As we stand in the thick of the holiday season, it’s easy for some to forget that if you have food, you need to find some gratitude, too. Recently, our prison has been in a facility-wide lockdown over a Covid outbreak that left most living units restricted in ways not typical for this particular prison. While we have to stay in our cells 22 to 23 hours a day, stay medically monitored, and restricted, we also must be fed where we stand. Because of the inmate population being sequestered, there’s no one to cook meals. All of our current meals come in the form of a “TV dinner” style tray, reheated and delivered. It’s not the best by any stretch, but it’s available and offers something to be grateful for…
There are those here that find room to bitch and moan about the portions, or quality, or what they didn’t get. For some, it’s easy to forget to be grateful for the meal. I’m just as human as the next guy and have preferences and tastes, but as much as I want to do my share of complaining (more about the circumstance of being fed this way than the actual food… I kinda like it), I keep a perspective about it. Here’s my take…
Everyone here was sentenced for crimes committed against society, whether justly or otherwise, and with that sentence comes the verdict of “guilty”. Guilty. The state has removed us from society to pay a price for guilt. And yet, they also have a legal and moral responsibility to make sure we are fed according to state and federal mandates. There’s no promise of a T-bone Steak with a Denver Omlet as some would believe. Just approved nutritional requirements for institutional settings as prescribed. And to maintain the right level of gratitude for whatever that requirement is, I think about some very innocent kid who calls the back seat of his mom’s car his bed, parked and living under a bridge somewhere in Seattle, watching his mother cry at night wishing she could do more for them both to have a roof, a little hope, a brighter future and…. one of the meals we get. Stay grateful if you have something to eat right now. Plenty don’t.
by Rory Andes
It’s all about perspective…
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