And on a more serious note (G#):
Joe and I spent last evening with the family of one of his Angels, who helped him survive his recent ordeal. The gentleman has a wife and five, count'em, five kids who are living in his mother's house, struggling by until their family once more has a father.
We spent a pleasant hour or so chatting with his wife, commiserating about the *%#@$ lawyers, the *&$&# judges, the *^#%*$ correction officers, the $^^$#%& doctors and sun-dried others. She and Joe told tales of misery and heroism, and we were all very supportive of each other.
The mother then arrived, after spending a twelve-hour day decorating her church with various gewgaws made of palm fronds for Palm Sunday. Joe and I both made a special effort to praise her son and let her know that even in the most trying of circumstances he was seen as a giving and caring person, not just by Joe, but by others with physcal problems. The man himself has a metal plate in his head, having been in a coma for several days after a brutal beating by the cossacks (for which, his family has found, there is little legal recourse), and yet he showed more interest in the well-being of others than in his own during the period that he and Joe were together.
A little story from his mother: if a prisoner is attacking a guard, and that prisoner is restrained by another prisoner, thus protecting the guard and possibly saving his life, what would be the reaction of the authorities? Well, in this case he was disciplined for "interfering with orderly conduct". This is the mentality one must face in this place.
Both his wife and his mother seemed to be very strong indeed, getting through this ordeal with smiles and grit. Optimistically, the father will be returned to his family sometime this summer. Yes, sometime this summer, he'll come galloping over the green. Until that time, my Joe tells me he feels an obligation to give them some help and support in return for what was done for him while he was away.
Yes, it was rather an emotional meeting. Yes, we feel all this should never have happened in the first place. But still, I keep hearing my late mother saying, as she always would, "God must have had a reason for this." Perhaps the reason is beginning to reveal itself.
The one thing the mother kept telling us was, "Don't let evil people sour you on the whole human race. Otherwise, you become just like them, and they have won."
