At first glance, you might think, "So what?"
But I assure you, this card is very, very special. Sometimes, beauty comes from the most unexpected places.
The only things this twenty-year-old had to make the card were an ink pen, a piece of paper, her finger... and M&M's.
Yes, this young artist, sentenced to a few years in one of the most horrible places imaginable (the Brevard County Jail), made this beautiful card for Aidan in a surprising and amazing way.
The lettering was created with an ink pen. The colors were made by crushing up M&M's and mixing them with varying amounts of water to create different shades. The "paint" was applied with one careful finger. After all, she couldn't just crumple up the paper and start over if she messed up. She only got one chance, and couldn't afford to make a mistake.
Look at it again, and you can see the incredible talent and ingenuity this young girl possessed to create such detail from almost nothing.
What's even more incredible is, this girl, serving a sentence for a crime I don't know about, sacrificed most of the ink in her pen, a valuable piece of paper, and her M&M's, which were a rare and VERY expensive treat in jail. I remember when Aidan was in jail, she would write home in tiny handwriting on scraps of paper, because sometimes paper was too hard to come by.
But this young friend of hers sacrificed much more to lift Aidan's spirits on her birthday behind bars.
I was in awe and reduced to tears when the comprehension of this dawned on me, and Aidan had tears in her eyes, too, as she told me that there is so much talent locked away for no one to ever experience outside of that dark facility. So much wasted talent that could brighten the world outside those walls.
Aidan showed me another picture from an inmate friend. Whoever drew this could probably be a pretty good tattoo artist.
There's a huge drug problem in our country, and many of these young people in jail were caught up in a substance (usually prescription pain medication) they couldn't control. That addiction is so strong it makes really good kids do really bad things, like steal from their families, commit crimes such as theft, and other things in order to feed that addiction.
The problem is they can't just stop taking those drugs. They CAN'T, even though they WANT to with all their strength. Those medications create addictions so strong people will literally choose them over EVERYTHING else. And when I say "choose," that's not the right word. There's no choice involved. There is literally no other option for these kids in the claws of addiction. They often hate themselves for succumbing to their craving for pills. Rehabs rarely work, and if you ask most clean addicts how they got clean, most will tell you jail time...and God.
I don't know about you, but these bits of art remind me that there are people with hearts and souls in our jails and prisons. Many are there for something they had no control over--maybe they were prescribed a pain medication in a doctor's office, and were genetically predisposed to addiction (as in Aidan's case--her father is an alcoholic, and my father was, too). Many of these young people lost their family and friends as a result of their addiction, and that is a freaking SHAME.
NEVER GIVE UP ON YOUR LOVED ONES. I didn't, and through some jail time and the grace of God, I have my daughter back. She still thinks she's gangsta, but she's clean, has a great job, a bright future, and a powerful and inspirational story. Everything she tells me about her experiences makes my jaw drop and look up to give thanks over and over that she is still alive.
There are many others like her still sitting in jail, using their precious resources to express themselves in art for a world who may never see. and many of them have beauty to share, and a story to tell.
And we should listen.
The UK is beginning to see the same type of problems with a 'zombie making' synthetic drug called Spice.
Google it, scary stuff!!