For those of you following my blog about Gary’s incarceration, he has written, but only briefly.

In response to my acceptance of the connection made via email, Gary writes, “Wow!! Tears of joy. I have so much to say after only 5 days. I’ll be in touch by mail at first until I get some money in my account. These emails are expensive…”

While there is nothing more he wrote for ‘the world’, I will say that tears are something I have seen before from Gary – the warm-hearted man I have come to know and love. The first time I heard him cry was when I was moving away from Sarasota to rebuild my life in Lansing, Michigan.

Siesta Key - Tamera Nielsen and Gary Brown

Tooling up Interstate 75 en route to Michigan, Gary called me on my cell phone in tears. “I cannot believe you’re moving! We didn’t have enough time together!”

Heartbroken for us both, I concurred. After about ten minutes of sharing his shock and sadness, he curtailed his tears and said, “You’ve just taught me an invaluable lesson.”

I paused as he caught his breath, and also because I knew what was coming.

“You’ve taught me to never assume someone is going to be around. You’ve become a dear friend to me, and we just met. It’s all happened so fast, and you’re gone! I wish we had more time together.”

Agreed. Yet, I reminded him of the first time I ‘told’ him of this lesson; one I apply to my daily living. Unfortunately for Gary, simply telling him the lesson didn’t stick with him. He had to experience it to learn it – as did I.

The story and hard-hitting lesson I shared with Gary over dinner on Siesta Key one night is one I share now in hopes it will help remind even one person the value of time, the poison of judgment, and the import of love.

Ron Bailey

When I was twenty-three years old, I met what felt like and seemed like my mate for life. He came into my place of employment as a potential client. I was dressed in a double-breasted off-white linen skirt suit with a royal blue silk shirt and amazing royal blue strappy shoes to match.

A high-tech sales professional with a firm handshake, I was rarely caught off-guard or at a loss for words. But when Ron Bailey approached the glass double-doors of our reception area, I found only three words.

I extended my hand saying, “You must be…” and I stammered; utterly speechless… as was he.

Time stopped.

The connection between us was surreal.

It wasn’t a physical attraction. It was a moment of knowingness on a level I would not identify for years to come.

We both brushed off the shock within a matter of seconds and proceeded through the two-plus hour meeting. I closed the deal; got the business, but more importantly, I made a connection with someone who changed my world and my view of it to this day.

I was a high-energy gym rat in perfect health. Nearly ten years older than I, Ron was an overweight and technically a quadriplegic functioning as a paraplegic. We were opposites in terms of physicality.

Yet, the connection was palpable.

One of two trips to Chicago

Within two weeks of our meeting, he broke his engagement to the woman he’d been with for ten years. They had just finished building a custom-handicapped home together. But it didn’t matter; in his mind, he had to follow his heart to me. She was an extraordinary (which is a colossal understatement) individual to have accepted this change – and me – along with the complexity of our relationship.

Within months, Ron taught me about life as a disabled person confined to a wheelchair ~ something I would face myself later in life. I learned how the disabled travel on airplanes. I learned how to field bizarre looks from onlookers while we danced atop dance floors as he remained seated in his wheelchair. I discovered the difficulties of piling his wheelchair into the car during snowstorms, finding just the right place in a restaurant so as not to block patrons. He taught me which ramps to take – and not take – at Tigers’ Stadium (I almost tipped him over once!), and so many more personal functions that go along with being confined to a wheelchair with only the use of one’s arms.

I loved it all. I loved him, and he loved me. We lived our life and experienced our relationship as though his wheelchair and disability were inconsequential – until he proposed marriage.

He asked me to marry him, and I declined. I declined for short-sighted, immature reasons.

At the time, my reasons made sense: He had an opportunity to walk again if he risked traveling from Michigan to Colorado to endure surgery that would potentially remove the bullet from his spine, which had rendered him disabled years prior.

He refused the surgery. I believed he was content being confined to a wheelchair and judged his behavior as self-pitying. That was my mistake and a lesson I have never forgotten.

In less than a year after our initial meeting, I left him for proverbial greener pasture in San Francisco. His heart broke as did mine. Saying “goodbye” to him the night before I moved, I knew in my gut that I was making a mistake. I was crying. He was crying. Even our friends were in tears, because they knew how in love we were.

Regardless, I moved.

The storm on the Golden Gate Bridge

Within weeks of my relocation to San Francisco, Ron came to visit me, and we recognized were more in love than ever; more connected than ever before. He asked me again to marry him, and my immature contingency that he must have the surgery before I would agree to marry him was, in hindsight, hideously immature and absurdly judgmental.

I couldn’t comprehend why he wouldn’t take the six-plus months off of work, travel halfway across the country, and go through laborious, painstaking rehabilitation for the chance to walk and dance again… and live a new life.

Weeks after his visit to San Francisco, I woke one morning with clarity of mind and a heart that was fiercely pounding with love for the man I loved with every fiber of my soul. I decided I would move back to Michigan and marry him if he’d still have me. I was elated – ecstatic, in fact!

I raced home from my morning meeting to call him, and upon my return, I had a handful of voicemails on my answering machine. (Yes, this was back in ‘the day’ of those antiquated machines).

The message from his boss sounded urgent. So instead of calling Ron, I called his boss, Ken. “Hey, Ken. It’s Tamera. What’s up?”

“I don’t know how else to tell you this, Tamera, but to just say it: Ron was killed in a car accident last night.”

My world collapsed instantly.

The phone hit the floor – as did I.

I sobbed gut-wrenching tears – for hours, without pause.

Love is still the greatest force in the world

I had finally admitted to myself that I was ready to marry the man of my dreams. The man who had consumed my every thought, my psyche, my soul, and because I saw the world from my view only, I lost the chance to be with him as a life partner.

My choice to move to San Francisco and leave Ron was impetuous, and I know now that it changed the course of my world – or destiny.

We may have never married.

We may have divorced.

But that is not the point. The point is: I will never know.

I do know this: If I love someone, I communicate that to them in every way I possibly can. I never squander an opportunity to know someone on the inside… to connect on a deeper level. And if I think I know what is best for someone else (even if it’s the way they manage their healthcare), I think it over carefully before rendering or sharing my opinion – no matter how right I think I am.

I hope you agree: You may never know how dearly it may cost you if you squander time, judge another, or lose sight of how precious and tender love is.

Yesterday afternoon, I received a text message from my friend, Gary. It said, “See you in four years.”

In a hurry, I wrote back, “Wait! I just sent you a postcard. Let me know if you would prefer more privacy in future correspondence.”

Seconds later, my phone buzzed with a reply, “He’s gone… Jerry.”

“Who’s Jerry?” I thought.

And then it hit me…

Gary has just become a statistic; a nobody by most people’s standards. And on Monday, August 23, 2010 at 3:13 p.m. he began his new life as a Federal Inmate.

Tears poured upon reading that text from the even more nameless “Jerry,” and it felt like taking a searing dagger in my heart. The chill of apathy with which the message was written ignited more pain in an already burning wound.

Only Gary knows if he is deserving of this sentence. After all, innocent people go to prison every day.

I know Gary from a personal standpoint; a platonic friend, a warm presence, a talkative and gregarious individual with an insatiable thirst for knowledge and social connections. A kind heart. A friendly companion. A palate for fine wine.  A proclivity for warm breezes on the Gulf of Mexico. A tenacious worker. A loving and supportive father. And a good friend who always showed me respect, consideration, and comforting company.

I don’t know him as a crook.

I don’t know him as the Federal Inmate he has just become.

In fact, Gary no longer knows himself.

Gary Brown is now – and will be for the next four years – Inmate number 50700-018.

Knowing yesterday would be the last time I would hear Gary’s voice for quite some time I spoke with him several times. He seemed upbeat and strong as he made his rounds saying farewell to family and friends. Thirteen hundred miles away, phone calls and text messages were all we could manage.

During our talks, however, he promised me that he would write what he learns in federal prison. He knows he is about to embark upon a new life and change within himself. He was emphatic about having me tell his story through his eyes and in his own words so that he could share his lessons from within the confines of Club Fed. He made clear that while he can only share his personal view, he does not want to talk about himself in these subsequent blog entries. Rather, he wants to talk about the overarching lessons that he expects will permeate the walls and infiltrate the psyche of his fellow inmates during the course of his tenure.

I have no idea what he will share in the coming weeks and months.

Gary likely has no idea what he will share. But as he shares, I will share with you. I hope you join us both and share your input on this journey.

If you want to follow Gary’s story, his growth, and a view from inside the confines of Federal Prison, sign up for Gary’s View by leaving a comment.