Saturday, March 26, 2011

Conviction

I really can't even decide what to say in this post. I am literally close to speechless and feel tears rolling down my face as I write this. I just finished watching Conviction, a film about Betty Ann Waters and her fight to free her brother from a life sentence in jail after being wrongly convicted of 1st Degree Murder. She managed to get a degree and then a law degree so that she could fight the system herself to free her brother after 18 years serving time in prison for a crime he did not commit.

It's an incredibly difficult and complex story to watch unfold onscreen and also merely to process as I sit here. I have so much rolling around in my head. How does this happen? How do we as a society forgive ourselves for allowing something like this to occur? How can we ever give this man back any of the time that was stolen from him? He missed watching his child and his nieces and nephews grow up. Betty Ann's fight ruined her marriage and took 18 years of stress and struggle and incredibly hard work, which is so incredibly admirable, but also sort of tragic in that she was caught in that sense of imprisonment as well. She was locked in a fight that changed her entire life as well. How do they get that time back? How do they deal with that now? How does someone find the strength and courage to fight like that? It's truly incredible.

I guess it's just hard to wrap my head around something like that. And, of course, the system is not perfect. We know that. But, I still can't help but think that something must be done. There must be a way to prevent this sort of thing from happening. There must be some way to repay them. It's horrifying and heartbreaking and I just can't stop reeling from it.

There's no real moral or end to this post. I just had to get some of those questions out. How does someone love so deeply? It's truly amazing and awe-inspiring. I am going back to speechless now. Carry on.

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