Tiger Transfer

This week, Tiger Woods gave an interview to Newsweek Magazine that coincided with the one year anniversary of his infamous auto accident which led to his public humiliation and eventual divorce. The Tiger in the Newsweek interview is not the same brash arrogant man who dominated golf for the past few years. The “new” Tiger is introspective, wiser and sadder.



I understand Tiger’s words. I appreciate his pain and sadness. Though our lives are light years different, in a weird way we have a common bond that comes from the dramatic fall and loss we’ve both endured.


The other morning, I was called over the intercom by the officer in the booth. “A96, go to property.” I froze. Calls to property that early in the morning almost always mean one thing: “you need to pack up. You’re being transferred to another prison”.


I walked down to property and saw “Ms. H”, the on duty officer. “You called me?” I quietly asked.


“Got a book for you.”


“Whew. I thought you were moving me.”


“Honey. We ain’t sendin’ you anywhere. You’re too nice and helpful to get run from here.”


I went back to the building, new law book in hand (thanks cousin!) and headed to work.


At work I was pulled aside by the principal’s chief aide. “They’re starting a college dorm. ‘Ms. C’ wants you to be a dorm aide, help the guys with their studies, serve as a mentor. She respects the work you do with the men. She loves the way you’ve gotten the writing program going. Hell, everyone here respects you.”


I went back to the building and my friend “Black” pulled up beside me. “Lotta guys thought we were seeing the end of ‘lawyer Larry’. Guys were worried you were leaving. You’d be missed.”


Strange. It took public humiliation, scorn, ridicule, having my wife and sons abandon me, for me to get my head out of my butt and find the real me. I’ve realized over these past two years a great deal about myself. I was always helpful, but always extremely prideful and judgmental. I thought I knew everything I needed to know. I was so sure of myself, or so I pretended.


I learned during this struggle I came across as an arrogant “know it all” to mask the insecurities I felt. Funny, but I really never thought I was very good at much. I always had doubts about my wife’s love for me, my friends loyalty to me. I learned that many of my insecurities were well founded (which is rather ironic).


For the last few years before my arrest my wife would “suggest” we open eHarmony accounts, take the survey, to see if we were compatible. Candidly, her suggestion ticked me off. It reinforced all the negatives I felt about myself, that somehow, I wasn’t “just right” for her. I’m sure she’s now an active participant in a match making web service. She’ll search for a “perfect match”. But, she won’t find a perfect fit, a perfect match. She won’t find anyone who will just love her. She had that and she let it go.


As Tiger has found over his struggles the past year, he was never the man people thought he was before the accident. He’s a different, but real man, after.


There is a sense of inner peace that develops when you face the abyss, when all seems lost and you realize you are broken. Somehow at that moment you decide to go forward, to fight through the pain and be the person you were always meant to be.


I like the man I’ve become in prison. I’m kinder, less judgmental, more humble. I also know I deserve to be loved. I’ve realized I am a loving, giving person. I proved that to myself at my worst, at my lowest.


So, I’m respected and admired by this prison community. Given how my friends and wife and sons have left me, being told “you made a difference for me” by a guy in state blues isn’t all that bad.


The other day, the GED exam was given. I’d been working for months with a guy who, incidentally, lives in my building. For five years he’s been trying and failing to pass the GED exam. “I’ll never pass. I’m not book smart.” I refused to accept that. I cajoled him, praised him, gave him practice exams. I’m not sure why I put so much time in with him; I just thought it was worth it.


I walked into class yesterday afternoon. There was Jackson, standing beside “Ms. W”, beaming. “I passed!” The look on that man’s face was worth a month of loneliness and despair in here.


There’s a lot worse things you can do with your life than teach inmates while you serve your own prison sentence. We have a bad habit of judging each other, being a little too cocky and a little less loving than we should be.


There’s a Bible verse I think about quite frequently. In it, the Apostle Paul writes that we need to be kind to strangers. You never know when you’re in the presence of angels. He also instructs believers to remember and sustain those in prison. I’m one of those guys in prison. I meet an awful lot of unlovable, some downright nasty men in here (and they make me wonder exactly what an angel would look like!). There is a good deal of anger, despair, and loneliness in so many of these men. Hope, for so many, seems in short supply.


Somehow, I discovered, I matter to many of these guys who had decided to give up. In small ways, I’m making a difference.


My wife gave up on me, she thought our wedding vow was just, well, words. Friends quit on me. When I needed love & encouragement most, I was left. And still I found my way. Thanks to a group of guys most of society gave up on, I found the real me.


While I wish I wasn’t in here, while I wish I was still married with my sons and friends beside me, at least I know for these men in these circumstances I’m giving them hope. It’s not the same, but it’s OK.


Like Tiger, I’m a little wiser, a little sadder, a bit more humble, and I know the real man that I am.