Courage I've only read about...

..it's what compels me this morning.

I was reading the most current issue of Sports Illustrated yesterday...thanks to my lovely sister-Patti-Sue...

She came to visit me here in prison on Saturday by the way. We haven't seen each other in almost 9 years. Although we chucked around the compliments of how well one another looked, also what was not avoided was the missing teethes...her with the bridges and the dental work befitting good medical coverage..me with the gap in my choppers that has me still ejecting scraps of food meant for mastication while I went about gesticulating...great are we Goniers at this fine forgotten art form of getting our point across... And if you won't listen after I've thrown half a Mr.Goodbar at you, well, what can a guy do?

For sure though my sister turned heads to the point of guys telling me later on the yard that I had a great looking wife (and ain't it funny how our spouses come to resemble us after years of being together). It was my sister I tell 'em. And then they proceeded to pry into whether or not she's single. Does she cheat on her husband? (audacity has not a chance in this camp.) Finally after dislodging their wayward requests for her risque history they are convinced she must have, I get back to my cell for a nice evening of recuperation. Not only from the ridiculousness of fielding inquiries into Patti-Sue's sexual history (my gosh I tell this one guy she's been married for thirty years...to a cop! Ha! That did it! Off they scampered! Proving that once again these guys dress up with all this purported tough-guyness, and for real they're just boys...mostly alone, scared and scarred from life's reaping and sowing laws--GOD'S law is what it is though--Galatians 6:7-8.)

As I settled into the aftermath of PTVS (post traumatic visitation syndrome) I laid back to peruse the old Sports Illustrated...a reliable candidate that gets my vote for escaping (albeit temporary) the incessant droning of my prison sentence with all its acroutements. Then I happened upon "The Courage of Jill Costello". A 5' 4" buck ten of a woman that spun such a web of intestinal fortitude from which I shant untangle myself for years to come.

At the tender age of ..oh 10 or 11 I'd say from the article's view, she wanted to be the coxswain for Cal Berkeley. A dream she pursued with enough due diligence to put to pasture all laws that line up with physical endurance and mental perseverance, smashing down the ends which most could not fathom justified the means. She was to me (or should I properly say "is to me" for she lives on in my thoughts--as well the women who stood by her--teammates and rivals alike) "a light that shines in a dark place" (2 Peter 1:19). Here I was basking (if you'll allow me that, from my sister's visit), reading along when out of the blue (which in this case the blues did show themselves strong) the cancer hit her from nowhere--a stomach ache mestasizing into a brutal attack on her integrity as a leader and a go-getter.

These men in here I hear complaining about various wrongs done them by being punished for their own sins...what about her? As I thought on my GOOD GOD (the article weaving its way along the tracks of my tears as Smokey Robinson would lament from lost love), but this little woman...Oh man the strength! As she got her opportunity to "man" the coxswain spot at the PAC 10 Championships, and, as I knew the writer of the story was setting me up for her death--especially when in the last time she wielded that handsfree mic and cadenced her crew on through though her rebellious body not wanting it so--halfway through the race blood starting leaking out of her nose and as one of her faithful oarers was told to focus on "Jill's strength"...by her coach. She saw it alright--an indomitable spirit that that wretched disease could not shake--she took the back of her hand and, as the writer put it so, "wiped it away with disdain".

Man, did you catch that? With disdain she battled an all consuming cancer that wanted to rob her of a dream she was now sitting in the catbird's seat of. So take that you cancer you! I couldn't finish the article at first because I knew where it was heading...and when I read that line about the blood in the middle of the race, I was glad to be in my cell without my other two cellies to witness as I pulled the blankets and sheets over my head to weep uncontrollably for this woman I've never met and for her friends and family who cheered her on in the worst of times (but you just didn't know that by her...and I can't take a cold without telling 100 people how bad I feel...) I finished up the story later that night when we were locked in tight--a mistake of course because my crying wasn't done as I knew it would come when the writer stitched me up into her death. But I had to do the silent eye scrunched cry...hoping these big bad convicts don't see me as weak.

Oh we're weak alright by Jill Costello's standard--gangs and the like trying for macho. No sir, that don't cut it. What's unbelievably macho is what came forth from this little woman. I hope this will serves as a wake-up for those of us think we got it so bad. We don't. Do you see? Love always...

later..dougie boy