June 2024 | Part I: Interview with Aaron Hargrove, Canine Companion Puppy Raiser, Founder of the Peaceful Unity Community Coalition, and Former Inmate + Middle East Peace
I tried to help other men come to understand what I had—what remorse is, what compassion is, and what it takes to earn your freedom.
I met Aaron Hargrove at a Canine Companions Graduation Ceremony in Santa Rosa a year ago. He spoke very movingly about his experiences as a puppy raiser in state prison. We met on Zoom in June 2023 for this interview.
I was born in ’72 and raised in Stockton. It was a tumultuous time, the end of the Civil Rights era. My mother was well aware of the Black Panther Movement. My biological father wasn’t around, so for my first eight years, the only male presence was my maternal grandfather and three uncles, all positive male figures, veterans with jobs. From age eight or nine, I had a stepfather but he didn’t discipline me. My mother was solely responsible for that.
Around age twelve, my grades started slipping. I was struggling with math. I started rebelling a little, so my family tried to get my father involved. He visited from Sacramento and we talked for 20 to 30 minutes. He asked me about my life and what I like to do. He made a lot of promises but didn’t follow up.
I started understanding the math and my grades improved. In junior high, I did pretty well. I was on the conflict-resolution council. I started playing baseball and football at age 9 and excelled in sports. I played on my freshman high school baseball team.
I had a good family life and was raised with morals. I knew what struggle was. We were on food stamps in those early years. I remember my mother cooking and letting me eat first, and then she would eat what was left. Some of my family overcompensated because I didn’t have a father, with gifts at Xmas and birthdays to make me feel special. My stepfather would attend my games.
My community was always riddled with crime but I was sheltered from that until I started high school. I started noticing older guys with nice clothes, new cars, pretty women, who weren’t working every day. I was attracted by that lifestyle. It was the crack era in 1985/86. I became involved with it. It seemed hassle-free. I began dealing it. I never took it. My mother didn’t know for a while. I kept the same routine. The dealing progressed.
My grandfather and uncles worked up to 18-hour days. Sometimes, they were too tired to shower and eat. There was no extra money. The guys I looked up to would stand around all day, drink beer, fraternize with women, and there was always money in their pockets.
I had a lot of drugs. At 17, or 18, I may have had 50 or 60 grand. You start carrying weapons to protect yourself, drinking heavily, smoking marijuana, and “partying like a rock star.” I gambled a lot of money away. I became a gang member. Once you get involved in that trade, you’re a member just by association.
I went to Juvenile Hall twice, the first time in a stolen car. We were charged with joy riding. The second, we were shooting weapons in a field at a garbage can. Neighbors heard the shots and called the police. We had six guns and 21 rounds of ammo. I spent three days in Juvenile and was then placed on adult probation. I never got off probation before my life crime happened.
In my high school senior year, I was dropped for low attendance. I told my mom that nothing else presents itself that can give me that kind of income, so I’m going to continue for the rest of my life. She cried for days because the kid she had raised with morals was no longer there.
My mother’s 77 now. She supported me throughout my incarceration. No one’s happier about me being free and still being of sound mind than my mother.
In 2015, I developed lymphoma. One of the biggest things I struggled with was how to tell her, when my brother had died of cancer the previous year, also in jail.
When I was 19, some guys stormed my parents’ apartment. My stepfather shot one of the guys. The police said, “We don’t see anything of value here. We can’t see why anyone would choose this apartment.” The guys had followed me home. I and my family were traumatized by that event.
I’ve seen a lot of my friends go to prison. I’ve seen friends murdered. All those things affect you. I became more violent because I didn’t want my mother to get a call that I’d been murdered.
On September 13th, 1997, I and a few of my gang members committed a crime and someone was killed. I was responsible for taking his life. I made a widow. He was a father. My family and loved ones suffered. This is my rehabilitated self speaking.
I was 25. I stayed on the run for a year until I was arrested. I was transported to the County jail during the eight months of court proceedings, and sentenced to 38 years to life in a state prison. My early incarceration was marred by the same kind of activities I perpetrated in the street. I had to fight my way through a lot of brush in this jungle. I had to figure out how to survive prison physically, mentally, and emotionally.
At that time no one was getting out of California prisons with a life sentence. I got in some trouble and some write-ups. I sold drugs, smoked weed, drank prison alcohol, and used cell phones. I did all the things that a negative prisoner does. Over the years, I matured.
In 2016, a year after my cancer diagnosis, my lung collapsed and they took out half my lung. In 2016/17, I made the turn and looked to change my thinking so my behavior would soon follow. I joined some self-help groups and later went on to facilitate these groups. They were very helpful in my transformation. The person I am today is a reflection of the kid my parents raised me to be: trustworthy, reliable, a family man, someone you wouldn’t mind living next to.
From 2017, I was in a therapy group until I got released. I tried to help other men come to understand what I had—what remorse is, what compassion is, and what it takes to earn your freedom.
Please visit Aaron’s new Peaceful Unity Community Coalition (PUCC) site to learn more and support his goals.
Middle East Peace
Combatants for Peace and Families Forum
“As sounds and words are born from silence, from the ruins of the past, life will grow like flowers. We, Palestinians and Israelis, will do all that we can to nurture them. We will do everything in our power to liberate ourselves from the burdens of occupation and oppression, from the shadows of war; so that the sounds of laughter, music, and children playing will drive away the thunder of guns and the stillness of death. Join us so we can all rise from the wreckage to life.”
A’ida Shibli, Joint Nakba Ceremony co-host, Palestinian activist, and Combatants for Peace community member
I watched the Joint Memorial Day ceremony (May 12th) and Joint Nakba Remembrance Ceremony (May 15th) held by Combatants for Peace. I cried through most of the first ceremony and was also touched by the second one. I found the musical contributions especially moving, including the Jerusalem Youth Choir with kids from East and West Jerusalem singing in Arabic, Hebrew, and English.
“Combatants for Peace,” as you can read on their site, https://cfpeace.org/, “is a grassroots movement of Israelis and Palestinians, working together to end the occupation and bring peace, equality, and freedom to our homeland. Committed to joint nonviolence since our inception, we use civil resistance, education, and other creative means of activism to transform systems of oppression and build a free and peaceful future from the ground up.
“Launched in 2006, we are the only movement worldwide that was founded by former fighters on both sides of an active conflict. As a result, we were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 and 2018…”
You can also watch the ceremonies on their site.
Maoz Inon, an Israeli, spoke on “Voices of Grief: Stories of Resilience and Reconciliation” following the Joint Memorial Day Ceremony on May 12th, along with Musa Juma’a, a Palestinian. Maoz, who lost his parents on October 7th, is awesomely inspiring! He shares two dreams that are directing his life and the lessons he has learned from them. Maoz’s opening contribution goes from 7:38 minutes to 20:22 minutes at this link:
https://www.afcfp.org/past-events-data/voices-of-grief-stories-of-resilience-and-reconciliation
A week later, Maoz Inon and Aziz Abu Sarah addressed the pope in front of a crowd of 13,000 that had gathered for the “Arena of Peace – Justice and Peace Shall Embrace” event, which was chaired by Pope Francis for the first time. Embracing each other as they spoke, the two men each read a line of a poem – Inon in Hebrew and Abu Sarah in Arabic – before introducing themselves. “We are entrepreneurs, and we believe that peace is the greatest feat to be achieved,” Inon said. “There can be no peace without an economy of peace. An economy that does not kill. An economy of justice.”
“Our loss and our pain have made us brothers,” Abu Sarah said. “We cry together, and we dream together. We dream that the walls of ignorance, fear, and hate that divide us will fall down. Both of us lost loved ones in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but we have not lost our humanity or our sanity. Our pain has led us to envision a shared future together.”
After they spoke, the two men approached Pope Francis, and the three enclosed each other in a hug as the crowd erupted in a standing ovation.
The above excerpt is taken from an article from the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, which the American Friends of Combatants for Peace (afcfp) emailed.
Primrose Light
There’s not much news that’s good if you can find good news at all
Some say the world is slowly dying or maybe faster
And most mornings I awaken with a worry in my bones
for the child of my heart
and what’ll come after
And I don’t know if our human story
is coming to a close
And if we are living out our final days
But don’t fill my ears with tales of fear or schemes to hide away
No I want to go out singing songs of praise
And here’s where you’ll find me
On the longest day in June
When the sun drapes the world in robes of glory
Raise a golden hallelujah to the blazing of the night I’m gliding on a lake of sky
In the Primrose light.
It’s true I’m growing older
Seems everywhere I turn
Another friend is walking though their final days
When my number’s called
and I join them on that road
I want to go out singing songs of praise
And here’s where you’ll find me
On the longest day in June
When the sun drapes the world in robes of glory
Raise a golden hallelujah to the blazing of the night
I’m gliding on a lake of sky in the Primrose light.
– Jennifer Berezan
https://jenniferberezan.com/videos
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Cherishing Each Other
Tara Brach interviews Fr. Gregory Boyle
“Together, we also explore the relationship between boundaries and compassion; the unshakeable goodness at our core; how we belong to each other, and how judgments arise from delusion and blind us to the blessing of that belonging.
“Fr. Gregory Boyle is dedicated to living from love and cultivating loving community with a marginalized population of ex-inmates, gang members, and their families. Learn more about Father Greg and Homeboy Industries here…“
Tara Brach recently wrote an article, What is Love Asking From Us? Reflections on Gaza and the Bodhisattva Path.I find it very consonant with my understanding of Sufism, and highly recommend it as food for thought and inner and outer action.
https://www.tarabrach.com/blog-what-is-love-asking-from-us/
Joyful Noise Gospel Singers are putting on a Benefit for World Central Kitchen for food relief in Gaza. Benjamin Mertz and Melanie DeMore, both incredible musicians, singers, and conductors will lead the choir and the audience in song at Sebastopol Cultural Community Center on Sunday, June 16th from 4:00 to 5:30 pm.
More info at https://seb.org/event/15730/
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