By David Cowan, Executive Director
I’m constantly telling people that Bonafide is not a service provider, we’re a community. We’re supporting each other through the process of rebuilding lives as we fully reintegrate into society. That covers the reintegration life-cycle—from parole preparation, to realizing dreams of security and stability, to last wishes. This is how we celebrate freedom. As a community, we are sometimes given the great honor of being available to support those of us who are transitioning from this life.
A recurring conversation that one might hear inside prison is that many people do not want to die there. We’ve taken several people directly to hospice care on the day of their release, or gone through the process with them as they were diagnosed with a fatal illness. These are some of the moments when the desire for and psychological effects of freedom are most palpable. Watching someone drink in the scenery after being released after decades of incarceration is powerful enough. Watching them do so because they want to imprint it into their final memories is another thing altogether. Though they both happen with emotional feelings of gratitude, the former is accompanied by excitement and even maybe some trepidation, and the latter with peace, a kind of relief. Some people are ready to take their “cocktail” as soon as they are released, at peace with their fate, just wanting to do it on the outside of the prison walls.
A couple of years ago, we picked up Chris. Chris was incarcerated for 27 years before receiving his compassionate release, and all of his family had either passed away or didn’t know him. Like most people, he was glad to be out. He was relieved that he got to spend his last days as a free person. But very soon after taking him to hospice, we watched as his longing for freedom continued. He was out now, but still felt confined. He still didn’t have the choice to pass on his own terms. He eventually called 911 for himself and was transported to a hospital.
While in the ICU, he felt much more free. There, unlike in the hospice center, they treated him like a patient. He felt cared for and treated with dignity. Visitation was encouraged. I would visit him often and bring him Big Macs. That was the only thing that he asked for, besides wanting someone to listen to his life stories.
One day, I walked into Chris’ room at the hospital and caught him struggling to fiddle with his GPS ankle monitor that was attached to him by the parole office. His physical state had declined to the point that he could no longer walk, but “rules are rules”, so he still had to wear the monitor. I asked him what he was doing. He said that he was trying to get a parole violation. He had asked his parole agent to take him back to prison, but she wouldn’t, and he thought that by removing or attempting to remove his ankle monitor, he would be in violation of his parole conditions, and she would have no choice but to take him back to prison.
I asked Chris if he wanted to go back to prison because he was worried about the new hospice facility that they found for him. I thought that maybe he assumed that it would be confining and restrictive like the one he left. His answer was something that I hadn’t considered. He told me that he wanted to return to prison because everyone he loved was there, and he wanted to die surrounded by loved ones.
It’s not uncommon for people who spend so much time incarcerated to experience a dissociation or disorientation that feels like extreme loneliness after being released from their trusted community after so many years. Most of us left behind people we love—people with whom we have sometimes trusted our lives. I completely understood what Chris meant. He laughed at the reality that for so many years all he wanted was not to die in prison, only to come to the realization that this wasn’t what he wanted at all. What he wanted was the freedom to die on his terms, and in his case, that meant being with the people that he loved when his time came. He had fantasized, as many of us do, that he would pass with family surrounding him, but his reality was that his family was gone, except for the family that he met inside. I assured him that I’d be there and even though he couldn’t be around the people who he was most familiar with, he didn’t have to be alone.
Chris was eventually transferred from the hospital to a new hospice facility. I’d continue to visit and bring his favorite hamburger. One day, I asked if he wanted others to visit. He said that he would give it a try. So, I got in touch with a place that sent visitors to people in hospice. They quickly went to visit him. The next day, I went to visit Chris, and he said that they were nice and he felt grateful for them, but he decided that he only wanted to have visits from “family.” By that he meant that he only wanted visits from other “lifers.” They were who he considered to be his family. I told him that the next time I came, I’d bring someone.
Chris and I continued our visit as normal. I gave him another phone lesson. I listened to stories about his youth. I unsuccessfully tried to talk him into trying something other than a Big Mac. We talked about the Golden Gate Bridge. He wanted to see it but never got the chance.
I never saw him again. I received a call the next day before going to see him, informing me that he had passed. I was surprised. In the past, I got to hold a hand and tell someone that they finished well, that I was proud of them and tell them that they were loved. I thought that I had more time. But there was none of that this time. Chris was just gone.
I’ll never forget Chris’ constant search for freedom. His compassionate release granted him bodily freedom, which he thought he wanted. But what he wanted more was the freedom to pass surrounded by the people that he loved in a place that was familiar.
Reflecting on Chris’s story reminds me that two Welcome Home pickups are alike. Sure, there are similarities in the procedure, but the needs and emotions that each person experiences that day differ. It’s easy for the state to create policies, like “we’re going to give compassionate releases to people who fit this category.” But what does it look like on the other end? What is it that people actually want and need?
Our greatest impact occurs when we respond to the nuances of each person’s experience. It is the difference between someone being moved through a process as a number or a body, and being seen. Recognizing the nuances can be time consuming, but that is where the important details lie. If we think of release as a policy or a procedure, we miss the complexity.
In the stories we share here on our website and on social media, you’ll see that freedom has many faces—and you are seeing just a few of them. This is what freedom actually looked like for Chris: being seen and understood and valued as a human being.