Medicare's "Plan B"

This is reportedly from the March issue of Harper's. I don't know any more background than this, and, honestly, I have no idea how much rock this guy was moving, but it touched me nonetheless. From Adventus.

Originally republished by Harper's Magazine, March 2006. The magazine explains that this is part of a statement made by George Earl Lewis of Chickasha, Oklahoma. Mr. Lewis was arrested "after sellng two grams of crack cocaine to an FBI informant." Mr. Lewis is seventy four years old and lives on "$600 per month in retirement benefits and pays $350 a month for his wife's cancer medication." The court issued a ten-year suspended sentence.

I, Mr. George Earl Lewis, do agree that what I've done was not right concerning the law. I do not deny the fact whatsoever. However, I did what I did simply to keep my wife Thelma up in her medications and to pay any bills owed due to her illness. She was diagnosed with cancer. Her Medicare doesn't pay all of her expenses. So what I did was simply trying to meet the needs of my wife, whom I love very much. I can assure you that I have learned a valuable lesson. I will do all I can simply to live on our income, which is my retirement check. And pray that God will have mercy on me, to see me through this ordeal.

If granted probation, I plan to continue to mow yards during the summer and fall, and, whenever I am able, to pick up cans. I will continue to live with my wonderful wife whom I been married to for twenty-nine blessed years. I will slowly learn how to read and write the best way I can. I will spend time at home with my wife, looking at TV, and sitting outside together. Mainly the only activities I have are mowing yards, running people around, looking at TV, and sitting in the yard with my wife in the cool of the evening.