Saturday Night Live Moment

[Pana]

Over a couple of months, last summer, I hung out with a couple, Tracey and Jack* either at their hobby farm or Tracey would come hang out in my back yard while Jack would go off to work. Tracey was really unhappy and kind of jangly. She had a great sense of humour, was reallly earthy...loved her animals. Jack was like a big goofy dog. On the weekends he was gathered around the firepit, drinking and looking up at the stars. Both of them were big into native spiritualism but it wasn't doing the trick for Tracey. She had gotten to the point where conviction in beliefs were hard to come by.

I talked with her about some of the buddhist stuff that helped me shift my mind or make her laugh about the foibles of perimenopasual women (which we both are) or other silly stupid things like "we never thought we would end up where we ended up" absurdities. She struggled with her depression but could poke fun at it it too.

As summer wound down into autumn, we would occasionally email each other. She was starting a new job in a few weeks and after a few times of phoning and emailing her and not getting a response, I let it be thinking she was busy or just needing to be alone. I'm like that too - needing to withdraw sometimes.

Two nights ago, I got a call from a mutual friend who said Tracey had died last week and her funeral was today. I was shocked at the news and after I got off the phone I wondered if she hadn't killed herself. After staring death in the face for the last couple of years, I have acquired a new relationship with it and really understand why someone would off themselves. Living is hard. Death is the release.

So, off I go to her funeral today. Raging blizzard outside. First part was a viewing - open casket. I walked in and immediately sat in the back. I didn't go up to look but many people did. Jack was up near the casket, hugging people as they came up to pay their respects. Everyone took their seats afterwards and the pastor came up and started the euology. Jack got up and said a few words and invited others to come up. One woman came up and started speaking of the time she knew Tracey and what a wonderful person she was. A few phrases came popping out of her mouth that brought my awareness to a different height, like: "...when Tracey was on the inside...", "...the sisters on the inside...", "....risk to society..."

...and I thought, wow, was Tracey in prison?

...and then someone else got up and said a few things. One of their sentences really made me pop, "...when she got out after fifteen years..."

...and I thought, holy fuck! She must have killed someone to be in there for fifteen years!!!

...and then our mutual friend, who had come late, sat down beside me and I whispered, "was she in prison?"...and he said, yeah..are they talking about that here? What did she do, I asked? "Google her name", he said.

So, after giving a hug to Jack afterwards, off I go, come home and google her name.

Yup. She had killed when she was 22. Bludgeoned an 82 year old man to death for his money. She was originally going to drown him in his bathtub but thought it would be too inciriminating on her and harder to get rid of his body so her and her boyfriend lured him to an isolated road and bludgeoned him to death with a nail puller.

This was in the eighties. She didn't get out until mid 2000's. So, I thought, how did she meet Jack? I google Jack's name and find out that he was a cop killer and held a single woman with two young kids hostage to get their car to run away from killing the cop. He met Tracey in prison at a men prison/women prison social event.

Tracey had killed herself because she had stopped going to see her counsellor which, I found out, was part of her parole conditions. Since she broke the conditions they were going to send her back to prison.
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This whole day has messed with my head.

*Not their real names

[Royal]

Bear Spray. Have it on hand for now on.

[Pigeon]

Sad that people can do these evil things.

"in prison at a men prison/women prison social event." - oh brother...guess that is between the 'how to be a better criminal classes'.

[Pana]

Yeah, I never knew they had social events between gender prisons either.

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All of this brings up a moral question for me:

When do people repay their 'debt'? Completion of sentencing? All their life?

[Egg]

Holy shit. What a mind fuck. Wow!