Forest Whitaker's OWN Documentary - Serving Life

Fauna Hodel and I arrived early at the Paley Center for Media last evening for the debut of Academy Award®-winner Forest Whitaker's documentary entitled:
Serving Life - the first documentary produced by the incomparable, multi-faceted team at the Oprah Winfrey Network -a division of the OWN DOCUMENTARY CLUB.

Serving Life is a documentary that is filmed at the Louisiana State Penitentiary - Louisiana's maximum security prison at Angola, - where the average sentence is more than 90 years. Warden Burl Cain makes the viewer examine a new phenomena; a penitentiary with an in-house Hospice ( hos·pice/ˈhäspis/Noun - A home providing care for the sick, especially the terminally ill.) that actually trains the inmates to care for the sick.

There are several questions that crossed the minds of so many people watching the documentary. Questions like, can a Hospice operated by fellow inmates really assist those who are dying, find peace and comfort in the arms of fellow convicts? Is there a chance in hell that those who have committed heinous crimes actually feel compassion for their fellow inmates who are terminally ill? Do these men deserve to die surrounded by people who care about them, with dignity, when they've caused others in society so much hurt and pain? Ain't that the hurt?

Suddenly, it occurred to me that so many of people in our society have chosen to ignore an entire segment of people walking this earth, breathing the same air that we breath, living under the same sun and moon that we all live under.

Clearly there is a subculture within our culture that have family in prison and they visit their family members that are incarcerated for life. This is real.

Lord Have Mercy! While I watched the film, tears started streaming down my face for two reasons; I cried for those who's lives were altered because of choices that were made by family members who are incarcerated, especially the children. I also shed tears for those families who've lost family members at the hands of those who made bad choices - choices that altered the fate of all of those concerned.

Tune in on Thursday, July 28th at 9/8c for the OWN Documentary Club debut of Serving Life

Peace, C