“I thank my God upon every remembrance of you.” (Philippians 1:3, NJKV)
Think back over your life to the worst decision you ever made. That thing you said or did that still sits in the pit of your stomach when you think about it.
Now, imagine that’s the only thing people remember about you when you die.
This is what media outlets do to people who have been convicted of a crime. The fact you were a loving mother, wife, husband or father is erased. The program you started for youth to have a safe place to play is irrelevant. Your honorable service and sacrifice for your country, forgotten. You were just a criminal, a felon, and as such, the world is better off without you in it.
That’s what the media recently said about one of the first people who showed me care and compassion when I came to Maine State Prison almost 14 years ago: Greg Warmke. “Are you hungry?” he asked me. “I remember being in my early twenties. I was hungry all the time! What do you like to eat? You can have anything you want … except my chocolate!” Greg loved his chocolate.
But nobody seems to care about that. They don’t care that Greg was one of the most dedicated, selfless, loving, joyful, compassionate, sensitive people I’ve met in my life. They don’t care that he would deliver the tackiest jokes you could think of until the most stern-faced, burly prisoner couldn’t help but laugh. Sure, it got a little annoying from time to time, but I would treasure an opportunity to hear one of those stupid jokes again. If there’s one thing hospice service teaches you, it is to cherish the time you have with the people you love while you have them.
I loved Greg. And I made sure to tell him that. I didn’t care what he did to get here, the same way he didn’t care what I did to get here. We didn’t measure each other by the crimes we committed, but by what we were doing to bring joy, love and comfort into the world we inhabited.
The same has been true of the many dozens of men who have died over the 15 years of my incarceration. I come to know a man by who he is today, and when he dies, the headlines trap him forever in the worst decision he ever made. Often, these split decisions with devastating consequences are over in mere moments.
My fellow hospice volunteer, Nate, recently shared this reflection with me from almost a decade ago, a pain he still carries from the first patient we cared for together: Chip. “The first gentleman I had the blessing of spending time with at the end of his life was a man who had served our great country in the Vietnam War,” Nate recalled. “Chip was the father of adult daughters. He was a staple of what was then our only veterans’ group here at the prison: Incarcerated Veterans of Maine, Inc.. After Chip passed away, I was watching the news and was shocked to hear his entire life summed up in one painful act: ‘Inmate convicted of murder dies at Maine State Prison.’”
The horrible robbery this man committed, which ended in the death of an innocent man, took just seven minutes. Everything else Chip did during more than 60 years of life was dismissed, erased, considered unmentionable in the media.
Twelve years. Greg could have been home in 12 years. Now he’s dead. ALS killed him and removed a loving light from this prison. When I think back, I wonder how much good Greg could have been doing in the world if he hadn’t been stuck in here with me. Out of the pain he carried, I never once saw or heard of him even contemplating violence. Instead, he was the Cheese Robber in a hilarious play he wrote for his drama class at the prison. He was the man I eagerly introduced to my eldest niece, who still has the copy of the play he gave her six years ago. The man who made her, my sister, and my dear friend laugh unrestrainedly in a prison visit room.
Greg wasn’t a monster. He wasn’t a murderer. He was a man. A man in pain who acted out of pain in years past, taking a precious life in the process. He was also a loving friend, a hospice volunteer, a gardener, a student, a teacher, a giver, an actor (definitely not a singer!), and a servant leader. Known by many names: The Flower Man, The Cheese Robber, The Jokester and The Jester, Greg Warmke is loved and missed, and this world is worse off without him.
The next time you see a headline that announces, “This Criminal Is Dead,” I ask you to wonder who they were before and after the worst moment of their life.
Leo Hylton is a PhD student at George Mason University’s Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, currently incarcerated at Maine State Prison. His education and work are focused on Social Justice Advocacy and Activism, with a vision toward an abolitionist future. You can reach him at: Leo Hylton #70199, 807 Cushing Rd., Warren, ME 04864, or leoshininglight@gmail.com.
