Out of the Blue

 “I must admit it was better than I expected,” Jose said. “As a rule I have a low opinion of motivational speeches, but in the best tradition of turning lemons into lemonade, you took a real life problem and showed a way to make progress in solving it.”

Amos Williams, a motivational speaker, sat with Warden Jose Garcia at the conference table in his office in the Lancaster Correctional facility northeast of LA. An unremarkable office, it had one desk for Jose, the conference table with half a dozen chairs, and a small credenza in back of Jose’s desk. The cement block walls were painted in a dour gray, and the linoleum floor showed the age of the 40 year old institution. The only source of light besides a small barred widow was from an overhead ceiling fan and light combination.

“Thanks,” said Amos. “Of course this isn’t the first time I’ve given this presentation. Most of the time it’s to high schools and colleges. This is the first time I’ve given it at a prison.”

“What prompted you to contact us and offer to come?” asked Jose.

“It was a statistic about the demographics of your community,” said Amos. “I was shocked to learn that almost three quarters of the inmates in this country’s penal institutions come from families where one of the parents, usually the father, is absent. These inmates are exactly the people I want to hear my story.”

“Well,” Jose said, “I want you to come back. Already the feedback I’m getting from those who attended has been highly positive. I know that only 13 inmates showed up this time, but those that did are telling others they should have attended. They’re asking that you come back.”

“I would love to come back,” Amos said.

“Good,” Jose said. “Let’s set the date.”

And they did.

After a short pause, Jose asked, “Are you pressed for time? If not, I’d like to have the inmate who publishes our prison newsletter interview you and publish the interview. It would really stir up interest for your next visit.”

“I’m not pressed for time, and I’ll bend over backward to extend the reach of my work,” Amos said. “Bring him in.”

“Amos, this is James Brown, our prison newsletter editor. James, I’d like you to meet Amos Williams. Amos was the speaker at our motivational meeting this morning,” Jose said.

“Pleased to meet you,” both Amos and James said.

James took a seat across the conference table from both Amos and Jose.

“Sorry I missed your session this morning,” James said. “I’ve heard I should have been there.”

“James,” Jose said, “Amos will be coming back in a couple of weeks. I want you to interview him and publish an edition of the newsletter promoting his next visit. His message is an important one. It’s not everyone who successfully juggles being a head EMT paramedic and motivational speaker in addition to being a father and grandfather. His story is truly inspirational.”

“OK,” said James. Turning to Amos, he said, “Let’s start at the beginning. Where were you born and brought up?”

“I was born in Chicago, and spent my youth without my father on the South Side,” Amos said.

“Really?” James asked in surprise. “You don’t look like you come from there. That’s a pretty rough place.”

“Yes, it is. And I didn’t escape unscathed,” Amos said. “I have a record.”

“I didn’t know that,” Jose chimed in. “That makes your story even more inspiring.”

“Yep,” said Amos. “When I was 15 I spotted a car with the motor running. I took it for a ride. I got caught. Spent six months of a two year sentence in jail. I was paroled because of good behavior and released into my mother’s custody so I could go back to school.”

Jose’s interest was now peaked. “Looking back at it, what did you learn from your jail experience? Did it help you or not? I mean, we as penal officers are always criticized as being mean and harsh and only concerned with punishment. Was it like that for you?”

“Yes and no,” replied Amos. “There were very strict rules, and consequences if you didn’t obey. But for the first time my life had structure. There was a schedule that I had to live by—get up at a certain time, eat at a certain time, go to bed at a certain time, perform my duties at a certain place and time, and do a good job. It was hard at first, but that was followed by a certain serenity. I found I liked doing a good job. There was a certain satisfaction that I felt when the bed linens were clean and neatly folded and put away in the cabinet. And I did a lot of bed linens.”

“Sounds like this was a turning point in your life, a turning point in a good direction,” Jose said. “Is it fair to say that your jail experience helped in making that possible?”

“Partly,” Amos said. “My mother also played a major role. She made sure I went to school, which, by the way, was never a problem. I liked school. And she always reminded me that any deviation from the terms of my parole would get me an ankle bracelet.”

“And the terms of your parole were?” Jose asked.

“When I got my high school diploma, I would be released from parole,” Amos answered.

“Sounds like a success story for our justice system,” Jose summarized.

“If you mean did it prevent a rebellious teen from joining a gang and living a life of crime, I would agree with that,” Amos said.

“Good,” Jose said. “That’s what I wanted to hear. Ours is a thankless job. We get heaps of criticism—almost never do we hear ‘Well Done’.”

“What did you do after you graduated from high school?” James asked, trying to get back to the interview.

“I decided to become an EMT,” said Amos. “I’m physically strong, have good motor skills, and have been told I’m a quick learner. So I entered an EMT training program. I found out that I was good at it, and I really liked it. After 18 months, I was on my first truck.”

“But I was still living with my mother,” Amos continued. “Being an EMT gave me the resources to start thinking about living independent of my mother. And it also exposed me to a broad range of people I hadn’t been exposed to before. People who had jobs, who worked for a living, people who had grown up in a family with both a father and a mother--so called ‘normal people’. I felt like I was actually joining society instead of being someone on the fringes of society. It was a great feeling.”

“But no thoughts of motivational speaking at this point, right?” James asked.

“That’s right,” Amos said.

“When did that occur?” James asked.

“We’ll get to that,” Amos said. “The next major event in my life was meeting Cheryl, the woman who would become my wife. While I was training to become an EMT, she was doing the same thing, but at a different school. We met at a regional EMT convention and we hit it off immediately. Our single life together was brief—two months after we met we married and moved into an upscale apartment a few blocks from where I had been living. Since we both had full time jobs, life was good. But we decided to not work together. That way we would have plenty to talk about when we had “us” time.”

“For several years life was grand,” Amos continued. “Cheryl presented me with a daughter and then twin girls. It was a very happy time—I felt I had left the life of the South Side behind me, even though my mother, now living there alone, was only a couple of blocks away.

But all that came crashing down one sunny fall day. Cheryl and I had been married ten years; the girls were in grade school. Cheryl wanted a ‘girl’s night out’ with some of her friends one Saturday, and since I had the day off as well, I had said ‘have a good time’ and off she went with her friends. The brownies that someone brought were supposed to only have a touch of marijuana. But they were laced with fentanyl. Three girls died that night. Cheryl was one of them.”

“Oh, Wow!” both James and Jose said in unison.

“’Oh, Wow!’ is right,” Amos replied. “Not only did I lose my best friend, I found myself in exactly the situation I was trying hardest to avoid—raising my three young daughters in a single parent household. I knew what that meant given my youth on Chicago’s South Side. But actually, I was more fortunate than most. My mother lived only a couple of blocks away. She could be there when the girls got home from school and make the evening meal. We would enjoy that meal together. So, in a sense, my daughters did have a female role model in the home.”

“Is this what got you on the path to motivational speaking?” James asked.

“It set the stage,” Amos said. “Because what happened next came completely out of the blue. About two years after my wife died, I came home from a particularly rough day on the truck to find three hungry young girls and a note from my mother. One of her friends had fallen and needed help getting to the hospital. She said she was sorry, but she needed to be with her friend. Exhausted after a long day on the truck, there was no way I was going to prepare a meal. So I told the girls that we were going out to eat. And not at some burger joint. We were going to go to a real restaurant, one with cloth napkins and menus and servers.”

“It was a good meal,” Amos continued. “The waitress had cleared the table and left the check. I had pulled out my wallet and was preparing to pay the bill when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up, and there was this old white guy standing over me. He said ‘Put your wallet away. This one’s on me.’”

“I stared up at him in disbelief. ‘You’re kidding,” I said without thinking. ‘Nope,’ he says. ‘It’s for real.’ ‘But why’ I asked. And he says ‘Any dad who will take his three young daughters out for dinner by himself has to be a great dad. I want to reward that.’”

“So he actually paid for a dinner for four?” James asked.

“Yep,” Amos replied. “But it was what he said next that had the biggest impact. He said, ‘These girls are the joy of your life. Treasure them. They will bring you happiness and memories that will last you the rest of your life.’”

“All the way home the girls and I talked about what happened,” Amos continued. “‘Why would he do that? Why would he be interested in us? Was this some kind of racial justice? Had he lost a bet? I had seen him walk in with his wife. She was using a cane, and he helped her get seated. He certainly had his own issues—so why?

The girls and I finally decided to take it at face value—that he really did want to reward what he felt was a good parent.

Then I got to thinking—this had to have happened for a reason. That reason became clear the very next day. My older daughter, Meryl, told one of her friends at school about what happened at the restaurant. Her friend had responded with ‘You’re so lucky.’ My daughter said that she was right, that not everyone gets a free meal. And the friend said, ‘that’s not what I meant. You’re so lucky to have a Dad that loves you and lives with you.’

‘Out of the mouth’s of babe’s’ so the saying goes. This old white guy and Meryl’s friend were both telling me how important it is to have a male role model in a family household. I now understood this from a vantage point very few others have. I could share this message from a first person perspective. I could make a difference. This is how I got started as a motivational speaker.”

Amos paused. He realized that he had been talking non-stop for almost ten minutes. The office went silent. It was then Amos became aware that James had stopped taking notes. His head was bent, and there were tears running down his cheek. Suddenly aware that both Amos and Jose were looking at him, James sobbed, “I have a young daughter.”