. . . with your one wild and precious life?” [from “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver.]
Here’s how extraordinary Nesto Monell is: he’s now asking himself, “What am I supposed to be doing with my life, now that it has been given back to me? How do I give back?”
May all of us, transformed by Nesto and his story, listen to what the Universe is saying when we ask the same questions.
Almost two months after the trial I still feel trapped in those uncertain years awaiting trial, reminding myself that it is over. Is it?
Reading the posts on this blog, I was grateful for the words of others who watched this surreal experience. Hearing how many lives have been changed by risking mine is amazing. Truth, in an unkind world, echo’s loud and clear. Soon I will find the words to put the entire experience into perspective.
Tonight I am writing about the trial for my business law course at Bunker Hill. The project is my final and we have to write about a trial experience. Well, I got a trial to write about. Some of my classmates have to go to the court house for the first time, so I have the advantage, and an “A.” This is the first time I’ll be writing about the experience and wanted to share it with the blog.
As I go over the stages of the trial, the memories are rapid and vivid. “Ladies and Gentleman, this is my client Nesto Monell,” Attorney Krowski introduces us to the seventy or more jurors with a consoling hand on my shoulders as a dad would do his son. Then we sit and put numbers one to seventy on our legal pads and begin the task of going through each jurors information form. “We don’t want any conservatives,” Krowski said. The Jurors we were not sure about got a question mark next to their number. “This guy is a Vietnam vet,” he said in a low whisper, “It would be good to empanel him.” We did empanel him; he became the jury foreman, and he read the verdict “Not Guilty.”
And so the story goes. This is a teaser but I have to get back to the paper.