A 3rd Serving of Chicken Soup for the Soul Page 6

  Now, whenever we take Zeus on the road, especially around Christmas, Larry admonishes me to take the Horai box. "It's a great symbol of good will to all men," he says. "Besides, it takes up less room than a Christmas tree."

  Kathleen Podolsky

  This is a true story. Names and identifying characteristics of individuals involved have been changed to protect their identity.

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  Manuel Garcia

  Manuel Garcia, a proud youthful father

  Was known on his block as a hard- working man.

  With a wife and a family, a job and a future

  He had everything going according to plan.

  One day Manuel Garcia, complaining of stomach pains

  Went to the clinic to find the cause.

  His body was found to have cancerous tissue

  Ignoring the order of natural laws.

  So Manuel Garcia of Milwaukee County

  Checked into the medical complex in town.

  Suddenly seeing his thirty-nine years

  Like the sand in an hourglass plummeting down.

  ''What are my choices?" cried Manuel Garcia.

  "You've basically two," was the doctor's decree.

  "Your cancer untreated will quickly be fatal,

  But treatment is painful with no guarantees . . .'

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  And so it began, Manuel's personal odyssey

  Long sleepless nights in a chemical daze

  With echoes of footsteps down long lonely corridors

  Tolling his minutes and hours away.

  With the knowledge that something inside was

  consuming him

  Manuel Garcia was filled with despair.

  He'd already lost forty pounds to the cancer,

  And now to the drugs he was losing his hair.

  After nine weeks in treatment the doctor came calling.

  Said "Manuel we've done about all we can do.

  Your cancer could go either way at this juncture;

  It's out of our hands and it's now up to you."

  Manuel looked in the mirror, a sad frightened stranger

  So pale, so wrinkled, so lonely, so scared.

  Diseased, isolated, and feeling unlovable

  One-hundred-twenty-six pounds and no hair.

  He dreamed of his Carmen at sixty without him,

  His four little children not having their dad,

  Of Thursday night card games at Julio's,

  And everything else he'd not done that he wished that

  he had.

  Awakened from sleep on the day of his discharge

  By shuffling feet going all around his bed,

  Manuel opened his eyes and thought he was still

  dreaming

  His wife, and four friends with no hair on their heads.

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  He blinked and he looked again, not quite believing

  The five shiny heads all lined up side by side.

  And still to that point not a word had been spoken,

  But soon they were laughing so hard that they cried.

  And the hospital hallways were ringing with voices.

  "Patron, we did this for y , said his friends.

  And they wheeled him out to the car they had borrowed.

  "Amigo, estamos contigo Ves . . . ."

  So Manuel Garcia returned to his neighborhood

  Dropped off in front of his two-bedroom flat.

  And the block seemed unusually deserted for Sunday;

  He drew a deep breath and adjusted his hat.

  But before he could enter, the front door flew open.

  Manuel was surrounded with faces he knew

  Fifty-odd loved ones and friends of the family

  With clean-shaven heads and the words "We love you!"

  And so Manuel Garcia, a person with cancer,

  A father, a husband, a neighbor, a friend,

  With a lump in his throat said "I'm not one for speeches,

  But here I have something that needs to be said.

  "I felt so alone with my baldness and cancer.

  Now you stand beside me, thank Heaven above.

  For giving me strength that I need may God Bless you,

  And long may we live with the meaning of love.

  "For giving me strength that I need may God Bless you,

  And long may we live with the meaning of love."

  David Roth

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  A Taste of Freedom

  If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.

  Maya Angelou

  I was terrified. I was being transferred from the Federal Correctional Institute in Pleasanton, California, to the Women's Federal Correctional Institute in Lexington, Kentucky, which was notorious for its overcrowding and violence.

  Eight months earlier I had been convicted of fraud for my participation in my father's business. Since I was a child my father had abused me physically, mentally and sexually, so when he came to me and asked me to take my mother's place in the family business, I still saw him through the eyes of that five-year-old girl who knew that no one would help and nothing ever worked. It never occurred to me to say "No." When the FBI showed up months later and asked if those were my signatures on the documents, I did what I had done since the time I was a child. I said, "Yes, it was me, not my father." I took responsibility for the crime and was sentenced to serve

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  my time in a maximum-security prison.

  Before I went to prison, I entered an adult survivor program and began healing my childhood wounds. I learned about the effects of long-term abuse, and also that some of the memories and traumas could be healed. Because of my experience in the program I knew the violence, the chaos and the hyper-vigilance all around me were only outward manifestations of the chaos in my own mind, so I chose to change. I began to read books of truth and wisdom and began to write affirmations to remind myself who I truly was. When I heard the voice of my father in my mind saying "You are a nothing," I replaced it with the voice of God saying "You are my beloved child." Over and over, day after day I began changing my life thought by thought.

  When I received word to "pack out," I thought I was being transferred to a minimum-security camp. In order to prevent escape plans, the guards do not tell you where you are going or when you are leaving. But I was sure I had completed my journey in maximum-security prison and surely deserved to be in a minimum-security camp.

  Arriving at FCI Lexington was indeed a shock. I was terrified, but I immediately had one of those serendipitous moments in which I realized I was still in the palm of God's hand. When I was taken to my housing unit, instead of having a Kentucky-sounding name like Bluegrass, like most of the other units, the name of my unit was "Renaissance." The name of my housing unit meant "rebirth." Trusting God, I knew I would be safe. I simply had more to learn to be truly reborn.

  The next day I was assigned to a work detail in building maintenance. It was our job to buff floors, put up sheet rock and learn similar skills we could carry with us back into society after our stay in prison. Our guard, Mr. Lear (not his real name), was also our teacher. Mr. Lear was extraordinary in that he was funny and kind.

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  Normally, there are only two rules between an inmate and a guardthe inmate does not trust the guard, and the guard does not believe anything an inmate has to say. But Mr. Lear was different. He tried to make our time with him not only informative, but fun. He never bent the rules, but he did not go out of his way to make our detail miserable by being sarcastic or demeaning.

  I watched Mr. Lear for many days and saw him look at me with a funny expression on his face. I got that quite often since I looked like who I wasa suburban housewife from Kansas. I did not look like I belonged in prison.

  One day, Mr. Lear and I were alone on a detail, and he finally asked me, "What in the world are you doing in prison?" I told him the truth. He listened and asked if my
father was in prison too. I told him no. There had been no physical criminal evidence pointing to him and, in fact, my sister and brothers had backed him in his story that I was lying about his involvement at all.

  Mr. Lear appeared angry at this and asked me, "Then why are you so happy?" I began sharing with him the simple truths that I was learning, such as happiness and peace are found within. I spoke to him about the real meaning of freedom and about how you had to first believe before you could eventually see the results of your belief.

  I then asked Mr. Lear some questions. I asked how he could come to work day after day teaching inmates who did not want to listen and ask them to be enthused about a job they had no desire to do. How did he continue to stay happy and kind when he was working with people who didn't want to be there in a system that was fraught with bitterness and anger?

  Mr. Lear admitted it was hard and was, in fact, not his first job choice. He told me his dream was to be a fulltime military person. But he was scared to act on this dream since he had the security of the prison job and

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  had a wife and children to support.

  I told him the desire in his heart was not placed there if there was no chance of fulfillment. I told him he could do anything he wanted, and I commented on the different degrees of prison we all experience.

  These conversations continued to take place over several weeks, and my feeling of safety with Mr. Lear grew. I thought he was one guard I did not have to be afraid would suddenly take out his personal frustration or anger on me by accusing me of insubordination or outright disobedience, giving me extra detail or throwing me in segregation, as quite often happens in prisonespecially to women inmates.

  So you can imagine how shocked and saddened I felt when, for no reason that I could think of, Mr. Lear came to me and angrily said, "Mrs. Rogoff, I want you to go into my office, clean everything you see off of every shelf in there, and don't come out until there is not one item left!

  I had no idea what I had done to upset Mr. Lear, but of course I had no choice but to obey. I said "Yes, sir," and went into his office, my face burning with humiliation. My feelings were truly hurt. I thought he was differentI thought we had spoken person to person, but in reality, I was just another inmate to him.

  Mr. Lear shut the door behind me and stood with his back to the door, looking up and down the hallway. I wiped the tears from my eyes and looked at all the shelves. Slowly, a huge smile came over my face. The shelves were completely empty, except for one juicy, red-ripe tomato and a shaker of salt. Mr. Lear knew I had been in prison for almost a year and had not eaten a fresh tomato in all that time. Mr. Lear not only snuck the tomato in from his own garden, he "pinned" for me, which meant he looked out to ensure no other guard would catch me. I proceeded to eat the most delicious piece of fruit in my life.

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  That simple act of kindnesstreating me like a human being and not a numberhelped me continue my journey of healing. I knew for sure that my stay in prison was not an accident, but an opportunity to heal my abuse issues at depth so that I could later heal others.

  Mr. Lear was my guard, but he was also a friend. I have not seen him nor heard about him since my release from prison, but I cannot help but think of him every time I pull a tomato from my own garden. It is my hope that Mr. Lear is as free today as I am.

  Barbara Rogoff

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  Compassion is in the Eyes

  It was a bitter cold evening in northern Virginia many years ago. The old man's beard was glazed by winter's frost while he waited for a ride across the river. The wait seemed endless. His body became numb and stiff from the frigid north wind.

  He heard the faint, steady rhythm of approaching hooves galloping along the frozen path. Anxiously, he watched as several horsemen rounded the bend. He let the first one pass by without an effort to get his attention. Then another passed by, and another. Finally, the last rider neared the spot where the old man sat like a snow statue. As this one drew near, the old man caught the rider's eye and said, "Sir, would you mind giving an old man a ride to the other side? There doesn't appear to be a passageway by foot."

  Reining his horse, the rider replied, "Sure thing. Hop aboard." Seeing the old man was unable to lift his halffrozen body from the ground, the horseman dismounted and helped the old man onto the horse. The horseman took the old man not just across the river, but to his destination, which was just a few miles away.

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  As they neared the tiny but cozy cottage, the horseman's curiosity caused him to inquire, "Sir, I notice that you let several other riders pass by without making an effort to secure a ride. Then I came up and you immediately asked me for a ride. I'm curious why, on such a bitter winter night, you would wait and ask the last rider. What if I had refused and left you there?"

  The old man lowered himself slowly down from the horse, looked the rider straight in the eyes, and replied, "I've been around these here parts for some time. I reckon I know people pretty good." The old-timer continued, "I looked into the eyes of the other riders and immediately saw there was no concern for my situation. It would have been useless even to ask them for a ride. But when I looked into your eyes, kindness and compassion were evident. I knew, then and there, that your gentle spirit would welcome the opportunity to give me assistance in my time of need."

  Those heartwarming comments touched the horseman deeply. "I'm most grateful for what you have said," he told the old man. "May I never get too busy in my own affairs that I fail to respond to the needs of others with kindness and compassion."

  With that, Thomas Jefferson turned his horse around and made his way back to the White House.

  Anonymous

  From Brian Cavanaugh's The Sower's Seeds

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  Warm in Your Heart

  It was a bitterly cold Denver morning. The weather was unpredictable. First, a warming trend gave the snow a chance to melt and run away, slipping from sight into the storm drains or running silently along the curbs, across side yards and under fences to the low-lying areas where it completed its vanishing act. Then the cold returned with a vengeance, bringing yet another coat of the white powdered precipitation, freezing what little remained from winter's previous blast and hiding it, an icy trap for street people.

  This was a day for staying home, for having a cold and waiting for Mom to bring a cup of soup. It was a day for listening to the all-news radio and imagining the possibility of being snowbound without being too inconvenienced. That was the way the day was supposed to be.

  I had a job speaking at the Denver Convention Center to a couple hundred other people who, like me, were unable to have the sniffles and stay home for Mom to bring us soup. Instead, we gathered at the convention center, unable to do more about the weather than to talk about it.

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  I needed a battery for my wireless microphone. What a lousy time to have gotten lazy. . .I had failed to pack a spare. There was no choice, really. I needed a battery. So I headed into the wind, head bowed, collar up, shuffling in too-thin dress shoes.

  Each step brought my thin suit pants close to my backside. The material was cold and reminded me that my mother would have never let me out of the house had she known I had dressed so foolishly.

  Around the corner, I spotted a small sign announcing that a 7-Eleven convenience store was within sight. If I walked quickly and lengthened my stride, I could reach the front door and shelter from the brisk wind without drawing a breath of lung-burning air. People who live in Denver like to play with outsiders by telling them that winter in Denver means enduring a pleasant kind of cold. ''It's a much drier kind of cold," report the Denver folks, when their relatives ask how they like life in the MileHigh city. Drier, my foot! It's cold enough to give the famous brass monkey reason to move. And humidity, or the lack of it, doesn't seem all that important when gusts of 40-mile-an-hour Arctic reminders are blowing against your backside.

  Inside the 7-Eleven
were two souls. The one behind the counter wore a name badge saying she was Roberta. Judging by her appearance, Roberta probably wished that she were home bringing hot soup and soothing words to her own little one. Instead, she was spending her day manning an outpost for commerce in a nearly abandoned, downtown Denver. She would be a beacon, a refuge for the few who were foolish enough to be out and about on a day so cold.