They are known to many as murderers, robbers, and rapists – to me, they are co-workers, neighbors and friends. Officials have labeled them prisoners, convicts, inmates, offenders, but those labels fail to describe the real people in prison, including those convicted of violent crimes.
During twenty years of incarceration I have witnessed incredible acts of kindness and compassion performed by people convicted of crimes, many by lifers convicted of murder. This story is just one of thousands I can share.
For many people the support of family and community is essential to the grieving process when you lose someone. The death of a loved one is typically followed by gathering at the home, visitation, viewing, a funeral service, and family meals because mourning together provides comfort and facilitates the grieving process.
In prison, the pain and grief of working through this process can be even worse. Grieving alone in a place that already has people at the limits of their coping ability each day can be devastating, like an atomic bomb laying waste from the core outward.
My dad died in 2022. He visited me for the last time on a Saturday. We had no idea we would never see or speak to each other again. Thankfully, every visit ended with hands held in prayer, big hugs, and a kiss on the cheek. Our last words to each other were, “I love you.” I waved as he walked out the door. He went to the hospital the next day due to intense intestinal pain and the inability to keep down any food or liquids. Three days later a surgeon worked for nine hours to untangle his intestines from a hernia mesh.
He never woke up after that surgery, spending the next several weeks in ICU on a ventilator. Complications repeatedly developed, several infections, pneumonia, kidneys shutting down, heart problems. It was just too much.
Returning from my job in the school area, I checked my tablet messages and had a message that my dad was being placed in palliative care, and he was being kept alive long enough for family to gather and say goodbye. I wrote the words I wanted to say to him, because I knew that writing them was the only way to keep it together when I attempted to speak them. Then I called my mom and had her place her phone by his ear on speakerphone. He died the next morning at 5:56 am, ironically, the exact time he would normally be walking into work. No more working a hard job in a plant to take care of others at the age of 78. His work here was done.
My father was a great man, great father, great husband, and a great friend. My parents were married for almost 57 years, and my mom’s life is entirely different now. His life was intertwined with ours. I have been doing well, mostly. Sometimes I am fine, then the grief crashes into me like a tsunami. Grief is like that. It surprises and overwhelms, then releases for a while, only to repeat the process. My prison community has given me unsurpassed compassion and support.
The day before the funeral, I worked on a speech to be read in honor of my father. While writing, my heart felt like it was in an ever-tightening vise, tears running onto the page, smearing the blue words. A hand squeezed my shoulder. I looked up to see a friend joining me in tears. No words were needed to profess his brotherly love.
On the day my father died a co-worker knocked on my battleship gray cell door. He had bought and prepared lunch for me – a Big AZ Angus Cheeseburger and french fries with Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce for the burger and ranch dressing for the fries. That may not seem like much to a person who drives by twenty fast food places every day, but in here, that act of kindness is enormous. An apt comparison is paying someone’s mortgage or rent for a month.
Another friend drew a picture of Snoopy and his pal Woodsctock, then had guys write messages of condolence on it. A large group signed a card full of kind words to send to my mom. Other friends gave me ice cream, sodas, bags of cereal, cookies and a variety of snacks. The cookies made me think of a maxim from Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster, “I live in the moment when things go good. When things go bad, I eat a cookie.”
The cookies and other gifts did not change anything monumental, but these things reminded me how much I am loved and how blessed I am to be in a dorm where I have a community, a brotherhood.
The guy who brought me lunch is serving time for multiple armed robberies and an attempted murder. The friend who cried with me is serving time for murder. The Snoopy and Woodstock artist has a rape conviction. The others are serving time for violent crimes, several of them lifers convicted of murder. But those crimes are not who they are now. Those inexcusable crimes are things they did, not the people who have learned from their mistakes, who want to help others and who make the world a better place through kindness, giving and compassion.
Despite living in a prison, surrounded by people convicted of violent crimes, I could not have been in a better place while mourning the death of my father. Nowhere else could have provided me a better support system. Nowhere else would have given me the outpouring of love offered here. My co-workers, neighbors, and friends, known to some as murderers, robbers, and rapists, literally and figuratively wrapped their arms around me in empathy and love.
ABOUT THE WRITER. Timothy Johnson is serving a life without parole sentence. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Pastoral Ministry with a minor in Counseling from the College at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary; he serves as the assistant editor for The Nash News, the first and longest running prison publication in NC; he was editor of Ambassadors in Exile, a journal/newsletter that represents the NCFMP; he is a co-author of Beneath Our Numbers; and he has been published in the North Carolina Law Review, Hope for the Hopeless: The Prison Resources Repurposing Act .
Recently, Timothy and Phillip Vance Smith, II, co-authored a piece for NC Newsline, which can be found here, and Timothy can also be heard on the Prison POD podcast on YouTube.
Mr. Johnson can be contacted at:
Timothy Johnson #0778428
Nash Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 247
Phoenix, MD 21131
Timothy Johnson can also be contacted via GettingOut.com
