MIO has lost another beloved member of our community
Dear Friends,
This month Maine Inside Out lost another beloved member of our community. On July 14, Alex Lewis died inside Maine Correctional Center. Alex joined MIO inside Long Creek in 2019 as a member of the group that created the play “The Masks We Wear.” Recently, Alex was involved in MIO from inside. He was working on a book of poems and helped start the project “Writing on the Walls” that features artwork by members inside prisons and jails. Alex was a father, fiancé, brother, and friend who was deeply loved and is now painfully missed.
This Spring, Alex recorded a poem called “The Ripple Effect”:
“To me the ripple effect has little to do with me
And everything to do with the ones I love.
I would consider the day I got arrested the beginning of the ripple
Immediately people around me were affected.
My wife and friend were both placed in handcuffs
just for being around me.
My daughter was supposed to see me a few days later
She lost out because of it.
Now, after being locked up for months, the ripple is still going
Simply by the absence I have left in the world.
My sister lost her venting buddy
My boss lost a hard worker
My friends and family notice the unchangeable absence.
What I notice is the ripple triggered an extreme loss of hope within myself.”
In 2020, MIO released a statement grieving the death of six young people in two years. The words are just as true two years later. “The conditions and systems under which MIO members live, exacerbated by years of youth incarceration and system impact, create a reality of struggle, trauma, and death.” Our current systems tear communities apart with little regard for the ways separation and loss ripple through families and communities. We are literally missing people - friends, parents, siblings, children, mentors, elders, leaders, and so much more. We are haunted and hurt by unchangeable absences.
MIO believes in interdependence and connection. This is why we build relationships across systems from middle schools to adult prisons. This is why we practice art and theater, peer mentoring and support, celebration and ceremony, and leadership development. Systemic separation is causing irreparable personal and collective violence. The antidote is connection and relationship. In the rippling wake of Alex’s death and collective grief for everyone we’ve lost too soon, our compass is the gift of their presence and the power that each of us have to care for and transform the world.
