Free The Four Walls of My Freedom by Donna Thomson Page A

the law. But there is a clear recognition that human contact with at least one compassionate listener is important even for the most hardened criminals who are facing the death penalty.
    Closer to home, I recall one story told to me by Vickie Cammack at PLAN . An elderly woman approached staff at PLAN in Vancouver with a difficult request. Her only daughter had received a life sentence in a forensic psychiatric facility and had already served some years. The elderly mother feared that with her own passing, her daughter would never have another visitor. The woman asked whether PLAN could find someone to visit her daughter and bring her favourite chocolate chip cookies once a month. The staff at PLAN agreed to try and a paid facilitator or “community connector” visited the daughter in prison once a month for one hour. Eleven monthly visits passed with not one word exchanged between the two women. The daughter refused to speak or acknowledge the facilitator at all. At the end of a year and on her twelfth visit, the facilitator said to the prisoner, “Your mum has asked me to visit you because she is worried that she is dying soon. After your mum dies, it’s possible you will never have another visitor. Today is my last visit with you, because I agreed with your mum that I would try for a year to help you. What would you like me to do next month?” The woman looked up from her lap for the first time in eleven months and said, “You can do what you want.” The PLAN facilitator arrived at the prison the next month with chocolate chip cookies. During their months of silence, the facilitator had passed the time by knitting. Eventually, the facilitator taught the prisoner to knit. In this special case, the facilitator dropped her paid role and rather than introducing her to an unpaid friend, became the prisoner’s friend herself. I recall telling this story to the board of directors at Lifetime Networks Ottawa, a PLAN affiliate organization that I helped to found. One of the directors was dismissive, remarking, “Well, if you go around saying that our charity helps murderers who are insane, we are never going to get any support in this town!” I believe that he missed the point.
    The point of the story is the notion that the mother–daughter relationship is sacred to civil society. We must not allow anyone to be found unworthy of at least one caring relationship — even those who by all appearances do not deserve a speck of human kindness. Central to this understanding is that one-half of that particular relationship was a mother who was beside herself with grief and worry. PLAN trumpets safety and security through caring relationships. But this safety and security is for all who choose it, not just some.
    Amartya Sen intentionally coined the term Capability Approach and not Capability Theory , to allow for maximum flexibility in applying his thinking about human freedom. In the context of my family, I wanted to examine the extent to which we have enjoyed the “freedom to be” — an existence measured against a myriad of choices that other families take for granted.
    By “being,” I mean participation in community life and public institutions for my family. It also implies acceptance in those spheres. But participation in community life is not easy or straightforward. Like all families, individual needs may pit themselves against the freedoms of another.
    In order for Nicholas to have the freedom to pursue a life that he values, he must have twenty-four-hour nursing care. For many years, I performed that care myself. Now we have a team of paid staff around the clock. They allow Nicholas to pursue his interests and live a good life, but they also permit me to flourish as well. The help that we have now that Nicholas is twenty-one can be seen as reciprocity from the state to me, for having performed the first eighteen years of Nicholas’ care.
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