Fernando Murillo
At the age of 16, Fernando Murillo was sentenced to life in prison for his crimes. After serving 20 years, he was transferred to California Medical Facility (CMF), a prison that focuses on caring for the elderly and terminally ill, among others. It was there that he first stepped foot into CMF’s hospice unit, the first of its kind in a prison setting.
Initially, Fernando was hesitant to join the peer pastoral care team, but once he committed, the work became transformational. He witnessed the immense gratitude of his dying friends within the community and, at the same time, began to heal and reveal parts of himself that he had never known.
In this inspiring episode, we take a look at how Fernando and others are on a mission to train more incarcerated residents to administer end-of-life palliative care.
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In this episode:
Fernando as a young boy growing up.
How this opportunity allowed him to heal from his past.
Fernando’s new identity in the world.
Fears that exist when beginning to form personal relationships.
His hopes and dreams as a free man creating change in the world.
LINKS & RESOURCES:
Charity: Humane Prison Hospice Project
New York Times Article: The Prisoners Who Care For The Dying And Get Another Chance At Life
Wise Words:
I'm a 43 year old man. I was formerly incarcerated for approximately 24 years. While incarcerated, I worked in end of life palliative care at California Medical Facility, Vacaville for approximately five years.
It's culturally normal for people in our society to not befriend someone like myself because there's a lot of othering and preconceived notions about who we actually are.
I felt like I had a lot of talents, but I thought they were meaningless, being in that environment.
So it's difficult to connect with what you're meant to do and what your talents are because they feel like they don't matter.
There are a lot of things incarceration can strip you of, but your imagination and your willingness to close your eyes and liberate yourself from. Those difficulties can never be taken away.
If they're in their last 72 hours of life, we have a motto in hospice where no patient dies alone. We will sit around the clock with them. And if a patient doesn't want me to leave their side, I won't, I'll stay with them.
No matter how tired I am or how much they want to go to sleep, I'll sit with them, while they're taking their last breaths. The day-to-day operations there are difficult, but the reality is that we're just extending our humanity to some of the most vulnerable citizens in our community.
Death is a great equalizer.
So many of us in the incarceral setting, whether we're incarcerated or work there, play this character. We wear this mask, but what lies beneath the mask is rarely revealed. And that's the reality of who we actually are. So we were actually working and living in an environment in this hospice where people had the opportunity to take their masks off and feel safe.
People are coming from the outside world and want to learn more about it because they're seeing these displays of humanity happening in such an inhumane place.
People have the opportunity to look their mortality in the face and be confronted with it and know what their responsibilities are as a person. And that's to be kind, respectful and compassionate.
I know what it's like to zip a body bag up over and over and over again. So I, I'm not gonna wait till the end to be kind to people. So I just do it every day now.
I had a conversation with somebody in my neighborhood recently about what life would be like for them if they introduced themselves with the worst thing that they've ever done in their life. Hi, my name's Gabe and I've cheated on my wife for 13 years. What would life really look like if we were to introduce ourselves by the worst things that we did?
But that's what it's like for an incarcerated person. Regardless of who I am now, how I define myself, and what my character is like as an adult. The reality is that I'll always be defined according to society's norms by what I did as a 16-year-old boy.
Survival is not living, it's survival. There's a fundamental difference between the two. It's okay to live. I'd encourage people to do so.