Humanization

I opened up a letter the other day. A new friend of mine from Maine wrote me, letters I look forward too. In this letter she describes a picture of an ice storm she sent with the letter. Strange, I didn't receive a picture. Perhaps she forgot to include it, had it lying on the table and got distracted. The truth is, the picture probably got sent and the people who go through our mail liked it and decided to keep it. Maybe its hanging up on the cork board above their desk where they miserably and bitterly search mail.

I hope it brightens their day. Humanization...

I read a book by Tim O'Brien called The Things They Carried. In it he describes inner reflections of what soldiers, and I would argue everyone, do to reconcile themselves upon intrinsic reflection. He describes a Vietnamese man walking down a pathway and he talks about how the man aspired to be a math teacher, get married. Things he really had no idea about, the author that is, but it is what he told himself to assign a soul to the mans face who haunted his dreams and day to day life. Humanization...

A college professor comes to prisons to involve inmates in higher education and their students are oddly surprised that caged people can have the same insight from experience they do from cash. We shake hands and I think about how cold it is in that room and I just want to get warm. They think about catching up on sleep missed from a previous night and the drive home. Both groups of people are leaving with a new found understanding of something else. Higher education that we all need. Humanization...

Writing me a letter
Being my mentor
Teaching me a skill
Being patient with me
Looking at me now, not my past

Humanization...

With Love
Jeff "Jeffebelle"