To the editor:
I shared a letter and poem earlier this year dedicated to the people who bring recovery and hope to inmates like myself here in the Brown County jail. I am writing this letter to express my extreme gratitude to them.
When I came to the jail, I was a lost, broken man. Thanks to folks like our new chaplain, Thom Miller, Greg Roark and Carrie Foley, just to name a few who have impacted me, as well as so many others, I have a new outlook and hope I couldn’t have found on my own. Nor can you find so many people dedicated to helping, educating and rehabilitating us, and doing so selflessly, in any other facility.
My time has grown short here in the BCJ, but thanks to these folks, and so many others, I’m leaving with a brand-new lease on life and the tools to stay clean and become productive.
These folks are truly wonderful and I owe them my life. Thank you, and I dedicate this poem to them all.
The Mirror
Each and every day I find
Everything is so much clearer
I don’t dislike the man I see
While looking in the mirror
My way of life had blinded me
Oh, all my foolish lies
But now I find it’s not so hard
To look him in the eyes
I wasted so much of my life
Years I spent misbehaving
But now I see a brand new man
Each morning when I’m shaving
No more do I have to see
A liar or a thief
This man that I see standing there
Each time I brush my teeth
I see the changes in his eyes
The hope, the love, the care
The guy who I see staring back
Now when I comb my hair
Each and every day I find
Everything is so much clearer
I don’t dislike the man I see
When I look in the mirror
Clayton W. Rushton, Brown County jail
