Mortal Man
Life (After Time)
by: Willie Childs
It's never a good time to go to jail but I went at a time that I was old enough to realize that being locked up wasn't the thing for me and still young enough to have time to straighten up my life and have a positive impact on this world once I got out. For whatever reason; people are drawn to me and I want to use this gift to help others.
Being on probation is no joke. I did everything the probate judge asked of me but the pressure to be "perfect" and avoid being in the wrong place at the wrong time was beyond demanding. I wrote a letter to the judge requesting to have my probation time reduced. In the letter I documented everything that I accomplished - some were things that the judge/system put in place but most were things that happened just from me being me. While I was inside I helped people read and understand their mail. I also started a prayer group, this wasn’t something that I planned to do, it just happened from people seeing me and another guy pray before we ate. With that people would come up to me and ask when we were going to pray again and I’d tell them there was no specific time but if you want to pray we can get that right now. A lot of the guys would tell me that they’ve been wanting to pray and make positive changes in their lives but never felt comfortable in church or other programs because they always felt like they were being judged on everything they did from the clothes they wore, the way they talked, etc. So again, another case of people relating to me and being able to make a positive impact on people’s lives. Just a lot of little things like that. These details were all in the letter that I wrote to the judge.
I detailed all the things that I had done while on probation. I was working, staying away from trouble and living by the letter of the law. The day of my hearing I had no idea if I would be the first or last person called from the judge’s docket. I was prepared to be there all day but my name was the first called that day. During my hearing the judge mentioned all of the challenges that he put before me during my original sentencing. He touched on my letter, called out all that I accomplished “and avoided,” the judge did all of this in front of a full courthouse so there were people in there who committed crimes and different walks of life. When the judge finished there was a loud applause for me, I was humbled and I also felt that the judge chose to call me up first to use me as an example, as a beacon of light that if you do your time, stay out of trouble and use that time to better yourself you can do it.
Coming home from jail is hard. It never goes away. It’s rough for a felon to come home and live a normal life after living behind bars. People look at you differently. There's times where I meet new people and everything is cool but once they learn of my past things go downhill from there. And finding a job? Most companies will pass on you with something like that on your record and the jobs that are available are usually low paying with no future or chance to advance. Every time I fill out an application I always wonder “are they going to bring this up? If they don't I wont. Is my past going to haunt me again?”
Before I caught my case I worked with kids and I LOVED it! I’m passionate about working with kids and people in general, “I miss it and I’m going to do whatever I have to do to get back to that.” Now that I’m living my life “after time” I’m committed to getting back into that lane. Using my people skills to help make a positive change in people’s lives whether kids, grownups, felons or anything in between. However many years God blesses me with - I believe that’s what I’ve been put here to do.
I think we as men let our pride get in the way of talking about certain things. We talk about girls, shoes and sports but miss out on the important conversations like being heartbroken by a girl we thought we loved, managing finances and mortality. There's usually no example for us. Especially if you grew up without that male role model in the house. Early in life I was never really into suits. In my hood men were only wearing suits because they thought they were pimps or they had to go to court and neither of those appealed to me.
Even with the challenges of my past I'm excited for my future. I have hopes and dreams just like everyone else and I'm pursuing them. I make a point to surround myself around people that are smarter than me, that are doing things that I want to do and that inspiring to me in any type of way. I'm still trying to figure things out but I like where I'm headed in my life (after time.)