By Ann Montgomery, Resolana volunteer
My first day at Resolana, Peggy Helmick-Richardson told our group a story about a rabbi who stumped his students with a question. He asked, “How can you tell when night has ended?” Despite numerous attempts, his students failed to find the correct answer. Stumped, they gave up, asking him to share the secret. “It’s simple,” the rabbi declared. “Night has ended when you look in to the face of the person next to you and see the reflection of your own face.”
For me, the truth in Peggy’s story was revealed each time I visited Lew Sterrett with Resolana. As I looked across the room that first day, I heard echoes of my own past struggles, not to mention the voices of family and friends, reflected in the women’s fight against wrongdoing and affliction. I realized that only life circumstance had separated me from other women in the circle. The disappointments and hopes they expressed were ones I’d heard before. Despite circumstance that had distinguished our life experience, both volunteers and prisoners were involved in the human fight to prove ourselves worthy, if only to our own expectations and dreams.
Tags: storytelling
