This morning I switched on my car radio, driving into San Francisco to do my part-time student job, hair still damp in the hurry to leave in time. With the channel tuned to KQED, I moved from my private path into the public highway of our culture. At the place on the road from Tiburon where there is still a patchwork ‘sign’ of red letters on black background spelling out “ I love NY” and the apple symbol, now growing tattered, I began to take in the drama of a man’s death. This morning a man was put to death by the forces of morality as they stand today in California through the judiciary. He was given a lethal injection as ‘capital punishment’.
The reporter gave details of the moments that occurred before the injection administered to Death Row Prisoner, Stephen Wayne Anderson, brought about his end. Those details were enough to make me gasp, with the sting of tears arising to my eyes. I heard that the lawyer for Stephen Anderson, had said to him, “ I love you” as he raised his head from the bed onto which he was strapped and found her eyes. She said it twice audibly, and then, even a third time through silent lips. I could feel the pain and sorrow in that verbal portrait of a man’s last few moments before he met death at the hands of his fellow human beings. I heard that there was no one from his family in attendance. And no priest, for he had not wished for one.
I drove on, swallowing the sadness, along with the deeply surprising image of a legal professional speaking with such heart and intimacy to her client. Through all the gruesome paraphernalia and formality of such an occasion, this interaction of human feeling and support had broken through. It was this that moved me so deeply— that she had done this, that it had been reported, that I was the listener and witness to such a moment. In the reporting, this strange privacy became exalted. To me, she had moved from the status of a lawyer who has done everything to save her client, and who has recognized something called love within all that effort, to something even grander. I saw her as an archetype of the humaneness we associate with the word ‘humanity’. With her words, she affirmed that the human race was not totally lost with its impulse to vengeance, and that this man was, indeed, part of our collectivity and deserving of love, like any other. Thank heavens Stephen Anderson was given that comfort.
I knew no more about this event until this evening when, eating my supper, I turned the pages of the San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday edition, and found an article by Kevin Fagan. In this article I learned the story in outline of Stephen Anderson, with his talent for writing poems laid out like gleaming candles in the darkness of his tale. I learned that he had died in San Quentin State Prison, the buildings I can see from the house where I live— buildings that only yesterday I was filming as part of my project to capture the changing weather and beauty of this particular spot of Marin County. My videotape of yesterday has rain and grayness enveloping the prison and the hills behind. Over the Richmond/San Rafael Bridge to the right of the prison, clouds climbed in majestic splendor, rain sprays falling in graceful curves. Stephen’s last day was a day of dramatic weather.
Reading Fagan’s article, I sigh at the words of those who decided his fate should be capital punishment, and who persisted with their idea that his crimes could find no redemption in this life, only “ payment for”, by his death. I come from a country, Britain, where capital punishment has been abolished for many years. To hear of this event, with its tangible physical proximity to my own free and fortunate life here, is provocative and disturbing. Listening to the news of death penalty impositions from the UK is inevitably more remote.
For many years I have known that the leadership shown by the United States of America is of particular importance in today’s world. Since 9/11 that sense is heightened by many degrees of intensity. Whether it is terrorism, or Enron, whether it is energy use or international trade agreements— the example set by America to the rest of the world is above all others in today’s range of nations. I long for the example to change. I long to hear of American judiciary, of American politicians, of American businessmen and corporations, doing something that is actually noble. Noble in action as much as in rhetoric. And courageous in a new way. I long to hear of action that is more inclined to listen to others, more inclined to acknowledge uncertainty, more inclined to recognize the unbreakable interdependence of our contemporary world. I long to hear of actions that show depth of moral insight. I long to hear of forgiveness and mercy that might have been shown to one such as Stephen Anderson. And I long to hear of a sense of creativity in the face of wrong-doing by citizens such as Stephen which could see the great educational gift that he could have given to society.
Stephen Anderson was a man who had repented. His words in writing show this. He could have toured the country, speaking to others with backgrounds like his, and helped those fractured raging kids and young adults to see that there is another way of dealing with that kind of deprivation than through violence. He could have served as a great example, a great inspiration. His writing is proof of his talent, and his sincerity— two qualities that we could have valued highly instead of dismissing in such an ugly way.
Instead of killing this gift that he could make to society Stephen could have been supported and aided to set about the complex task of speaking to the thousands of people who suffer from similar experiences. His story is replicated across the world, not just in America. Had American judicial process seen the wisdom that could be brought forth from such a person, whose repentance was so obvious, then others all over the world might have been inspired. Instead, the lesser path was taken. Wisdom is a collective affair. Had he been pardoned, our collective conscience might have been enlarged, cultivated. Instead we allowed the singular gift of humanity – our capacity to change, to learn, to repent, to teach others – to be killed. It is another kind of crime, I feel, that we stood by and watched as that man was put to death.
Only the words of his lawyer are testimony of another side of our character—our higher moral and emotional sensibility. She spoke to a truth that will return again and again, until our social and legal practices are capable of enacting that private and personal interaction we call ‘love’.
I burn a candle beside me as I write this piece. I was moved by Stephen’s words:
Light a candle for my
memory
in a quiet chapel by the sea
as day drifts into dusky night
cup it in your hands and
hold me tight.
I want to hold Stephen Anderson – and his victims – tight. Both, all, are to be valued and helped. We need to find another way of helping one another when things go so badly wrong as to end in murder. I want to hold him and his victims and his poems in a single embrace that affirms the power of forgiveness, the power of love and the power of creativity. In such embrace we become greater. We become more human.
This piece has been written to honor the spirit of Stephen Wayne Anderson and to honor the spirit of those who died by his hand. In their story lies much to learn and think about as we seek a more ‘progressive’ society. In that search there is a special responsibility by America and by Americans.
