SANTANA’S LAST STAND
A true story
By Philip Remington Dunn
It should have been his last stand. Respected for his courage and brutality, Santana Acuna should have welcomed a proper outlaw ending. Barricaded inside a house, hostages taken, guns drawn, countless patrol cars lighting up the night, the timing was perfect. But once again, it was taking control, it was overpowering his will and stealing his strength - the Carga…smack, heroin. He still had some and it would once again take his dignity. Worse, it would take his manhood.
It was George who got him here. The father of his grandchildren, George had no respect. Santana may have been named for the “Devil Wind” and lived up to that name his whole life, but George was too stupid to know who he was messing with. So stupid he beat up his daughter. So stupid, high and drunk that he had called him out in the middle of the night in front of the entire neighborhood. The last time George had acted this stupid they were doing time together at San Quentin. The only thing that saved him then was a couple of “homies” who convinced Santana that he was so stupid…, he didn’t even know he was stupid.
Drunk on whiskey and high on heroin, Santana finally had enough of George’s tough-guy act. He got up, loaded his .22, went outside and started blasting. The shots hit George three times, the last one in the leg, sending him to the ground. Santana ran to where he lay, put the barrel to his head, but he didn’t pull the trigger –he spit in his face instead; a big mistake. George talked to the police. He was a punk ass snitch.
It was the same with Pablo - big talk, no respect. Don’t be talking smack about Santana in the neighborhood. He shot him ten times today, and he guessed he made it because the cops knew where to find him. Santana should have taken off out the back door like the other homies, but he didn’t. He couldn’t leave without grabbing his stash first. Now the police had the place surrounded.
Oh well, thought Santana, he still had his Carga and he wasn’t going anywhere until it was gone. He got the kit out, cooked it up, and stuck the needle in his arm.
In that moment, it was all worth it. He had sold, pimped, and robbed for this high for more than thirty years. Since his first taste at sixteen, it defined him in every way. No longer a proud outlaw in the tradition of Pancho Villa, he was a slave to master heroin. It owned him.
There were kids in the house under the bed in the back bedroom. He knew it was the only reason they were still calling, asking him to surrender instead of just breaking in with guns blazing. The negotiator called, Santana told him he would only surrender to the Chief of Police, no one else. That should take a while, to wake his ass up and get him over here. Still, this meant prison… again. Even worse, this meant withdrawal - cold turkey - inside that concrete cage. The shaking, sweating, wanting to peel your skin off, it was a hell only a true addict could understand. Just the thought of it made him want to die. Maybe it was better to die right here, quickly?
Prison again, just the thought kills my high. What did I go for last time? Oh yeah, the old man in the bathroom.
- - -
Somebody shot at him from a car while he was walking down the street.
Enraged and disrespected, he had to strike back. He thought he knew the neighborhood they were from, and the Mexican restaurant they all hung out at – whisky had his courage up. When he got there, the only one’s there were part of a wedding party. Drunk as he was; he called them out anyway. An old guy in a tuxedo answered the call telling him to leave. No, I won’t get ‘out of here. “I’ll see you in the bathroom!” He walked in, combed his hair, and felt for the lead pipe in his pocket.
The old man burst in swinging, nicking him on the jaw. As Santana pivoted, he grabbed the pipe and came down full force on the man’s forehead. Hot blood splattered on his hands. The old man staggered backwards.
Defenseless, Santana took another swing, hitting him on the side of the head, the blow sounded like a hammer hitting wood.
The old man dropped to his knees, blood flowing down his face, the pipe getting sticky in Santana’s hand. A straight overhand to the back of the head, the pipe lodged in the old man’s skull. Blood lust now ruled Santana. Dropping a knee on the fallen man’s back, he struck him again and again, back and forth, over and over. He couldn’t stop. Blood covered his hands, his clothes, and even misted his face red.
His primeval scream of triumph echoed off the walls. Throwing the pipe to the ground, Santana stood over his vanquished foe and spit in his face.
The old man didn’t move. The only sign of life was the flow of red pulsating into a pool beneath him. Having been here before, Santana searched for the pipe, found it, and made for the door. Hitting it with the palm of his hand, he left behind identifying evidence. Outside, no one waited for him. The old man was alone, no gangsta’ jump for him. Santana didn’t run, he walked upright, pushing his way through wedding guests. He glanced back to see two younger men head into the bathroom. As he reached the front door a woman’s scream silenced the party. He turned back to see two women, both in bridal dresses - one older, the other clearly the bride - put their hands to their faces. Both dissolved into shrieks of grief as they looked in upon their fallen husband and father.
Santana got away, but not for long. Arrested for assault with a deadly weapon, three weeks later the old man died in the hospital, Murder. Santana was facing life in prison.
- - -
Sitting in jail, the agony came upon him. Pain without injury, the synapses in his brain screamed for the substance they had become dependent upon. Like the flu; but much worse. Profuse sweating, shaking so severely he could not stand.
The first three days is the worst, and then the physical symptoms diminish, but the craving for the high – that never goes away. Rage replaced pain.
- - -
His prosecutor was a wimp. Lazy, he didn’t want to go to trial on a self-defense case. It was mutual combat after all; everyone saw the old man go in the bathroom looking for a fight. He could have had a knife or even a gun. Santana couldn’t take that chance. Kill or be killed. Just might sell it to a jury, D.A. offered him a manslaughter. He took it, got a sentence of ten to life, and got out in six.
He didn’t wait a day; he was right back at it. “Friends” fixed him up. High on heroin, drunk on whiskey, he needed a woman. Anything for Santana, the shot caller was back in town. It wouldn’t last; he had to pay his own way. Getting back into the drug trade was easy, but it couldn’t sustain his lifestyle. An armed robbery now and
then covered his overhead. It was working, until George and Pablo started acting stupid.
- - -
The sound of a car pulling up and doors slamming propelled Santana back to the present. Peeking through the blinds, he could see Bob Smith, Chief of Police, standing just outside the front gate. Now it was a matter of honor, he said he’d surrender to the Chief, and the Chief was here. “Honor among thieves,” even outlaw gangsters, believed in something. It was time to give it up. Let’s get it over with.
Santana opened the door, showed his hands first, and walked out into the blinding light. They were on him in an instant, straight to the ground, knee in the back, first one wrist cuffed, then the other. Game over.
Slammed down in a cell with his heroin high fading, Santana slipped into a rare moment of self-reflection. How did I get here? He thought of his father, a migrant farm worker who came down with pneumonia, but kept working. Died ten days before I was born. Mi madre couldn’t do it alone, left me with Abuela Juanita. That was good though; she loved me like her own. But she also loved her wine, sometimes a gallon a day, she shared it with me.
Santana never went to school, but his Abuela didn’t think he needed it. She told him, “by ten you’ll be in the fields anyway.” But at nine, his mother came back for him. She had married Don Pancho, a hardened man who worked the vineyards of La Mision. From the beginning, he let it be known, “I will break you to my ways.” This meant heavy labor - chopping wood, shoveling manure, and working the fields. If not done to his liking, Santana was whipped with a belt or beaten with a stick.
“My mother never said a word, afraid for herself and her other children.” Santana explained, “As I grew, my anger grew, first with plans of revenge, with each new beating my rage turned into hatred, I knew my day would come.”
“He had no reason to beat me the last time, he just liked it. One time I got to the stick first, got him right above the eye.” Don Pancho, fell back, blood seeping into his eyes.
“He left me alone after that.” He learned the power of fear. Fear of the wild animal, respect earned through violence.
“Respect meant freedom, freedom to do and take what I wanted. Little things first; some other kids’ lunch, then his shoes, maybe some money. If the older boys picked on me, I’d go crazy. Pick up a rock, any kind of weapon. Before long I carried a knife, and then my thirty-eight. It cost me a month in the fields, but it was worth it. Power, I held death in my hand.”
“Come to think of it, that was about the time I met Carga - the two went together. The one fed and protected the other. It’s also when I started getting arrested. Juvenile Hall first; it wasn’t so bad. I was safe for a while, made new friends, bandits like me. Then jail, not good when I was young, they were just starting to gang up in those days. They’d make you join, jump you, there were too many; you couldn’t fight them all. Got hurt a few times; hurt them too, until they finally moved on to weaker boys. I got a rep’ as a fighter, an outlaw, they called me, ‘El Santana.’”
- - -
Dread invaded Santana’s mind. Withdrawal, it’s inevitable. No appetite, hate the jail slop anyway, but the first symptom? No, not yet, but soon. Santana struggled to remember anything good, a place in his mind to hide from the terror that awaited him.
There was a time, when the Ramirez’s came to La Mision. They were kind, I played with their kids and I didn’t want to go home. They fed me, took me to church. First communion, confession, they were so proud of me.
“God? Who is that?” Santana startled himself, his voice bounced off the concrete walls. “God! You help everyone else, why not help me?” Why don’t you save me from Malias, I can’t do this anymore! Tears, streamed down his cheeks. Shame first, then fear. No, it’s okay, no one’s here to see me. More tears, dropping to the cement below. Never before… maybe as a baby… can’t stand, must be the shakes already… too early.
Santana fell into the steel bed, curled up like a child and wept. Exhaustion, his sobs finally fading away. Peace, as sleep came upon him.
I remember getting up a few times, going to the john, eating a couple of cheese sandwiches and an old apple.
“Hey! You alive in there,” the jailers voice came through the mesh in the steel
door.
“Huh, ahhhh yeah, I guess so?”
“It’s Thursday, man, you’ve hardly moved for three days.”
Santana heard boots on cement fading away as the jailer moved on.
“Three days, no way, I’d be sick by now.” He said to no one.
Santana felt hunger; the smell of overcooked spaghetti coming from the door. I Shouldn’t eat… I’ll just get sick, but I’m hungry? I don’t understand. He went to the door, grabbed the tray and plastic fork; ate it all.
No pain, I feel good, strong even, not possible… Then he remembered his plea. Prayer, I don’t know how to pray. The mystery of it all frightened him, but it was real. Gone was the dread, comfort reigned in his healthy body. Peace replaced sorrow; the sickness was gone.
“God answered my prayer.” He spoke softly to himself in disbelief. I’m not sick. I’m not going to get sick; it can’t be... The moment brought Santana to his knees, he no longer felt alone, someone was looking after him. I feel at peace, no, more than that, I feel loved.
Tears flowed again, not from desperation, but from joy. God heard me, He answered my prayer, He will look after me, I don’t have to be afraid any more.
There is no telling how long Santana stayed on his knees, sharing his thoughts with the God that heard him. Eventually, he made his way back to the mattress, settled in, and slept like he’d never slept before. When Santana finally awoke, he knew what he had to do. If God had been straight with him, he’d do the same. He called for the jailer.
“Hey boss, I want to confess.” He said when the jailer arrived.
“I’m not your detective; I don’t have time for this.”
“No, I mean it, please bring me paper and pen.” Santana caught himself, I said please, to a jailer, no less.
“Alright man, but this better be real.”
Santana wrote it out, every single detail. He knew it was stupid, felony stupid. I’ll get life for sure, but it had to end someday. Within an hour his detective was there.
“Here it is.” He told him, “but I’ll only sign it in front of the judge.” Two hours later he was in a courtroom.
“Mr. Acuna, do you freely confess to these crimes?” The judge asked, unsure of what to make of Santana’s dramatic change of heart.
“Yes sir.” He replied as sincerely as he’d ever been.
“You do know if you plead guilty, straight up, no deal, I could give you…. Let’s see, close to a hundred years. You understand that?”
“Yes sir.” Santana replied, knowing exactly what the judge meant. He had lived his entire life dealing with the penal code. He knew there was no going back, he was giving his life over to a judge. The judge in the courtroom, or the judge of the Universe, it didn’t matter. Santana was compelled to speak the truth.
“Mr. Acuna, I can see here you’ve been around the block more than once, your record is about as bad as it gets; state prison three, four times; drugs, armed robbery, assault, manslaughter. You deserve a hundred years.”
“Yes sir.”
“So why are you doing this?”
“I believe in God now.” Santana replied. Calmness settled over him just saying the words. “I have to follow God. I need to tell the truth, and trust in Him. I’m not afraid of what’s going to happen anymore.”
Silence. The uncomfortable kind came over the courtroom as the judge deliberated. Finally, the faint sound of pen to paper - a calculation being made - then he spoke. “Alright, Mr. Acuna. I accept your plea of guilty as to each and every count, and to those various counts I sentence you to an indeterminate term in the Department of Corrections of eleven to seventeen years. There being no further business before the court, bailiff remand the prisoner back into custody, and with that this court’s adjourned.”
Santana said nothing; too stunned to speak. He stood passively, looking at the judge’s bench, as the man stepped down and went out the back door to his chambers.
“Let’s go,” came the command of the bailiff, grabbing Santana’s belly chain from behind. Santana walked slowly back through the custody door, his steps shortened by the shackles around his ankles.
Did I hear that right; eleven to seventeen? I’m going to get out someday?!
First Chino, then Soledad, but this time it had to be different. No more drugs, no more vendettas, no respect. As soon as the homies know I don’t fight no more, it will be trouble. They’ll try me. They’ll want to take “El Santana” down.
It didn’t take long before he got tested. A homie from the neighborhood walked up to him on the yard, shook his hand, and pressed a bundle of heroin into it, “Welcome back, carnale.”
Santana knew what it was, but couldn’t give it back, he couldn’t “disrespect the man.” Instead, he sold it for five bucks. It didn’t seem right. What does it mean to be a man of God? Is it possible on the inside?
Slowly, Santana’s carnales began to realize he was different, and not everyone liked it. “Going soft” often meant relying on the guards for protection. Prison gangs enforce harsh discipline on fellow prisoners for all kinds of infractions, such as talking with a man of another race. The most ruthless assaults however, were reserved for “snitches.” Slowly, rumor spread that Santana must be snitching.
“I started reading The Bible every night, writing out verses and memorizing them. I went to a Bible study; the brothers were shocked to see me. At first, they didn’t trust me, but they amazed me. Men of different races would sit together, talk, laugh, shake each other’s hands, even hug. That took some getting used to.”
“Outside the chapel, we really couldn’t talk, but inside we were all brothers in Christ. I learned from these men, I learned life could be different, even on the inside.
I wanted to be a part of them, and what they were doing. I told them I wanted to be baptized.”
Baptisms in prison are like nowhere else. It’s not as if a baptismal is available, or a swimming pool, but fortunately inmates do have a constitutional right to practice their religion; thus, accommodations have to be made. Usually that comes in the form of a large trash dumpster - filled with water to the brim. This is how Santana was baptized. A garbage can filled with water, surrounded by his fellow inmates – now his brothers. It was a glorious moment. He had made a public proclamation of his faith; he had chosen to fulfill his commitment to God. His brothers in Christ rejoiced, knowing that even the most wicked of men could be redeemed. He had spent thirty- four years working for evil, now Santana had gone over to the other side.
Challenges still abounded in his life, and his anger sometimes got the best of him, but he learned that Christians aren’t perfect. As he forgave others, he accepted forgiveness himself. It didn’t happen overnight, but out of respect for his new way of life, and his sincere desire to be a new man, his old friends, the big homies, largely left him alone. After all, even the worst of the worst have a right to try and save their own soul.
Time passed quickly, more peaceably; this go around. After six years he was again eligible for parole. Since he had become a model prisoner, in spite of his record, he was released.
- - -
Going home was dangerous. He knew the temptations of his former life were powerful, particularly the first day out. “Nothing like that first heroin high, after six years clean, it can’t be described. Shoot up, find a woman, there were still twenty-year old’s available to me.”
Fortunately for Santana, he had a friend on the outside. His name was Pastor Frank, from “Soldiers for Christ” ministry. He had been visiting and writing Santana for months prior to his release. Pastor Frank picked him up the day he paroled. They drove through his old neighborhood, just the sight of it made his pulse rise, how easy I could score some carga.
The sight of a woman crossing the street made his palms sweat. For the last
five years Santana had lived like a monk in a monastery, now the world came rushing
back into his consciousness. He had made a commitment, a personal covenant with
God. I will not go back to inflicting pain and terror on those around me, or myself.
“With the same determination that supported a heroin habit for thirty-four years; for which I robbed, shot and stabbed people, I now dedicated myself to saving others from the misery I had known for so long.”
When the car finally stopped, he was at Pastor Frank’s Home of The Redeemed. He would share a room with five other men; drug addicts, convicted felons, the homeless, and the hopeless. Pastor Frank turned away no one. He fed, clothed, sheltered, and preached to them, Santana had finally found a home.
The first night he couldn’t sleep. Filled with anxiety and self-doubt, he went outside. Being an outlaw is all I know, how can I ever do anything right, be good to anyone? Then it came to him, he knew what he had to do. He went to the chapel to pray. On his knees before the altar, in anguish, he again pleaded for God’s intervention in his life. The answer was already within him; a verse he had memorized.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Santana’s covenant with God was renewed.
- - -
Pastors like Frank and their ministries are common in urban centers of America. They receive little recognition and no government support, but they do an enormous public service. In California for instance, 25% of paroled inmates are homeless when they leave prison. The $200 they’re given upon release doesn’t last long, so desperation sets in quickly. The sanctuary offered by these ministries provides an alternative to a life of crime.
These men needed the discipline of study and sober living. For the first sixty days they were not allowed to leave the home. Churches donated food and clothing, individual gifts paid the rent, and sometimes a special meal was prepared at the home of a local believer. Santana looked forward to the nights when the men piled into the two aging vans and went out for a home cooked meal. Often times they had little more than rice, beans and tortillas at the home. This tested Santana, as an outlaw he could afford the best restaurants, he wasn’t used to living humbly.
On one occasion they were invited to the home of Sister Rose and her daughter Emma.
- - -
Entering the small, neatly kept home, the men caught the aroma of a Mexican feast in the making. Skirt steak, pulled pork, shredded chicken, tamales, enchiladas, refried beans, rice, fried vegetables, and freshly chopped salsa. It was a feast. But before they could eat, they had to endure another sermon from Pastor Frank.
As Pastor Frank spoke on and on, the two women worked in the kitchen. When the sermon finally ended, the women moved to a far corner of the living room, sat down, and picked up their knitting. The men got in line to serve themselves and then found a place at the table. Santana chose a spot that happened to face Sister Rose and her daughter seated at the opposite side of the room. The air was festive. The men talked freely, and ate ravenously.
Santana, on the other hand, grew still. He ate nothing. He couldn’t take his eyes off of Sister Rose. Across the dimly lit room he noticed her look up from her knitting, catching his eyes, her gaze quickly returned to her hands. Emma, on the other hand, never looked up.
I’ve seen her before. She’s older now, with thick glasses, gray hair, but that face, I remember it. No… not just Rose. Her daughter too – a pretty little thing, light of skin, with jet black hair and soft brown eyes. Did I know her? No, not like that.
The memory is dark, tragic, horrible… No! Oh my God, NO! It can’t be, but yes, it’s them! It’s the mother and daughter from the wedding. The wife of the old man – Dear God, he was the father of the bride. She was the bride. I beat him with a pipe. It took him a month to die. I saw them crying, crippled by my rage, destroyed by my evil, it can’t be true, it can’t be them, but it is…, I am in their house, they’re feeding me…
They must not know who I am.
Maybe if I keep cool, stay at the back of the room, slide out the side door…
Sister Rose looked up, caught his eyes again, and didn’t look away. Santana looked away in terror.
She knows! My God she knows it’s me! How is that possible, no! It can’t be.
Santana gathered his courage. Looking up he caught her gaze again. He saw no anger, no hate, acknowledgement nonetheless. Sister Rose knew. She knew it was Santana, “El Santana,” that evil, horrific man that beat her husband to death.
What do I do? How can I stay here, sit here?
All the muscles in his body tightened. Palms flat on the table, he pushed so hard the solid oak table slid away, startling the other men seated there. He was standing now, head down, he moved towards her. Tears ran warm down his cheeks. Silence, everyone watching him.
I can’t go on… Yet somehow, he shuffled his way across the room, never once taking his eyes off the floor. Sister Rose and Emma waited for him, as if they knew he would come. Frozen in time, they remained transfixed upon him.
As he got close, Emma faltered, sliding back in her chair, she turned away in fear. Sister Rose didn’t blink, her eyes remained fixed upon him. Santana fell to his knees before her. He quivered as he tried to raise his head to speak, to say something, anything, but he could not. There were no words, nothing, just more tears.
She touched him, gently stroking his head. Softly caressing his hair, it gave him the strength to look up into her eyes. Compassion was all he could see, a kindness he could not imagine.
“Santana, ‘El Santana,’ did you not know… that I – we - forgave you long
ago.”
He would later describe the moment, “I heard myself sobbing, like I wasn’t
there, this couldn’t be me, but it was. I was broken, and yet I felt safe for
the first time in my life. A miracle had cleansed me, a miracle of love,
unconditional love for me.”
- - -
Santana remembers little about how he left Sister Rose’s that night, but what he does remember is that the change started within him years ago was now complete. He would go on to graduate from the program, and Pastor Frank would make him its spiritual leader.
“I cried before men again, but without fear this time. It may not seem like a big deal, but it was everything to me. It was the first good thing I had ever done in my life.”
He became an ordained pastor with a local ministry called Soldiers for Christ. Placed in charge of three homes, he spent many sleepless nights nursing drug addicts through the agony of withdrawal. All the cruelty left him, leaving behind a kind and gentle man.
For those who had known the outlaw, the change was suspect, and not always welcome. Even his children weren’t sure of him. Decades of crime and punishment were not so easily washed away. Of his six children (by three different women), two of his boys followed in his footsteps, and two of the girls struggled as well. Santana Jr. went to prison for life, and Santanilla also did time. Gang banging invaded their neighborhood, and his boys jumped right in. Time in prison was a badge of honor in the barrio. The sins of the father passed down to his children, and then his grandchildren.
“I blame myself; they followed my example. Going bad is quick and easy, doing good is hard work and slow. But the girls have come around, I like to think the change in me had something to do with that.”
Over time, Santana’s life as a pastor blossomed. The story of his transformation had no equal in evangelical circles. The small church he started grew into a force for revival in the community. His reputation remained, but his new life inspired others to get clean and change their lives.
Santana made new friends, even an old “acquaintance,” Bill Tell. After a career in law enforcement, Bill also became a pastor. He asked Santana to give his testimony one Sunday at his church in San Bernardino. Afterwards, he told Santana of their previous contact.
“Bill told me, ‘I was a sharpshooter with the Sheriff’s Department called out to a hostage situation. I set up on the trunk of the car with orders to shoot the hostage taker if I had a clear shot. Good thing you surrendered to the Chief when you did, the way you were moving around in there; it was just a matter of time.’”
- - -
When I first met Santana, his face still bore the scars of countless battles, his flesh tone the dark pigment of Oaxaca ancestry. Perhaps five-eight, but still sculpted by decades of working out on the yard. His hair and brush mustache, dyed jet black, made him look younger than his seventy years. Slammed down for more than twenty-six years he still carried himself like the “shot caller” he had been. A made member of the Mexican Mafia, he appreciated that I knew that a “tax collector” got payment from local drug dealers. I knew he had carved on his body the needle and pen ink tattoo of an Aztec Warrior, the ultimate symbol of respect, both in prison or on the streets, but none were visible. Now he covered his tats with a long sleeve button down shirt commonly worn by cholos in the ‘hood. He had received permission to “drop out,” having proven his conversion sincere. “Even the worst of the worst have the right to save their own soul.” They let him go, Santana was no longer a puppet controlled by the strings of evil.
Oh yeah, Santana was the real deal, I’d represented enough serious gangsters in my time to know the difference. Rarely did he reveal a hint of emotion, rather he listened more than he spoke, carefully sizing me up before revealing anything about himself.
I started with his ministry; of this he spoke freely. Working my way backwards, I got his history, brutal childhood, countless crimes, years in prison all the way through to his conversion. Sister Rose and her daughter Emma were a tougher sell. For the first time, pain passed through his eyes. I told the story, he listened; I asked for confirmation, he hesitated.
“That is still a problem for me. Bringing it up might hurt someone.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Her family, not everyone is so forgiving. They don’t understand.” “You mean Sister Rose?”
“Yes, but others too.”
“Can I meet her?”
“I don’t know, I’d have to ask. Why? Why do you want to meet her?” He was still sizing me up.
“The truth. I want to know if it’s true, I have to hear it from her.”
With that, Santana nodded in acknowledgement. The Truth. The words resonated with him.
“I visit her every week in the rest home. She’s on dialysis now, not doing so good, but still all there.”
“Tell me about that?” I was fascinated by this woman I had never met. “Well, I’m a pastor now, that’s what we do.”
My skeptical look must have encouraged him, because he continued. “It’s hard to understand, but we are close now, she calls me ‘mijo.’”
Once again doubt invaded my mind. Forgiveness was one thing, treating him like a son another.
“Will you ask for me, see if I can meet her?”
“We’ll see…” He replied; I would have to wait.
- - -
It was many months before it was arranged. I had told the story to my pastor, Michael Mudgett, who was equally amazed and wanted to see for himself, so together we went. We met Santana in the lobby of the rest home and he led us to her room. Walking the corridors brought back unpleasant memories of my own grandmother, spending her last days in such a place after suffering a paralyzing stroke. My mood remained somber until we got to Sister Rose’s room. It was decorated with construction paper flowers and children’s drawings, with family photos and “Get Well” cards done in crayon covering a lamp table near her bed.
Sister Rose was loved by many.
Propped up in a hospital bed, her emaciated legs uncovered, I could see her frailty. White hair, light brown skin, thin face (hardly wrinkled), partially covered by thick glasses obscuring a spark of awareness. Michael began the conversation.
“Hi, I’m Pastor Mike and this is my friend Phil.” Coming close to shake her hand, “Pastor Santana said we could come and meet you.”
Sister Rose turned to get Santana’s approval, sitting in a chair on her left. He nodded, and as Michael let her right hand go, she took Santana’s left in hers.
Michael’s enthusiasm was evident as he gently sought to confirm the story.
Sister Rose spoke little, and only after checking with Santana. When Michael finished, the room went silent as Sister Rose chose not to respond.
It was my turn to press in. “Please, Sister Rose, tell me, did you forgive Santana of this terrible crime?”
“Mijo,” she responded, looking to Santana.
“Yes, it’s okay Sister, they can be trusted.”
“Santana was a very bad boy, but that is not who he is now.” With that, she nodded her head up and down for emphasis, before squeezing Santana’s hand and turning towards him, away from me. Our conversation was over.
I had my answer, and remarkable as it might be, I was sure it was true.
I would never doubt the power of forgiveness again.