Compassion: The Gift That Keeps on Giving
Or Compassion: The Gift That Set Me Free
Unfortunately, or fortunately this won’t be a standard ‘think about the people in prison’ post, but one about gifing. It’s a post about an unsolicited gift given in a hostile environment that ultimately saved and changed a life. I used to write these type of posts every year, but at some point, I lost what it felt like to have a Christmas in prison. I can’t forget the cards my Mother sent me and the extra money my oldest Sister put on my books to spend on ‘zoo-zoos and wam wams’.
Back then it meant everything to be able to spend an extra $75 on ‘store’ day, so much so, that I feel a twinge of guilt watching my wife order gifts for my children and grandchildren. The slightly annoying ping of the email notification that my wife has ordered another gift, admittedly gives me a sense of pride that has been absent the bulk of my life after prison. But, the pride fades, because those gifts are material and in a matter of time will be lost, forgotten or broken.
Not that I’m not thankful to be able to purchase those gifts, because when I was sleeping on the concrete floor of a trap house buying gifts was not on the calendar. I’m thankful and grateful, but I’m also thoughtful about the gifts that have been given to me over the years. Especially those that were given to me when I was locked up for the holidays. Every one of those gifts holds a special place in my heart and mind, but after the passage of time and in the absence of proximity, even those gifts lose their emotional lustre.
You never really forget, but you do lose touch once you lose proximity. My last Christmas in prison was in 2000 and even though I was a Food Service Clerk, I was so focused on my upcoming parole that I don’t even remember what was on the menu. I don’t even remember if my family came up to visit or not. I’ve lost propinquity to what it means not to be able to have your wife in your arms, your grandchildren around you and your children cooking in the kitchen.
I may have lost what it feels like to be locked up for the holidays, but I haven’t lost propinquity to the one gift I received while I was locked up that truly set me free. Although, if I’m being honest, I had no clue at the time.
Prison is a place where compassion will have you waking up dead and vulnerability is a sign of weakness to be preyed on. Yet, I was given the gift of compassion in a place of no compassion.
I’m not sure who said it, I think it was Bob Proctor, “The things that are given to us for free, are the things that we value the least.” We place little value on things that we were given for free. This year, I wanted to encourage us to think about something we can give for free, that will have an indelible impact on lives and reorient us for a new season of advocacy.
That gift is compassion.
Compassion can’t be bought, it has to be given freely, but it has the power to set someone free. The reason why I am here is because of compassion, I stay very clear eyed about that at all times. I realize if it were not for the compassion from a man that owed me vengeance, I wouldn’t be able to articulate how pervasively powerful compassion can be for individuals, families, communities and our nation as a whole.
Back in 2015, when I wrote my first book and started telling my story publicly, a young lady came to me when I spoke at her school. She told me that she hadn’t been able to forgive the person who killed her brother, she heard my story about Doonie and Cheesy.
Which is nothing more, than a story about how I met the Father of the man I killed; while I was in the Travis County Jail awaiting transfer to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ).
“Conway! Report to the sallyport now!”, the tinny voice shrieked into my cell shrilly from the speaker, jolting me and my cellie out of a hunger induced stupor. When the door buzzed open, I thought I was headed to disciplinary court for the psych meds that were found in my cell during the last search.
My cellie looked down at me from the top bunk with pity in his eyes. I was new to the tank and he tried to tell me that hiding pills in an empty deodorant stick was a bad idea. I wouldn’t listen to him and hid them there anyway.
There was a method to my madness in hiding the meds. One of the old heads told me that if I play ‘crazy’, the meds would keep me from having to work in the fields once I got to prison.
If you know or heard anything about prison in Texas, you know working in the fields is the most dreaded and institutional aspect about incarceration in the state.
“Conway! The L.T. (Lieutenant) said to get your ass down here now!”, shrilled the voice from the tiny speaker again.
I shuffled out of the cell and into the dayroom, making my way out of the tank when I ran into him.
“Yo’ name Conway?” the Old Head said.
“Umm yeah, why?”, warily I responded.
“They call you Doonie on the streets?”, he continued. “Yo’ Daddy run them apartments on the East Side?”
To keep it 100, I was shook (translation: I was scared as hell). I was new to the whole being ‘locked up’ thing, but I knew enough to know if he knew who I was, and I didn’t know who he was — that wasn’t a good thing.
So, I tried to play it tough, “Yeah. That’s me, I’m Doonie. Who you?”
He leaned on the tattered mop, looked me square in the eye and said, “You don’t know who I am?”
Not sure if I was being set up for some jailhouse scheme or trap, but being a 22 year old kid newly sentenced for Voluntary Manslaughter, “Nah.” I responded. “Who you?”
He made a sound, I think it was a chuckle and said, “I’m Cheesy. You killed my oldest son. You oughta know me.”
Time stood still and as the bile of nervousness welled up in my gut as I uttered the words, “I’m sorry…”
I ended up doing two weeks in the hole for those pills and wound up in the fields once I got shipped off to my first prison unit. During those two weeks in Solitary I had a lot of time to pray and think. I do more of the former, than the latter if I’m being honest. Praying was easier than thinking, because thinking took a toll on my soul.
I thought about all the things I had lost, because of losing control of my emotions. I thought about all the lives I had damaged, mostly thinking of my family. Those two weeks in solitary confinement gave me a lot of time to think about all that I had lost.
I had been holding a weekly bible study with a few brothers on the tank and we had grown quite close over the few weeks I had been there. We were of different ages, from different backgrounds and we all had a pretty significant amount of incarceration time ahead of us. I came out of solitary and rejoined the group, ashamed that I had been caught hoarding medications, but mostly afraid that everyone had heard about my encounter with Cheesy.
Of course they all had and the concern was etched plainly on their faces. You can’t imagine the level of fear induced by the unknown. It didn’t take long for my path to cross Cheesy’s again and when it did it was in front of my whole bible study group. In jails, prisons, etc, you segregate yourself either by race, or some other characteristics. Our study group would eat and rec together.
While all of us were shoveling food in our mouths trying to finish before the officer’s whistle, Cheesy sat down in front of me. Again, time stood still and it felt all the air had been sucked out of the room. During those two weeks in solitary I had prayed for God to give me the words to say and I attempted a clumsy addendum to my previous apology.
“Sir. Mmmmmister Ch-ch-cheesy, l-l-look I’m s-s-s-sorry -”, I stammered
He waved off my apology and said, “I forgave you two years ago, when it all happened, I was just waiting on you to show up.” With that he stood up and walked away as everyone, including me, sat stunned until we heard, “First 30 of you ratballs back to the tank!”
As I shuffled back to the tank and sat down in the dayroom, everything landed on me all at once. Jail isn’t the place to show any emotion besides anger, but I was overcome with relief and the cop in the booth wouldn’t pop my door. So I sat in the dayroom and cried.
I lied when I said that compassion was free. It isn’t free, it costs forgiveness. Cheesy had to convert anger, hurt, and revenge into a currency of forgiveness. That was his gift to a 22 year old black kid facing 20 years in prison. I did nothing to deserve that gift, as a matter of fact, all things being equal — there was no reason for Cheesy to show me a modicum of compassion. Yet, he chose to. I don’t know what process Cheesy used to come to a place where he was not only able to forgive his son’s killer, but provide a safe haven for me while I was in prison.
At times I feel like we use the words restorative and justice interchangeably, but we never talk about compassion, healing and forgiveness. We talk about the means to an end, but never what the end means.
Not once did I think about the forgiveness that had been given to me freely. I should say that another way: I never believed I had been forgiven. I thought Cheesy saying he forgive was setting me up for a ‘cross’ later down the road. But in forgiving me, he was setting himself free.
The things we get for free — plays in the back of my head like a Pete Rock breakbeat, sampling emotions and auto-tuning my memory. Reminding me that compassion, forgiveness and a pathway to healing are the best gifts we can give each other this holiday season.
But try giving a 7yr old a box of compassion and see how that works for you.
Glibness aside, and thinking about those who have been harmed — can we present compassion as a gift? Is it too much to ask of our legislators and elected leaders to gift compassion over punishment?
To use forgiveness as a tactic to allow folks to be something other than the worst day of their lives, for the rest of their lives?
Clemency, commutations, are just a few of the gifts Governors and the President can give children of incarcerated parents, families and communities. Legislating in pursuit of healing and redefining justice through a restorative lens, now that’s a gift that will keep on giving in my opinion.
My bad, you’re not here for opinions. Back to the story and some final thoughts.
In Texas, back in the 90’s your first stop was in Huntsville, most likely to the Diagnostics Unit (Byrd Unit0. However, when I was finally shipped from the Travis County Jail to prison in 1994, TDCJ no longer sent you to Huntsville. At the time, they were building Garza East and West in Beeville, TX, they were brand new units being used for classification purposes. As soon as I stepped off the bus at Garza East, someone called me by name and told me who sent them. The brother gave me cigarettes and two rules: don’t gamble and mind your own business. I never saw the brother again.
It’s hard for you to appreciate what it meant to be greeted by someone from your hometown, on your first day in prison and someone being sent by the Father of the man you killed.
It’s the magic of compassion, the power of restorative justice and forgiveness that I want to share with you and offer as a possible gift for you to think about giving this season.
