Chapter 8 The Song of the Sparrow

I looked forward to my meetings with Donnie. I shared with him what I discovered about myself for that week or something about a lesson in a book that I wanted to apply in my life. Of course, not everyone shared in our excitement. A lot of people began to scoff at me, and I heard that most people thought I had gone crazy. In my dorm, Success began to make snide comments about me trying to trick everyone into thinking I was trying to change and go home. Freddie would mutter under his breath about how none of us, especially me, could ever go home. Even Todd, the man who had connected me to Donnie in the first place, began to say that what Donnie was telling me was a sham.

They did not understand my excitement. I had discovered a way to find some sense of freedom in my life and, most particularly, my mind. One evening while Donnie and I were talking, he stopped, sat back, and pointed at me. “You can go home. I know a lot of people will doubt you, but I believe in you, Quan. I really think you can go into the board and demonstrate that you are a changed man one day.” His kind words of support caused me to tear up even though I tried to hold them back. I felt self- conscious; it was weak to show emotions of any kind in prison. But Donnie was looking at me with such genuine kindness that I couldn’t hold back the tears. I covered my face and wept at the table in the middle of the dayroom, hoping that nobody saw me. “Remember, Quan, you ain’t ever got it unless you can give it back. I won’t be here when you go to the board in a few years because I will be home by then. I want you to continue to give this back to as many men as possible in here.” That night, I lay in my bed and sobbed tears of joy, happiness, and regret. The next morning, I woke up feeling much better and realized the tears had been healing. My life seemed to have new purpose.

Donnie went to the board later that month and was found suitable. A lifer found suitable still had to wait 120 days for review of the file to make sure the hearing was conducted properly and in accordance with state laws. If the lifer was in for murder, he then had to wait an additional thirty days for the case to go across the governor’s desk. This is where every governor historically overturned the finding of suitability, and the lifer would have to go through the board hearing process all over again. Because of In re Lawrence, though, lifers who had been found suitable could file and sometimes find relief in the courts. Donnie, though, had been incarcerated for a kidnap/robbery, so the governor did not have to review his case. He was going to go home.

There were a couple of thousand men on each yard at Solano, the vast majority of them lifers. For years, it was referred to as the graveyard for life-term prisoners. Whenever anyone was found suitable, that person became a celebrity of sorts. People would point them out on the yard or in the chow hall and whisper about how they knew that person, almost as if proximity to someone who was found suitable would mean that they would get to go home one day, too. Donnie suddenly had a following of lifers who began to ask him all sorts of questions. During Donnie’s weekly meetings with me, there were lots of men who came up to him to ask his advice, many of them the same ones who had doubted him. These men would hang on to every word that Donnie said even though he never told them what to say at the board.

On the other end of the spectrum, there were guys like Freddie and Todd. Freddie believed that Donnie had only been found suitable because he was in for a kidnap. I noticed him leaning against the wall near someone else’s dorm muttering under his breath, and had the feeling he was saying something hypercritical of Donnie or even me. He had stopped coming by my bunk area to talk to me after Donnie was found suitable. Todd, the person who had introduced me to Donnie in the first place, had quit his weekly sessions with Donnie. He said Donnie’s case did not apply to him because they were different circumstances.

Donnie reminded me, “These guys are looking for a get-out- of-jail-free card, Quan. And I don’t have that for them. What we are talking about here is demonstrating that we take full responsibility for our actions, not only for the crimes we committed but our conduct in prison after.”

Somewhere during our meetings, I realized we were no longer discussing the board, my poor self-concepts, or my lack of self- esteem. We were connecting and having a genuine, heartfelt friendship. We talked about his love for playing basketball; I spoke about mine for playing football. He told me about the pies that he would make for me one day when I came home, and I talked about introducing him to my family. We talked about things we would like to do when we were released. It no longer seemed imaginary to dream of going home. Shortly thereafter, Donnie was paroled. It was one of my happiest days during my life sentence.

One morning, I was called out for a medical appointment. I stood near one of the big mechanical gates that kept the individual yards separated from each other. A couple of men waited for the officer in the gun tower to open up the gate. I leaned on the fence, the razor wire above me. The morning was cold and crisp, and the sun started peeking over the nearby hills. My mind had that serene peacefulness that always came over me from prayer and meditation. I was thinking about how I could apply lessons from books I was reading in my life. The legacies of the saints were on my mind, and I thought to myself, why could I not also leave a legacy from in here, even if I am to die in prison? It dawned on me that I could; prison did not have to be this harsh ugly place of punishment but a place where I could remake myself. It was a subtle shift in my view of prison, but it was all the difference in the world. Suddenly, I felt the warmth from the sun radiate throughout my body, and I noticed the dew on the individual blades of grass. Up above me in the razor wire I heard the chirp of a sparrow. I looked up, and there it was, perched between the circular coils of the shiny razor wire. It was dark brown with uneven white streaks. I noticed it was missing the lower part of one leg and, on the other, had only three claws instead of four. It was obvious it had lost the claw and limb from landing on the razor wire. Yet, with all the scarring and deformities, the sparrow still perched proud, singing for whoever was listening.

A sense of inner joy washed over me. I then noticed signs of life all around me. Plants and flowers were in bloom. I breathed in the fresh smell of morning. Some kind of insects were buzzing around the fading light of a light pole, the same light poles that cast the eerie fluorescent yellow over every prison yard at nighttime. In the distance, I spotted a hawk circling, already on the hunt for the day. I looked up at the razor wire again, and a second sparrow had landed near the first one. This one was also scarred, with a lump where one of his claws used to be. They were both singing. All these years they have been singing, and I have not been listening, I thought to myself. I looked at the men nearby, and nobody seemed to notice anything. None of us have been listening.

From that day forth, prison did not feel like punishment anymore. It became a place where I could begin to remake myself into someone better. Every time I went out to the yard, I noticed the sparrows and listened to their songs. Each one of these sparrows were disfigured and scarred in so many ways, yet they were content and free. I wished the same for myself and for my soul.

I developed a habit of journaling that opened up my mind. My evening journals became a repository for my thoughts. I dumped everything into them, whatever I was thinking, feeling, and trying to incorporate into my life. I gained clarity over my own thoughts. In my journals, I learned to forgive myself. For example, I read books on mindfulness and meditation and others on effective communication. I noticed that many times during conversations with people, in my mind, I picked apart what they said. Instead of hearing them, I only wanted to prove people wrong. My mind had no filter, and I judged others harshly. The books I read challenged me to approach conversations in a different way.

In my journals each evening, I reviewed my day. I wrote down where I could improve in my interactions, how I could slow down my responses, and what to do moving forward. For example, one evening I was sitting on the concrete benches, feeding pigeons and sparrows with sunflower seeds from our lunch sacks. Another prisoner, Lefty, walked up near to where I sat and plopped down on the ground, startling the birds, and they flew away. He continued looking up at the sky.

“Didn’t you see me trying to feed the birds here? Why did you just walk through here like that? You could have just walked around,” I said, upset. Lefty was one of those prisoners we referred to as a J Cat, a person who should have been housed in a mental institution. He hardly showered, and most days he sat in the middle of the yard, staring up at the clouds.

“I’m sorry, man! I was watching the clouds! Look how pretty everything is!” 

Lefty was right. Solano did have beautiful cloud formations at sunset that were painted pink and purple across the sky from the high winds. But that did not excuse him from not noticing anything else around him. Before I could cuss him out, though, Lefty uttered words that stick with me to this day:

“Somebody once told me every single moment is precious. Those clouds right now up there”—he pointed—“you will never ever see that formation again. Enjoy it while you can.” With that, he stood up and walked away, looking at another cloud formation.

I felt like such an idiot. How could I hope to emulate Saint Francis when I had already judged a man like Lefty? He was our present-day leper, and I had failed once again. That evening, I made notes for myself to treat the next Lefty I encountered with patience and kindness.

Each new day was another learning lesson. Every difficult conversation, every challenging person to deal with, was an opportunity for me to practice the wisdom that I was trying to embody. I journaled each evening on different thoughts I had.

Journal entry on giving to the community:

“Today, I understand the value of what my father was trying to teach me thirty-odd years ago about giving back wholeheartedly to my community. Saint Luke stated, “Much is expected from those to whom much is given.” I believe I have been given much grace, and now try to share the light that has been kindled within me with everyone I come across in my path. Whereas in my past I only left a trail of death, pain, and destruction, today I hope to leave seeds of love and light in my footprints, and with God’s help those seeds can bloom into something beautiful in this world.” 

Journal entry on meditation:

“This budding benefit of meditation has helped to transform my world; I notice I am more discerning of my thoughts, of other peo- ple’s words, and it is a way for me to gauge my own inner feelings. Many of the spiritual books I have read speak extensively about finding something special in the stillness of our hearts and what they term the interior life; I would like to say I have found a way to enrich my own.”

Journal entry after reading about Mother Teresa:

“Most importantly, though, are the choices I make whenever I come across somebody on my path. Mother Teresa stated it best: ‘Great acts done without love is nothing. Small, everyday acts done with great love is what life is all about.’ I believe these small everyday acts done with great love must be accomplished by viewing every person I come across each day with eyes and thoughts that do not judge, label, or criticize. It is extremely difficult for me, but the rare moments when I have been able to simply accept and recognize the person in front of me as a divine creation of God, and can be there in that present moment, I have felt absolutely filled with joy, contentment, and peace.”

Journal entry on choices:

“Today I have learned to recognize and celebrate my strengths but also realize that without a moral compass to make my decisions from, these same strengths can become glaring character flaws. For example, my ability to be creative and organize things is also the same ability to become devious and crafty. That is why I believe it is so crucial for me to continue to make the right choices every day. It was my small everyday choices that had diminished me as a person; it is these same correct choices that will continue to transform me, I hope, into something beautiful for God one day.”

Early one morning, I was watching the news on TV. I had finished my meditation and was in a quiet, reflective mood. The volume was off, and as I watched the words scroll across, I realized, That’s how my mind works when it comes to my thoughts! That’s how all our minds work! Except that instead of one feed, there were multiple feeds scrolling across at any given moment. Some scrolled faster than others, and some were louder or more pronounced. I was reading The Unfettered Mind, a collection of writings by the Zen master Takuan Soho, a Buddhist monk who had counseled and mentored the most famous ronin swordsman of his time, Miyamoto Musashi.

His teachings continued to expound on the value of removing clutter from the mind and to have no thoughts at all. It sounded completely contradictory, of course, until the revelation with the feed on the bottom of the news channel. When my mind was cluttered and jumbled with many thoughts, my decision- making process was erratic and rushed. But when I made time for meditation and found that inner sanctum of peace and contentment, with no thoughts intruding or racing through my head, my actions would flow more purposefully. I experienced something like a gentle glow of clarity with regard to the world and everyone I came across in those moments.

After that, I looked at my surroundings with a different perspective. I noticed the men around me, how they spoke to each other, and how they related to each other. I questioned the fabric of what we called prison life. In my journals, I explored my thought processes and how to refine them. I thought about the imprint I would like to leave on the world, even while in prison. I noticed other small communities and groups who were trying to make the best of prison life, and I got involved with them.

I saw there were many people all around in my present community at Solano who were willing and capable of supporting and helping me. I spoke to some therapists, and through psychological group therapy, I recognized that I had some major psychological issues. The lies I had woven about myself formed an intricate web that was intertwined into the fabric of my thought process and personality. I finally awoke and began my journey toward self-awareness.

In late 2011, early 2012, I wrote out a personal mission statement for myself. At first, in my journals, they started out as affirmations, but one day I shaped them and titled it “Your Inner Jewel.” I read it to myself every morning, and the words helped me set my intention for the day. They became the parameters for me to stay on my path and a reminder for me to continue to polish and refine each facet of myself: 

During that time, I got involved with a twelve-step program, a creative writing group, and joined several self-help groups, one in particular called the Alternatives to Violence Project. In AVP, I was able to practice concepts that were foreign to me, such as effective communication, giving feedback, and working on teams. In our workshops, I saw how we impacted the culture on the prison yard, from one of violence to one of communication, respect, and dignity for each other. I felt alive in a fulfilling way, and there was a deep sense of purpose to my existence. AVP supplemented my journey of self-discovery, and everything in my life started to feel like the universe had conspired to help me out all these years, but I had never recognized it. 

It felt like I had been collecting pieces of a jigsaw puzzle through my experiences, with no idea of what the finished puzzle would look like or where each piece would fit. But now I had a glimpse of the picture, and my mind and heart saw the world with renewed clarity and purpose. I felt a compelling need to go back to Mass and reaffirmed my faith in the Catholic Church.

One of the self-help groups I joined focused on cognitive behavioral therapy. One of my assignments in cognitive behavioral therapy was to name two self-defeating thoughts that I was working on. Here is what I wrote in August 2011:

Two self-defeating thoughts I struggle with would have to be my perpetual sense of self-doubt and my fear of failure, closely related. I notice that I tend to overanalyze things and in the process find reasons why I might not accomplish certain tasks I set out to do and start doubting myself. This self-doubt usually creeps in after I am fully committed to something and I have passed the point of no return.

For example, I recently facilitated an Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) workshop and was leading a meditation exercise. In the middle of the reading, I started questioning myself. “Am I reading this at a reasonable pace? Am I using the right inflections at the proper moments? What if these guys don’t connect? What if I stumble or stutter on the next sentence?” They all inevitably lead to my other self-defeating thought, “What if I fail?”

It’s a constant cycle that goes through my head. I recognize, though, that these self-defeating thoughts are unhealthy. I try to address them by always asking myself, “Did I try my best?” I know now not to view things in terms of black and white, right or wrong. Instead, I am starting to understand that growth is a continual process. The only way to do that is to push my limits, accept my failures and my triumphs, and not immobilize myself by obsessing over trivial thoughts. It is much easier said than done, but it is something I am working on.

In my creative writing group, I wrote again for the first time in twenty-plus years. Writing creatively was healing for me, and it opened the door for me to explore my father’s death. One day, I wrote a long letter to him while lying on my bunk. I cried while writing it and hoped that nobody saw me. It ended up being about two pages long, and I expressed a lot of things I was never able to tell him before and after his death. I saw a therapist monthly and brought in the letter during our next session. She agreed to listen as I read it, and I choked and sobbed throughout the reading, a mixture of snot and tears running down my face. I wept for my father for the first time in my life and did not care that somebody saw me. Writing the letter was therapeutic, but reading it out loud was the catalyst for deep healing. It helped mend the scars.

That evening, I let it all go. I tore the letter up and flushed it down the toilet. Unlike my mourning cloth, though, this act was done with forgiveness and understanding, not anger and shame. Once I began to come to terms with my father’s death and how profoundly it had affected me, I recognized the grieving process all around me. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s book, On Death and Dying, gave me a great framework to notice what she coined the Five Stages of Grief when it comes to loss. I started to see it in the other men around me. Many of them had lost parents, siblings, wives, or girlfriends along the way.

A man could still go through the different stages even if he did not experience the death of a loved one. In prison, men experienced a similar loss when they were denied at the board over and over, when a significant other or family member stopped communicating, or when they were uprooted and transferred from one prison to another. Growing old in prison was a loss. All the men around me had experienced many sorts of loss during their incarceration. None of them had any way of processing or grieving them.

I drafted a curriculum, crafted how the groups would run, complete with prompts, facilitated questions, and a twelve-week agenda. I approached one of the psychologists on the yard and shared with him what I had created. He loved it, and within several weeks, we had launched the prison’s first ever Grief and Loss group. The waiting list was long, as we could serve only a dozen men at a time.

About halfway through our first cohort, the psychologist was transferred to a different prison. Without a staff sponsor, the group could no longer come together until we had another prison official who agreed to sit in on our groups and sign off on it. I was sad; it was important to get the group recognized so men had a space to process their losses. One of the participants worked in the program office, and he had a lot of connections with other staff sponsors. He thought he could find a sponsor for us, so I shared with him the course outline and syllabus that I had put together. Nothing ever came of it, though.

Several months later, I saw a sign-up sheet in my building. There, along the top in bold were the words Grief and Loss. I felt sick to my stomach as I realized the participant had submitted my syllabus as his own! How could I have trusted this dude? I was disgusted with myself. The audacity of this fool! How could he blatantly steal my work and think that I would let it go? He must think I am a coward! Who the hell was this idiot anyway? Some guy who came in for killing his wife and still hasn’t accepted any type of responsibility for it. My thoughts spiraled as I plotted ways to get him. I wanted to stab him or cut his throat. I knew if I did something, he would tell on me. What if I caught him slipping where there were no cops around? What if I waited until we had a group together and follow him out into the restrooms and attack him while he urinated? Could I knock him out and stomp on his head so that he would not recall what happened? Would I get away with this? Would there be witnesses? Then another sobering thought: How could I still think these thoughts if I had sworn to walk a path of nonviolence?

Whenever I was upset or frustrated about something, I processed it in my journal. That night I wrote, and raged, and asked myself some hard questions. What was my purpose in creating the group? If it was to help other men, what did it matter if my name was attached to it or not? What did it say about me that I felt I should be recognized as the creator of the group? The thief, in his way, was still helping other men to process their losses, and that is all that should matter. It was a sobering pill to swallow, but I decided to let it all go. I noticed that the man no longer occupied any space in my mind, and I was able to regain power and focus my energy on more positive aspects for myself and the community.

Shortly thereafter, I was interviewed by National Public Radio. My immediate supervisor had recommended me so that I could highlight how we made prison a better place by the self-help groups we created.

We were in the middle of the yard. I sat on one of the concrete benches. The woman held a long skinny mic connected by a thin wire to what I assumed was her recorder, a small black box about the size of a deck of cards. It was a warm day, but she wore a thick brown coat. She kept it buttoned all the way up, perhaps to protect her from the stares of nearby prisoners. She was attractive, and the men were looking—not only because of her beauty, but also because we did not have outside guests every day with microphones and radio equipment. My supervisor stood to the side with a couple of correctional officers but could still hear everything we said.

The interview was going well, I could tell. She was impressed with what we had been up to and even more fascinated about my motivations for creating the Grief and Loss group. I shared with her how I collaborated with a psychologist after I saw there was a common problem on the yard. I also let her know I facilitated the Victims Awareness group on the yard, where we got men to realize the harm that they caused to those around them. As I talked with her, I felt she saw me as a human being and not a prisoner. I felt good inside and maybe even likable, smart, and charismatic. I imagined she was even enthralled by my charming smile because she was also smiling at me. That was until she asked about my background.

“How long have you been in now?” she asked.

I gulped. “Thirteen years.”

I saw her eyes widen and her mouth parted ever so slightly. “How much longer do you have to do?”

“I have a life sentence, ma’am. I will be going to my first parole hearing at the end of next year.” 

Her eyes opened even more. “And what are you in prison for?” The question trailed off.

Up until that moment, whenever someone asked, I would answer that I was in prison for a gang-related murder. I would always be sure to emphasize the gang-related. That way, they knew I was in a gang, which would help to establish my place in the prison hierarchy right off the bat. It would also alleviate any fears I had of anyone judging me because I wanted to be somebody respected and liked.

More recently, though, because of my involvement in the Victims Awareness groups, I had a deep feeling of remorse regarding my murder. I did not view this as a badge of honor, and in my journal the previous week, I had challenged myself to get away from diminishing my victim by referring to my case as a gang-related murder.

I breathed in and looked up at her light brown eyes. “I am in prison for the murder of another human being.” My heart began to race, and time seemed to slow. Everything in me, even though I was intentional about what came out of my mouth, wanted to justify or explain. She had withdrawn from the interview, and I could tell she was waiting for me to explain. In fact, everything in me wanted her to ask me to explain so I could be relieved of this internal struggle and get her to like and connect with me again.

What if she thinks I went to prison for killing a woman, like my ex-girlfriend or something? What if she thinks I am some crazy serial killer? All these what-ifs started going through my mind, but I gently pushed them to the side. Instead, I continued focusing on my breath. I still looked at the interviewer and noticed the officers and my supervisor shifted on their feet. I am in prison for the murder of another human being. That’s the bottom line. But I am no longer that person. Yet, my truth makes people uncomfortable. The longer I sat still, the more I felt a sense of calm power wash over me, a strange sense of liberation, of not being tethered to a certain identity or expectation from others. I realized I was OK with what I had said and did not need to explain any further.

We ended the interview after that. She did not say anything else except a quick “Thank you for your time.” I saw that something had also shifted inside her. Whether good or bad, I will never know. I realized I was finally starting to accept myself, even with all my faults. The sparrows never explained their deformities and only sang for whoever listened. I would never again give a disclaimer for why I was in prison. 

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