A Few Hands of Rummy

                     

            The week before Christmas is always hectic.  So much to get ready for, so many little errands, the to do list that doesn’t seem to stop.  And, part of me struggles with the short days and the long dark and cold nights.  There’s a big part of me that just wants to eat comfort food, ingest lots of sugar, and snuggle under a blanket with a mug of tea. 

            I  recently stopped by the nearby youth prison for my weekly visit with a guy.  No one has come to see him in the last four years, so I’ve been asked to come and say hi, be his friend, so he can gain some people skills.  Soon, he’ll be out in the world, and will need to be able to interact with the world. Spending some time with me is a start in all that.

            Once a week, we play cards.  He’s teaching me rummy.  I’m not sure of the rules, andI think we have our own version of the game going on.  He’s the teacher, a new role for him, and he’s starting to enjoy teaching this old man a few things. 

            The conversation is a little one sided.  He’s not used to company and making small talk.  He’s struggling with math at school, so keeping score in the game of rummy is good for him.  He’s making something in wood shop.  He’s keeping it mysterious, so I think its my Christmas present.

            I’m getting him a blanket for Christmas, one that features his favorite football team.  He mentioned he’d like that a few weeks ago. But, now he’s claiming he can’t remember what he asked me for Christmas.  I wouldn’t tell him today.  It’s a surprise, a part of the excitement of the season.

            Except for what he’s getting from the prison, and a local fraternal organization, no one else is getting him a present.   

He said he liked the Christmas card I sent him this week.  He mentioned it several times, but not finding the words he wanted to say.

            He showed me the card he was making for his grandma.  It was sweet, with a little Christmas tree and the ornaments, Charlie Brown style, made from a sheet of copy paper, colored with crayons, and hand blocked letters.  He’s sixteen now, but the card had the look of something from an art class a long time ago.  Yet, it was something from his sweet heart. I’m hoping I get one, too.  It would go on the frig, and I’d show it off to my friends and family. 

            “My gin rummy buddy gave that to me,” I’d say.  “He’s quite a guy.”

            We play a few hands, and discover we have an extra Queen of Clubs.  He doesn’t know what to do, so we change the rules and play 53 card, five queen rummy.  It really is our own game now.  We’re just making it up as we go along.

            The hour flies by.  We’re busy shuffling, dealing, laying down some runs, and adding up our points.  He’s beating me, big time. We don’t talk about much.  But, we don’t need to.  We’re just hanging out, two guys having a good time, playing some cards.

            “Are you having a good time?” I ask.

            “Oh, this is great,” he says.  “Yeah.”

            “I’m really glad you come to see me,” he says.  “Otherwise, I’d be all alone.”

            The other guys here are busy, and the room where we play can get pretty noisy.  But, my buddy is zeroed in on our card game, intent on adding up his points, and beating me. 

            “I’ll see you at the Christmas party next week,” he says. “And, don’t forget my gift.”

            I’ll get one from him, too.  But, he’s already given me the best present, the simple gift of an hour, a little conversation, and some hands of cards, and his face breaking out into a little smile.

            And, maybe that’s the best gift I could ever have for Christmas.

12/23/2015

--Neal Lemery

Defining Success

On Christmas, my wife and I visited one of our young men in prison.  Of all my friends, he’s the one who enjoys Christmas the most, especially the anticipation, the expectation, and the promise of a happy time, a brighter tomorrow.

After five and a half years in prison, his spirit is brighter now that it’s ever been. He’s grown in so many ways, and achieved many of his goals.  In prison, he’s actually had goals and found ways to achieve them.  Before that, life was just survival, slogging through chaos and drugs, of being treated indifferently, without love, and not knowing who he was or where he was headed.

Now, he’s found purpose and meaning.  He’s making peace with the demons in his life, and has found the strength and courage to look deep inside of himself, and to finally love himself, and all the possibilities he has in his life.

He wanted socks for Christmas, making sure everyone knew it, too.  Now, he’s a wealthy man, Mr. Big in the world of socks.  He’s the happy recipient of forty pairs of socks, socks of nearly every size and color.  He has socks everywhere now, new socks to try on every day for over a month.  

Yes, he had a successful Christmas, all the socks he could ever want.  In the telling of his story, his laugh and his big smile light up his face; he knows now that he is loved and respected by so many people.  He’s figured out the magic of Christmas, the reason for the season.

He’s successful in so many other ways this year.  He’s taken charge of his life, looking deep inside of himself, and taking charge of who he is, and where he is going.  He’s embraced his new maturity.  He’s taken on his self confidence and is moving ahead.  He’s found his courage and is nourishing and loving his soul.

He’s the person Robert Louis Stevenson was writing about when he said,

“That man is successful who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much, who has gained the respect of the intelligent men and the love of children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who leaves the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who never lacked appreciation of earth's beauty or failed to express it; who looked for the best in others and gave the best he had.”  ~Robert Louis Stevenson

This year, many people I know have taken stock of their lives, summoned their courage, and moved ahead.  Their accomplishments are many, and I’ve been applauding their journeys, and marveling at their determination and sacred intentions in their lives.  It has been a year of transformation and a year of dramatic and momentous growth.  Old demons have been called out of the basement, new directions has been set, and the tough, sweaty and hard work has been done.  And, in that work, our communities are stronger, more vibrant, richer in so many ways. 

Some people look to Washington politicians to make the big changes they want to see in the world and in their lives.  Yet, the real change and the real work is done right here, inside my friends and neighbors, the farmer, the waitress, the young man in prison.  The real change makers are right here, and the work is getting done. People are becoming transformed, people making a real difference.

Like my young friend in prison, people are taking inventory of who they are inside, and grasping the power they have to change.  And, then, they are stepping out, and doing the hard, gut level work, and moving ahead.  

They see the richness in their lives, not by the number of socks they got for Christmas, but in the way they love and are loved.

Holiday Gifts

“What do you want for Christmas?”

The question gets asked a lot this time of year, and I’ve had my share of wish lists and wants for the holidays. Yet, what really keeps coming to the top of my “list” for Christmas, is time, showing up and just being present in someone’s life.


It’s time spent listening to someone’s story, someone’s life experiences, and finding joy. In the telling, there is magic, and there is that special bonding that makes your heart glad. No possession or holiday trinket or toy can even come close to measuring up to getting to hear someone’s story or being with them as they experience the joy of something simple.


One Christmas, I watched my grandnephew open a number of gifts on Christmas Eve. He was the youngest in the family and we all had gotten him presents. Two years old is a wonderful age to experience Christmas. Soon, he had toy trucks and balls, and mechanical toys and some electronics scattered all over the living room.


Yet, after a while, he was busy making a fort out of a big cardboard box, and his squeals of delight rose higher in the room, as the fort turned into a garage for trucks, or a house, or a spaceship -- whatever his imagination could conjure up. The magic of Christmas that year was not the amount of toys, or the variety, of all the noise and color of whatever we might have found for him. Instead, it was the magic brought on by the boxes and his imagination.

This year, I’m spending Christmas at the local prison for young inmates. I’ve been mentoring several of the young men, and they’ve been teaching me more about life and courage and determination than what I’ve been offering them. At least, I think its at least a two way street for everyone involved.

They don’t expect much for Christmas. The prison has a $25 budget for each of the young men there, where most of them don’t seem to get any visitors. I’ll bring a few gifts for the young men I’ve been spending my Sunday afternoons. Everyone will get a present or two, and there will be a special dinner. Still, it’s prison and most of the guys won’t have anyone to show up to visit with them.


For the two guys I see every week, we’ll get some coffee and a snack, and play some cards or a board game. But, mostly, we’ll just talk, me listening to the stories of their lives and what they’ve been doing. Often, it’s not exciting, world changing stuff, but rather the stories of young men exploring their world a bit, and finding out what they like about themselves and who they are.


They are learning how to talk to a guy, and get a sense of just how to have a conversation about life. It’s a new experience for them. In their past, many of the adults in their lives taught them how to be angry and how to feel stupid and unwanted. And, some of the men in their lives abused them. What I’d call “normal” is nothing they’ve experienced, and so we all grow in how we look at the world, and ourselves.

They struggle to figure me out and how to get along with me. I try to offer some “normal” in their lives, and sometimes, the tears in all that struggle roll down their young faces.


I won’t bring much for Christmas: a few gifts of clothes and some books. Maybe a few movies I can donate to the prison, so everyone gets to see a few good movies during the holidays. One guy’s getting a guitar, so he can express himself in more than his conversation with me once a week, or the occasional letter I get. He’s grown a lot in the past year, and I think he can grow a whole lot more. We’ll see where the guitar in his young hands will take him in the last three years of his prison sentence. I expect to be amazed.


But, most of what I bring is simply my ears. I listen a lot. I share their lives and their stories, and maybe offer a few stories of my own.


I’ll say hi to some of the other guys there, the men who work in the canteen. They don’t get visitors much, so they spend the visiting hours earning the minimum wage around here, 25 cents an hour. Sometimes, I buy them a soda, and I get some big smiles in return. I joke with them, and read their poetry or the occasional essay they’ve written in their English class. What they write is deep and thoughtful, and I’m moved by their sincerity and their pain.


One time, I paid $3 for a couple of photos of a guy, so he could have something to send to his son and to his mom. He’d spent all of his 25 cents an hour income on other guys, the guys who come into this place without any money, and need some toiletries and maybe a CD player, so they can have some music in their lives. He didn’t want me to pay, but I insisted.


He’s never forgotten that, and he makes sure to say hi to me every time I come in to buy our coffee and popcorn. I ask about his mom and his son. He gets a sad look on his face, saying he hasn’t had a response to him sending the photos out to his family. But, he’s happy he made the effort, and he likes to let me know that. He hasn’t had a visitor for four years, so the least I can do is to say hi, and ask how he’s doing.


When I see the ads on TV for all the toys and the latest consumer trends, I just laugh. That’s not Christmas. Buying and giving all that stuff really doesn’t mean much, and it never has. Christmas is all about spending time and letting someone know they are loved.


It’s the two year old boy playing with the cardboard box on Christmas Eve, and it’s the young man in prison smiling because someone came to talk to him, or bought him a soda, or even helped him send his photo to his family.


That’s what’s on my Christmas list and that is what Christmas is all about.

--Neal Lemery 11/27/2011