Thoughts on the eve of the execution of Ruben Gutierrez

UPDATE July 16, 2024 6:47pm ET: The Supreme Court has granted Ruben Gutierrez a stay of execution.

Nearly three weeks have passed since Ramiro Gonzales was executed. In the days following his death, I shared a reflection on Ramiro’s final hours in Broadview Magazine. I’m grateful to everyone who reached out to say they read the article and were moved by Ramiro’s courage, remorse, and witness to love.

More days and hours have passed since publishing that article, and I’ve continued to navigate the expected movements grief composes. If this were a symphony, I would be in the second movement. Andante. Largo. Most everything seems slow, sad, and nostalgic.

I also have moments punctuated with notes that feel irato (frenzied and angry) and helpless. I find myself holding, as tenderly as possible, an overwhelming sense that I should be doing something. 

I remember this feeling in the aftermath of my father’s death. We were in the deepest part of COVID. Dad lived with my family as his health slowly deteriorated. He died in our house. Because hospital palliative units weren’t running even close to their usual capacity and were frequently in lockdown, more people were receiving hospice care at home. There weren’t enough personal support workers to go around. And so, the final months of my father’s care were intense and all consuming. 

After his death, I would find myself wandering around the house, feeling like I should be doing something. “Surely there must be something I should be doing!” I had been so consumed with doing for so long that in addition to adjusting to the loss of my father, it took some time to acclimate to the new reality of no longer being a 24/7 caregiver.

Except my father died of cancer. As his death drew closer I looked at that emaciated man and knew his body was ready to die. He’d been in so much pain for so long that death was a mercy. There wasn’t anything left to do for him after he was gone. Eventually, I adjusted to our new normal.

But Ramiro wasn’t a sick old man; he was 41 years old. He worked hard to stay healthy and strong, despite the limits of a supermax prison. On his last day, I found myself watching his mouth as he spoke, unable to comprehend that in a matter of hours, his lips would be still. He would speak no more. No more jokes. No more armchair translations of Koine Greek. No more questions about the wellbeing of his loved ones. No more…him. It seemed a cruel joke when, after the execution, I went to the church to bless Ramiro’s body and saw that the funeral home had glued his mouth shut.

There is—was—only one Ramiro. One of a kind. There isn’t anything else I can be doing for him. 

But many other men and women have also been sentenced to die, and my soul tells me I should be doing something about it. Unfortunately, my brain doesn't yet know what that something is.

I’m not sure all of me boarded the plane back to Toronto. Part of me is still in Texas. Perhaps that’s why I am so deeply feeling what is about to happen as Texas prepares to do what Texas does all over again…

This evening, Ruben Gutierrez will be executed by lethal injection. He was convicted in 1999 under the “law of parties” for the murder of 85-year-old Escolastica Harrison during a home robbery. In Texas, one doesn't need to be the one who pulls the trigger to receive a death sentence; participating in a crime that results in a capital murder is sufficient, even if they never hurt the person or touched the weapon. Some death row inmates were merely getaway drivers but ultimately sentenced to die. In fact, tracking how the law of parties is used in Texas reveals that the actual killer often receives the least severe sentence among all involved.

I grieve the death of Ms. Harrison. I will be praying for her tonight, along with every person who is charged with carrying out this sentence. 

But Gutierrez’s immenent execution has thrown me back into those final moments with Ramiro. Strangely, so long as I had a job to do, I was fine at holding myself together. I was doing something—the thing I’d been preparing for years to do. At least, as much as you can ever prepare for holding your friend as they are killed. I knew what my job was. I knew whom I was there for.

Today, I find myself in a strange space, feeling like I should be doing something but not knowing what that something is. I'm confused by grief and a sense of helplessness that feels overwhelming, yet I understand intellectually that it will take time to figure out how I can be most useful—both to those seeking comfort in carceral spaces and in the movement to end violent punishments for what are often corporate and systemic failings.

And yet, the drive to be doing grows stronger and stronger…

I only wish there was a just place for that drive to land.