voice, a willing
ear, an appreciative audience for what they need to say.
My guy has had a
rough year. He’s one of the lucky ones,
not serving a mandatory sentence, a guy who can walk out the door if he’s done
all his treatment, completed high school and shown he can be a responsible
young man.
He literally has
the keys to the front gate, but the old voices keep telling him he’s worthless,
and should be abandoned and left out for the trash man.
Like so many of the
young men here, being responsible and healthy is a new experience, and the fear
of going back into the world, and being around the family and friends who were
a big part of the bad times that brought him here, is one huge scary nightmare
of parole.
The thought of
being successful in life is a new idea.
For most of their life, they’ve been told they are worthless,
failures. My job is to be a spark of
encouragement, the mirror of their successes and self worth, to be the dad who
believes in them and is proud of who they are becoming.
My job and the job
of the guitar are a lot alike.
My buddy has
derailed himself a number of times here, despite all his good work. The old
ways, the old voices still show up, beating him down with the whips of
shame and guilt, the indifference to the
beauty of their young souls.
Today, though, he
moved ahead. He took the initiative and
restrung the guitar, without much help from me.
With confidence, he completed the task, grinning as the new strings sang
out their song in his confident fingers.
His eyes twinkled with pride as he showed others the work he had
done.
We did more than
restring an old, well-used guitar. We
restrung a young man and gave voice to the new, self-confident man now playing
his songs, happy with what he’s done and who he’s becoming.
--Neal Lemery, 12/9/2016
