Unusual Love Story
Unusual Love Story
Sheila loves Joe. Joe loves Sheila.
Those six words, simply stated and joyfully felt, have come to be my heart’s well-considered response to the raised eyebrows, the well-meaning or menacing questions, the remarks intended to crush, the fear born of ignorance. To all of this and to all the rest that I have experienced as the wife of a man who is incarcerated, my heart replies, “Sheila loves Joe. Joe loves Sheila.”
Of course, most people don’t see Sheila, me. They see only the labels that have been attached to me: Educated. Professional. Successful. New York Times foreign correspondent and senior editor. Book publisher.
The labels attached to Joe make him even harder, perhaps for some even impossible, to see: Drug dealer. Murderer. Prisoner. Felon. Convict serving 25-to-life.
And all the labels typically conspire to raise this question: Why would a successful, educated woman marry a convicted murderer? The story that leads to the answer begins in the fall of 2001.
It was Homecoming Sunday at Riverside Church, an annual event where the church’s clubs and organizations display their literature and talk up their activities in the hope of attracting new members. At one of the tables was information about the Riverside Church Prison Ministry. I read the organization’s brochure about its advocacy work and decided that perhaps there was something I could do to help, especially since so many of those behind prison walls are, like me, African-American. I joined, and I was given the assignment of answering letters the ministry received from incarcerated men and women. And so I did.
Although generally viewed as faceless statistics or frightening stereotypes, the people I came to know through letters were multidimensional, complex human beings, much like the rest of us. More than a few were skilled and talented in a range of disciplines, from writing and music to business and law. And there were those who’d clearly used their time in prison to rethink and disavow the values and belief systems that had brought them there. The people I came to know were much greater than the bad choices they’d made. They were much greater than the labels attached to them. And they so inspired me that I would eventually start and devote myself to a book publishing company that, as part of its mission, would seek to present a more balanced view of the incarcerated through books that would allow them a voice, feature their success stories and help them tackle some of the hard challenges they face.
I looked forward to stopping by the Prison Ministry mailbox after Sunday services and scooping up the latest letters. Among them one Sunday in August of 2002 was a letter from Joe Robinson, who was incarcerated at Sullivan Correctional Facility in upstate New York. His request wasn’t unlike others I’d received; he wanted someone to write to. I wrote back, and thus began a long correspondence that would make my life ever richer, ever more complete.
At first glance, Joe and I couldn’t have looked more different. I was a respected, well-traveled journalist for one of the world’s most prestigious newspapers. He had left college and turned to drug dealing to make fast money to support his girlfriend and the baby that was on the way. With the unwavering support of a hard-working mother and father, I had made my way out
of the St. Louis ghetto and now made my home in one of New York City’s better
neighborhoods. His father was not in his life and, when he was 15, his mother succumbed to
crack cocaine, forcing him to make a road for himself largely by himself, a road littered with mistakes and poor choices that would lead to prison.
But through our letters, I discovered that Joe and I stood on common ground: Deep and abiding faith. A desire and willingness to work toward self-improvement. A commitment to participate in the lives of our sons. A love of books and learning. A sense of duty to our people, our community. A desire to play a part in improving society.
My journey to that common ground seemed fairly straightforward. But I came to understand and respect how Joe’s journey to that place involved a conscious decision to remake himself into the man he wanted to be. Through dark hours and long years behind prison walls, he used introspection, reflection, books and prayer to find an inner light that revealed to him his best self, the man God had intended him to be. He developed a passion for legitimate business by reading newspaper financial sections that other prisoners threw away. He traded cigarettes for books to build his own business library and became an authoritative financial adviser to fellow incarcerated men, eventually teaching personal finance
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