uu_mom

I didn’t know how to title this. Maybe “My Ozzie died”? That title might be appropriate since when I called him to wish him a happy Father’s Day, he said, “I’m nobody’s father”.

I called him Ozzie. He married my mother almost 45 years ago and last night he passed away. I never lived with him, but I saw him on average ~3 or more days per year since we first met and he usually slept at my house or I slept at his. My children thought of him as their grandfather.

I met Ozzie on the day he married my mother, after hearing some stories about him. The most memorable one is that he was in prison for 20 years after being wrongfully charged with murder. It’s the kind of story we’ve been told not to tell, but most people can’t say they knew someone convicted of murder as it’s the kind of thing kept private as it could cause problems for him and maybe his family.

I’m not writing this because this is the first opportunity to tell the tale, though it is, but because writing is the way I mourn. Also, I do think sharing them is important since these stories can be important to someone.

I can’t sleep after being told of his death over 5 hours ago and no one has been awake to talk to for over 3 of those hours. Also, I don’t want to forget the thoughts & memories I’m having as I may not have another chance to share them - at least not with proper internet references.

I’ve actually had a lot of memories & thoughts in the 3+ hrs. I’ve laid in bed trying to sleep since I learned of his death and, since I only have a phone to type on and can’t even dictate since my sisters are sleeping beside me, I won’t be able to write much now either. I will just share about the historical notes that might be worthwhile for someone to know about.

Who was Oscar Bjornsen and how significant was his life?

Well, one can debate the significance of anyone’s life and how one could determine anyone’s significance. There are obvious ones that have to do with personal relationships - he had significance in my life, my mother’s, my children’s, and the lives of many others who knew him - whether or not there was any blood relation - a point I think is quite important but not the one I’ll write about now.

Did he take someone’s life?
Or was he falsely accused?
And is what I learned about him a part of history worth remembering?

It shouldn’t matter in our relationship and I don’t think it affected it. I only asked him once about those years and he told me he didn’t want to discuss it. His time in prison was a part of his life that he wanted to forget. He did share some stories with my mother apparently. She shared with me some things and others I got from my older sister who probably heard them from my mother.

I think it’s important to understand about murder as it and its implications in our lives and society are important. Also, the way you know about something can be significant in the way it affects you and how you then deal with the world. For instance, they say that how you know about the Holocaust - whether or not you read the story of Anne Frank and whether or not you personally know someone from that generation of people who lived through it, can affect the likelihood of mistakes being made that could cause it to happen again. Many people just think of murder as something bad people and fictional characters do, so maybe eventually my father’s story could impact someone I know in a way that could make a difference.

Here’s the story I originally heard (as verified by my older sister):

When Ozzie was a young man he was in a gang that robbed a liquor store. The store owner came after them. One of the gang members stabbed the store owner with a knife, killed him, & dropped the knife. Ozzie picked up the knife and went running after him. Ozzie got caught by the police with the murder weapon. He admitted to the crime of attempted robbery, but denied guilt in murder.

[Editing/adding to this on 8/7/21]

I haven't been to this blog in 2+ years and forgot I wrote this (I had left it in private mode). So I had found out more about my step-father's history. Two important resources, although now I've lost the links, were a couple of news stories about the actual robbery & murder. Apparently he was not a teenager as he had said and he wasn't with a gang or friends - he was alone. The store was also not a liquor store either. So I'm inclined to think his story was a lie. However I understand why he would tell such a story.

Why would anyone lie about how they got arrested and put in jail for 20 yrs.? Because people would judge them more harshly.

Would my mother have married him? If not, I never would have known him.

How would I have treated him differently in a subconscious way if I had looked up that history earlier? It is hard to know, but our subconscious causes us to behave in ways that we're sometimes ashamed of when we think back on it, or sometimes even soon after the incident.

His life after meeting my mother seems to have been exemplary from all of the data I have (mostly personal experience and stories told by others and the fact that he never got in trouble with the law again). Others were better having known him; at least my mother was and he had another woman friend, too, who apparently appreciated him.

When people can live a better life, isn't society better? There are some things I could reflect on about our prison system and what we think of when it comes to murderers and if they can be rehabilitated. Apparently they can be. One important law that helped him was that he was not allowed to be in the company of other felons and he had 5 yrs. probation. He had a good job in a warehouse-type career until he was able to retire. At the very least, he was a good tax-paying citizen and he was not a burden on society.

Unfortunately, his 40+ yrs. out of the prison system with exemplary behavior did not afford him any better treatment by the system. At the end of life, he could not go up and down stairs due to knee arthritis. He got some meals-on-wheels which helped him quite a bit and maybe they brought his food upstairs and got his mail for him, but he had to go downstairs and back up at least weekly to go to the social services center. It was a recreation center, a very good thing that the state of NY has for its residents. He sat and spoke to people at the dining table and made some good friends. There were other facilities available to him, but I don't think he used many. I can't remember if he played games, but I think he played some. That is not the treatment that I think could have improved as the social workers there were great. It was that they couldn't move him to another place where there were no stairs, because he had a history and the particular crime he had committed was why no place would take him and the state had no place to offer him. He ended up going to a temporary facility after he had been found unconscious for a night or 2, which they knew because they were monitoring his medications and he wasn't responding. He was only at that temporary location  for a couple of nights before he was sent to hospice where he died a couple days later, peacefully.

I don't know if this story will be of help to anyone, but here it is. Feel free to ask questions if you like.

I thought he had worth and dignity, but even some UUs say murderers do not. What do you think?

uu_mom

People have been drawing me back to this blog with questions about their jaw joint disorder (known as TMJ, TMJD, or TMD). I love helping people and physical pain can deplete a person in more ways than one. It is hard to take care of your other needs when you're in pain, too.

Whether physical healthy or not, we also have emotional and spiritual pain. There's no scientific definition of spiritual pain, but it's more than the depression that can be helped by psychologists, psychiatrists, and drugs. It's something deeper that we can't quite put our finger on. Something some people can turn around to being lifted up by their spiritual joy - I think that's what spiritual health is. When the depth of your person is fulfilled, at ease, or even elated is a "health" that would be nice if everyone had as much as possible throughout their lives.

The news and documentaries and other shows tell of so much sadness and religion that does little in this lifetime. I know living a Unitarian Universalist faith doesn't do it for everyone, but I want people to know it's a choice that could help their spiritual health and their emotional health, too.