Unshackled Echo ~ February 14, 2019 ~ Remembering Dee

She was rough around the edges, tough as old leather, and her heart was pure and sweet. The photo I have of her with her granddaughter shortly before her death is one of the most precious and beautiful photos I have ever taken. Today I am remembering Dee. I'm not sure why, but she's on my mind this morning, and I am missing her more than usual.

I spent seven and a half years in a Texas prison, and got out wanting something better for my life, but completely hopeless about the future and more angry than I can describe. I was a seething cauldron of anger, and yes, fear. What now? What was I going to do? What could I do? How could I fix my life and would I ever be happy or cared about or treated like a person or.....

In about a week of getting out, while still on parole, I got drunk. It scared me. This was a violation, and I didn't want to return to prison. Also, I knew that while I felt horrible for opening that bottle of rum and hated myself for failing so quickly at freedom, what I really wanted was another drink and I could think of some drugs that would compliment the drink nicely. I stood at the edge of a cliff and seriously contemplated jumping. Instead I reached out for help. A few reached back, but none so much or so truly offered themselves in service as Dee.

It was clear from the start that I needed help and someone to take me through the steps of recovery. Dee walked up to me one day, asked me if I had found someone yet, and when I told her no, she told me to come with her. She led me to a man I had never spoken to before, told him I was looking for help, and I had my first mentor. A few weeks later, when I went a little crazy and nearly drank over my fourth step, she offered me her couch as a safe place. I finished my fourth step at her house, alone but not alone, safe, over the next few days. I rang in my first new year after prison at her house with her and her boyfriend. I even got to know Emily, who would become one of my best friends, as we sat on Dee's couch eating the magic BlueBell ice cream and complaining about how life and relationships were treating us.

Dee's willingness to help, to take a chance on losers like me in need of help and recovery and her exuberant friendship were major factors in my early recovery. When the cancer finally took her, we lost a woman who had truly been refined by the fires of hell into a treasure. As I approach my sixth year of recovery I realize how much of the principles I learned to live by I learned sitting on her couch. She let a man she didn't know well, who had just gotten out of prison and had nothing to offer anyone, into her home and life. She became a friend, and stayed one, even when I didn't listen to her advice and screwed up royally along the early days of my journey. Now, I am recovered from a hopeless state of mind and body. I have learned to forgive, myself and others. I have learned how to love and be the kind of man who gladly puts his wife first. I am a minister and share what I have been given in order that other captives may find freedom and a life worth living. The man I am today is a miracle of God, and that miracle is due in part to the kindness, caring and service of a wonderful lady many would disregard.

Today, let us not hesitate to offer caring and friendship to the outcast, the broken and the loser. You never know what a little kindness can do in the life of one person and how that may grow into help for many. Thank you Dee.

Today's Unshackled Echo was previously published on

March 31, 2016.

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