Joan's story

It’s funny how the universe sends us people that can either enrich or destroy our lives, the premise being that we can learn from both types of people. Joan and Clyde are a couple that I’m sure are going to teach me a lot. They are both in their sixties but they live young, grabbing life by the luridly patterned Hawaiian shirt collar and enjoying it to its unpredictable and wild limits.

The three of us were having breakfast at Siemens and the conversation swivelled from vegetarianism (Clyde had recently been converted by a You Tube clip about how we treat our about-to-be slaughtered animals) and exposing children to the idea of butchering animals, to the experiences that life had sent our way. Clyde mentioned that Joan had led a fascinating life and that she should write a memoir. Joan being shy and humble commented that her life was both too complicated, and she was too private to lay her life out like that for everyone to view. Maybe, she pondered, she would do it if she could write under a pseudonym. Clyde prompted her a little and she relented, sipping her tea she recounted an experience she had had in her youth.

“A long time ago I used to counsel prisoners on death row. In those days they were doing several executions a week, it was a mess. Some of them were really bad men, in for the worst crimes, and others shouldn’t have been there.” She was visiting a prisoner whom she was counselling that was on death row, when he asked if he could ask her a question. He said that when a prisoner was removed to the nearby hanging chamber for execution, the guards would fetch the prisoner and then slam the door to the cell shut as they left. The prisoner would stand in the double volume communal space that was separated by wire mesh from the cells inhabited by other prisoners and call out, “I’m going now”.

Normally the cells were noisy, but when the door slammed and the prisoner spoke, a quiet would fill the void and no one spoke. He felt that at that moment someone should say something, acknowledge him in some way. It felt wrong not to say something.

“What”, he wanted to know, “should they reply to this man going to his death?” Joan paused. Captivated I asked, “What did you say?” “I told him to say, we will remember you.” I must have looked confused because she elaborated. In the black African cultures, a person lives on as long as someone remembers them. Knowing that the prisoner is going to his death and hearing what may be some of his last words is memorable. It sticks in the mind of his fellow inmates. He is heard and remembered, continuing to live long after he takes his last breath.

I find this belief comforting. My Grandfather lives in my memory, and through my stories of him to my children he will continue to exist.