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BRUCE LISKER, His Swim of Freedom
by I. J. Weinstock

“Lisker Freed!” the Eyewitness Newscast’s graphic flashed. As I watched the TV tears filled my eyes.

“A man who’s spent 26 years behind bars for his mother’s murder has been released from prison,” the TV anchor announced. “Last week a judge overturned Bruce Lisker’s conviction because of false evidence and sloppy defense work. Lisker walked out of Mule Creek State Prison this morning.”

The newscast cut to the prison for an impromptu press conference in a nearby park where a 44 year-old, shaven-headed Bruce Lisker spoke to the media in a voice flooded with emotion. “It’s a joyous day — the best day of my life!” Climbing into the pickup truck that would drive him back to Los Angeles, a reporter asked, “What are you going to do first when you get back to LA?” Bruce thought for a moment, then with a wistful smile replied, “Take a swim.”
Eight hours later I sat poolside on a hot August afternoon watching Bruce Lisker — a man who’d been caged for over a quarter of a century — take his first swim. And I wept.

Who am I? I became Bruce’s surrogate father when I fell in love with his stepmother, Joy, whom his widowed father had remarried. As I played the role of “father figure” over the years I became his mentor and confidante, I took care of his affairs in the world and now was the home he came to when his 26 year long ordeal in prison ended. My home, I realized, had been the one that his father had moved to after the murder, the home that still had the same telephone number Bruce knew as a child. Though I never met Bruce’s father, Bob Lisker played a significant role in my life.

As Bruce swam in my pool hours after being freed, I thought about the ways we were connected, and about his father and how this terrible tragedy had impacted him. I could imagine Bob Lisker watching his son take this first swim of freedom, feeling the elation of joy and redemption. But I couldn’t possibly imagine what his father had endured when his wife, Dorka, was murdered and his only son, Bruce, was convicted of the crime. Unimaginable. Unbearable.

I have some inkling of his torment because Joy wrote about it in her memoir. Plagued with recurring nightmares, Bob buried his grief in a smokescreen of chain-smoking. He remarried his old friend, Joy, who accompanied him on his monthly visits to Bruce in prison. Bob believed his son innocent. A conservative attorney, ex-marine, and Kiwanis president, he was so desperate for answers, he finally attempted to contact the spirit of his dead wife to find out who killed her.

WOW!

Bruce stopped swimming mid-stroke and blurted, “Oh my God!” then shot me a look that said he was drunk on the moment. No words could convey what he was feeling. So he dove back into the water giddy with his sudden freedom.

As he glided through the water, I was struck by the fact that nothing says freedom more than a swim! Not a walk, not a run (both of which he could do in prison) but moving through a wholly new medium…water. Freedom.

Bruce pulled up, spitting out water and muttering in frustration that he’d practically forgotten how to swim. He’d grown up with a pool, so his memories of swimming were vivid, but apparently his muscle memory had faded. A quarter of a century is a long time. Despite his frustration, he couldn’t stop laughing and muttering, “Wow!” over and over.

Like a kid, he threw himself into an underwater back flip — a move he’d perfected as a teenager. When he resurfaced, he flipped his shaven head back and forth as if shaking long hair out of his eyes. Then, realizing it was a move from the past, he laughed. “I used to have hair the last time I was in a pool.” That muscle memory didn’t fade. Every time he surfaced. he flipped his non-existent hair. With his shaved head it was not only comical, it became poignant.

CULTURE SHOCK

“Glorious!” Bruce exclaimed as he floated on his back, mesmerized by hawks circling above and planes flying overhead. Knowing he’d already been stumped by the motion-activated faucets in the men’s room of the IHOP he’d been taken to for breakfast after his release, I wondered how he would deal with the culture shock that awaited him.

When he’d entered prison back in the early 80’s he didn’t have a credit card or a cell phone. They didn’t have ATMs, not to mention computers and the Internet. For music he played LP vinyl records and he’d never experienced an iPod. Like a modern-day Rip Van Winkle, he’d been asleep for two and a half decades. What would it be like for him to reenter our twittering, technological, wi-fi world? How would any of us deal with being fast-forwarded in time 26 years into the future? We can’t even imagine the culture shock.

For over 25 years he’d been under surveillance, living in a cramped tiny cell. His new found freedom would be the ultimate culture shock. Everything we take for granted — taking a walk, ordering from a menu, going online, driving a car and filling it with gas, and on and on-would be a “first.” As he reclaimed his life, I imagined moments of euphoria as well as despair. Having been “caged” for more than half his life, freedom would be both exhilarating and terrifying.

AN OCEAN OF GRIEF

Sitting poolside — filming Bruce with the Flip camera I’d bought at CostCo the day before to record some of these precious firsts — it sank in that this man who’d suffered such a terrible injustice was being baptized into freedom in my pool, was wearing my bathing suit since he had none, and that he’d come “home” to live with me. Tears clouded the viewfinder as the words from that old Grateful Dead song flitted through my mind, “What a a long, strange trip it’s been….”

Several weeks earlier I’d finished my own memoir about loving and losing his stepmother Joy and the grief journey I went through.

I’d just been reborn. And now Bruce was being reborn.

My grief was ending. Was his just beginning? As he dove under the water, I sensed the ocean of grief he’d have to cross, all the tears that had yet to be shed for all the losses he’d endured: for his brutally murdered mother whose funeral he couldn’t attend; for his wrongful conviction; for his lost freedom; for his shattered dreams; and for losing the prime of his life. He’d watched his father succumb to emphysema, knowing it was his own incarceration that was killing him. He couldn’t attend his father’s funeral. And Joy, who became his spiritual mother for over 25 years…. He couldn’t be at her memorial, either. So much loss. So little opportunity to grieve. As he kept swimming, I realized that the ocean of grief lay before him, and that the more he experienced his freedom, the more he’d realize all he’d lost!

Though Bruce’s lawyers filed a civil suit on his behalf, how could any dollar amount repay him for the injustice he’d suffered? How much is a quarter century of anyone’s life worth? A jury will have to decide. And no matter how high the amount, it won’t begin to compensate him.

A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN

As Bruce reveled in the pool, splashing the water in wonder like a child, I thought about the strange destiny that brought us together. There was no denying that the murder had impacted my life as well. According to Joy, Bob’s desperate attempt to contact the spirit of his murdered wife set the stage for the Afterlife communications she received from him after he died which she wrote about in her memoir LOVE EVER AFTER: How My Husband Became My Spirit Guide.

According to Joy, Bob not only helped her overcome her grief and rebuild her life, he also gave her a 12-Step program to find a new love. After six weeks of using the program, she found me. We were literally “a match-made-in-heaven.” So the murder changed my life as well.

THE JOYFUL REDEMPTION

For the next ten years I experienced the greatest love I’d ever known with Bruce’s stepmother, Joy. Along with that love, I got to know Bruce, speaking to him on the phone and visiting him in prison. The more I got to know him, the more impressed I was. He was articulate, sensitive, intelligent, thoughtful and funny. In trying to explain my admiration to other people who didn’t know him I, resorted to this graphic description: he’s been through shit, but he doesn’t stink.

I became his mentor and cheerleader, especially during the endless delays of his years-long legal battle. I helped set up his website www.freebruce.org and sent countless email updates to his supporters, harnessing the groundswell of support the LA Times articles (now more than 50) had elicited. I handled his affairs, practical and emotional. We ended all our phone calls with “I love you.” As the years went by I’d often choke up when speaking about him to other people. That’s when I realized I’d become his surrogate father.

When my beloved Joy succumbed to breast cancer, I was devastated. But incredibly, like Bob had to her, she began communicating with me from the Other Side and led me on a miraculous healing journey from grief to gratitude. Several weeks after I finished my memoir, JOYride: How My Late Wife Loved Me Back To Life, a judge overturned Bruce’s conviction and the moment Bob, Joy and I had prayed for finally became a reality. Bruce was released and came “home” to live with me.

Sitting poolside filming his first swim, I was overcome with an indescribable happiness. I like to think it was partly due to Bob and Joy celebrating somewhere that made it so sweet.

The Lord works in mysterious ways…. The biblical injunction suddenly came to mind as I was struck by the incredible irony that — like the beautiful lotus flower that grows out of the mud — out of the terrible Lisker family tragedy, involving the brutal murder of a mother and the wrongful conviction of her teenage son, has come two accounts of life-after-death communication. Why these two testaments to life-after-death would be generated by this murder was a mystery. And what greater purpose there might be to the unfolding of Bruce Lisker’s life, only time would tell. As Bruce pulled himself out of the pool after taking a swim on his first day of freedom, I looked forward to what the future would bring.

POSTSCRIPT

Bruce didn’t sleep much that first night. “Too dark,” he explained. In prison the lights were always on. In the morning he confided that he’d hugged himself all night because everything was so different, so unfamiliar. Embracing himself gave him something familiar to literally hang on to.

In the following weeks and months, I was privileged to experience so many “firsts” with him: buying his first laptop and iPhone, getting his credit card and opening a bank account, taking his driver’s test for his license, showing him how to use an ATM and how to fill up a car with gas and pay with a credit card. This “Rip Van Winkle” passage was extraordinary and I was blessed to be at his side, to be his guide and hopefully mentor him back to life.

I. J. Weinstock is the author of JOYride: How My Late Wife Loved Me Back To Life and the forthcoming GriefRX: 7 Keys to Healing Loss. He is an author, speaker, love, life & grief coach.
http://www.TheLiskerRedemption.com

(c)2010 by DreaMasters, Inc.

Originally published here.

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JC Reed

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