Restitution

Monday, August 18, 2019

It’s been a long day.

We had the news on most of the morning and the disaster just keeps getting worse.

John put out a jar, a big old pickle container, on the counter, for donations to the disaster relief effort. And by the end of the day it was full.

After the lunch rush, we closed up shop and took the money and a bunch of other stuff, including a dozen of the AfricaBoxes from the storeroom, down to the Red Cross drop-off point in John’s old hybrid GMC. Stuff was coming in from all over, and the Red Cross people were overwhelmed, so we stayed for a couple of hours and helped sort the donations into shipping containers.

On the ride back my stomach was rumbling from the smell of cooking french fries (the truck runs on homemade bio-diesel made with oil from the deep fryers). John laughed and swung through the drive up at In-and-Out and bought us both lunch, and it was the best burger I’ve had in ten years. But, I couldn’t help thinking that it was funny, a month ago I was in prison for murder and conspiracy to deny people their basic human rights, and here I am today helping to load supplies for humanitarian relief. I’ve always felt guilty for my crimes (and you can believe that or not, but it’s true, I regret it every single day).

Today, I felt good about myself, and that’s something I’m definitely not used too. Ten years in the can and two hours loading MRE’s doesn’t make up for what I did, but it’s a start – and there will be more of it.

Posted by VanDerDecken at 10:28 PM