00:00:29.320 --> 00:00:31.110
So what are you guys working on today?

00:00:31.110 --> 00:00:33.950
Well, we have a couple blankets

00:00:33.950 --> 00:00:36.530
A couple of hats and we’re doing ...

00:00:36.530 --> 00:00:39.950
It's always funny seeing people's reaction
the first time

00:00:39.950 --> 00:00:42.950
they walk in.

00:00:43.330 --> 00:00:45.330
You know, you have these heavily tattooed

00:00:45.330 --> 00:00:48.710
some are muscular guys
just with these tiny hooks,

00:00:48.710 --> 00:00:51.920
crocheting
dainty, pretty, frilly little things.

00:00:51.920 --> 00:00:53.880
And they're like,
so what are you in prison for?

00:00:53.880 --> 00:00:57.720
They're expecting like DUIs
or aggressive jaywalking.

00:00:58.090 --> 00:01:01.260
So, wait, you guys are all in here
for, like, murders

00:01:01.260 --> 00:01:04.270
and gang stuff?

00:01:07.940 --> 00:01:11.400
When somebody sees me, the first thing
they usually see is my tattoos.

00:01:11.400 --> 00:01:13.150
They make assumptions.

00:01:13.150 --> 00:01:17.030
But when they see me crocheting,
usually the first thing they say is: What?

00:01:17.410 --> 00:01:18.780
And I'll explain it.

00:01:18.780 --> 00:01:21.910
I enjoy making beanies and stuff
and a lot of stuff I make.

00:01:21.910 --> 00:01:23.080
I donate to charity.

00:01:23.080 --> 00:01:25.660
And they’re like: Wait, you donate to charity?

00:01:25.660 --> 00:01:28.750
I say, yeah, I know I don’t look like it, but I do care.

00:01:32.420 --> 00:01:34.550
So this is my

00:01:34.550 --> 00:01:37.550
bunk area, I'm on the top bunk.

00:01:38.720 --> 00:01:42.600
It's home.

00:01:42.600 --> 00:01:44.680
Until I'm home.

00:01:44.680 --> 00:01:46.270
I wasn't good in school

00:01:46.270 --> 00:01:51.190
because I have ADHD,
so I had my life set and planned

00:01:51.190 --> 00:01:54.690
growing up that I was going to enlist
in the Navy and be a Seal.

00:01:55.240 --> 00:01:57.150
All the men in my family enlist.

00:01:57.150 --> 00:02:00.950
Let the military make a man of them,
and then they live their life.

00:02:01.280 --> 00:02:04.990
But they didn't want me
because I had a slight hearing problem

00:02:05.370 --> 00:02:08.080
and it was pretty devastating.

00:02:08.080 --> 00:02:11.750
My family is all about service, and
I felt like, you know, I'm not even a man

00:02:11.750 --> 00:02:14.800
because I can't even do what
everybody else did.

00:02:17.420 --> 00:02:20.720
The more I sat on it,
the more the pain turned to anger.

00:02:20.720 --> 00:02:23.810
The guys that I grew up with
in the neighborhood, they were like,

00:02:23.810 --> 00:02:25.350
we got a place for you.

00:02:25.350 --> 00:02:28.850
I was a Crip and, you know,
it started with small things

00:02:28.850 --> 00:02:30.350
like just getting into fights.

00:02:30.350 --> 00:02:34.980
But the more I did, the more I felt
praise and acceptance from them

00:02:34.980 --> 00:02:40.660
because I was letting all this rage out
and it ended up culminating with me.

00:02:41.740 --> 00:02:44.700
You know, I took two men’s life

00:02:45.580 --> 00:02:48.580
and I'll probably die in prison.

00:02:49.660 --> 00:02:52.380
Once I realized that
this was going to be my life,

00:02:52.380 --> 00:02:56.590
I started running into activities
that were more positive.

00:02:57.880 --> 00:02:59.010
Me and Billy Ray met

00:02:59.010 --> 00:02:59.800
first time I sat

00:02:59.800 --> 00:03:03.850
a vigil with a patient in hospice,
and we clicked right off the bat.

00:03:04.850 --> 00:03:05.680
I work in hospice.

00:03:05.680 --> 00:03:08.810
It's my regular job,
so I work first watch.

00:03:09.850 --> 00:03:12.850
So when he started as a volunteer,

00:03:13.520 --> 00:03:16.020
he would, crochet

00:03:16.020 --> 00:03:19.030
beanies for the people that he was sitting
vigil for.

00:03:19.400 --> 00:03:23.660
A lot of people in prison
haven't been cared

00:03:23.660 --> 00:03:26.660
for tangibly a lot in their life.

00:03:27.580 --> 00:03:31.540
So sometimes something really small,

00:03:32.170 --> 00:03:35.170
a crocheted hat or a scarf or,

00:03:36.630 --> 00:03:40.670
or anything, just kind of given with,
with no expectation of return.

00:03:41.090 --> 00:03:43.300
It's hugely humbling.

00:03:43.300 --> 00:03:47.390
It's shocking
when you see something that you made

00:03:47.390 --> 00:03:49.470
for somebody,
become like a prized possession.

00:03:51.020 --> 00:03:54.020
It's pretty cool.

00:03:57.820 --> 00:04:01.950
He is a very reserved individual,
but there's no doubt

00:04:01.950 --> 00:04:05.450
that there was an immense amount of rage
inside of him

00:04:05.450 --> 00:04:08.450
at one point.

00:04:09.370 --> 00:04:10.950
For a lot of us, we grew up

00:04:10.950 --> 00:04:14.710
without feeling a strong connection
to our blood families.

00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:18.420
A lot of people dealt with abuse,

00:04:18.670 --> 00:04:21.630
so this becomes a substitute family.

00:04:23.220 --> 00:04:24.970
I left home

00:04:24.970 --> 00:04:29.140
early, going homeless teenager to Marine
Corps infantry.

00:04:29.140 --> 00:04:31.600
You have a chip on your shoulder.
A lot to prove.

00:04:31.600 --> 00:04:34.140
I was diagnosed with PTSD, TBI,

00:04:34.140 --> 00:04:37.310
traumatic brain injury
from some of the IED blasts.

00:04:37.900 --> 00:04:41.440
I had kind of let myself
be guilted into getting out.

00:04:41.530 --> 00:04:42.990
I had a daughter.

00:04:42.990 --> 00:04:45.910
Her name is Natalie,
and if you re-up, if you re-enlist,

00:04:45.910 --> 00:04:48.910
you'll be abandoning Natalie
as surely as your dad abandoned you.

00:04:49.200 --> 00:04:51.540
So I left.

00:04:51.540 --> 00:04:53.370
Alone. Kind of adrift.

00:04:53.370 --> 00:04:56.870
I was coping more and more poorly
with my PTSD.

00:04:57.250 --> 00:05:00.500
I was drinking a lot just to sleep
because you kind of think

00:05:00.500 --> 00:05:03.590
constantly about,
am I just a piece of trash?

00:05:03.590 --> 00:05:08.260
Because my brothers are over there again
and I'm working at Home Depot,

00:05:08.300 --> 00:05:13.310
like going out to random places, meeting
random people, and doing random things.

00:05:13.680 --> 00:05:17.060
It was like this downhill race
to self-destruction

00:05:17.060 --> 00:05:20.860
that culminated with me
getting in a fight and

00:05:21.020 --> 00:05:22.530
murdering a man.

00:05:22.530 --> 00:05:25.360
I don't know what started it,

00:05:25.360 --> 00:05:28.240
which is shameful and insane.

00:05:28.240 --> 00:05:29.820
And for what?

00:05:29.820 --> 00:05:33.450
You know,
because you didn't fix your garbage.

00:05:34.700 --> 00:05:35.750
Billy Ray had been wanting

00:05:35.750 --> 00:05:38.750
to learn how to crochet,
and I taught him the first stitch.

00:05:38.750 --> 00:05:42.340
He picked it up really fast,
and that was kind of like the moment

00:05:42.340 --> 00:05:46.130
I realized
we can make hospice our first donation.

00:05:48.680 --> 00:05:52.260
And it kind of lit
a fire under everybody in the group

00:05:52.260 --> 00:05:55.350
because the first thing out of their mouth
was, all right, what are we doing next?

00:05:55.480 --> 00:05:56.930
I mean, it just started snowballing.

00:05:56.930 --> 00:06:01.230
And then the more donations we did,
the more inmates start hearing about it.

00:06:01.270 --> 00:06:04.570
This one I'm
donating to hospice.

00:06:04.940 --> 00:06:07.740
And so I'll be donating
this one to them.

00:06:07.740 --> 00:06:13.700
And we ended up with one of the longest waiting lists
out of all the groups.

00:06:13.990 --> 00:06:15.290
Good job.

00:06:15.290 --> 00:06:17.540
So I said, hey,
I want you to be a part of this.

00:06:17.540 --> 00:06:18.540
I want you to run this with me.

00:06:18.540 --> 00:06:19.420
And he was

00:06:19.420 --> 00:06:23.250
he had some choice words for me, but for a tough guy, he has a soft heart.

00:06:23.590 --> 00:06:26.260
He'll probably kick my ass
for saying that.

00:06:26.260 --> 00:06:30.010
The crochet group is mostly lifers,
and I'm not alone

00:06:30.010 --> 00:06:32.970
in wanting to be more than my past.

00:06:33.220 --> 00:06:35.720
So very begrudgingly and with a fair

00:06:35.720 --> 00:06:39.390
bit of cursing, I started helping him
facilitate a crochet group.

00:06:40.690 --> 00:06:42.150
Do I look like I have a plan?

00:06:43.730 --> 00:06:46.150
Alright, so I've got a few announcements to make

00:06:46.150 --> 00:06:50.150
before we get started.
We're going to do a new class project.

00:06:50.360 --> 00:06:53.200
It's going to be a wall
hanging for hospice,

00:06:53.200 --> 00:06:56.200
something that everybody can
participate in.

00:06:56.450 --> 00:06:58.620
We're going to have to make it
fairly large.

00:06:58.620 --> 00:07:01.460
And we're going to have to use
really small hooks.

00:07:01.460 --> 00:07:04.460
So we're going to cuss a lot.

00:07:04.630 --> 00:07:05.630
Probably at each other.

00:07:05.630 --> 00:07:07.630
A lot of frustration.

00:07:07.760 --> 00:07:11.550
If I’m glowering, just leave me be.

00:07:14.180 --> 00:07:17.010
Hospice is about decency.

00:07:17.010 --> 00:07:19.600
It's about goodness.
It's about simple humanity.

00:07:19.600 --> 00:07:23.310
And just the amount of healing that

00:07:23.310 --> 00:07:26.320
that can accomplish.

00:07:27.690 --> 00:07:30.900
A lot of times people
have these conversations with you, right?

00:07:30.900 --> 00:07:32.910
And they'll have these moments

00:07:32.910 --> 00:07:35.580
in the middle of the night,
and they'll want you to sit with them

00:07:35.580 --> 00:07:38.580
and just talk about these, like,
massive things.

00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:43.830
There's those big existential questions
that creep up for people when they're,

00:07:45.130 --> 00:07:46.420
you know,

00:07:46.420 --> 00:07:49.380
when they're dying.

00:07:49.420 --> 00:07:52.430
When I was diagnosed in December,

00:07:52.590 --> 00:07:55.600
I knew that I was going to pretty much die in prison anyway.

00:07:56.680 --> 00:07:59.680
It's been a roller coaster ride.

00:08:00.180 --> 00:08:02.310
Dealing with the other side.

00:08:02.310 --> 00:08:04.520
Basically knocking on heaven's door.

00:08:04.520 --> 00:08:07.400
I didn't really realize

00:08:07.400 --> 00:08:10.400
the depths of

00:08:11.570 --> 00:08:14.570
being on this side of the curtain.

00:08:15.030 --> 00:08:16.240
Until now.

00:08:16.240 --> 00:08:18.240
It's kind of a big earthshaking thing.

00:08:18.240 --> 00:08:22.160
And seeing that has made me evaluate
a lot of things in that light.

00:08:22.960 --> 00:08:24.580
You’ve got enough breath?

00:08:24.620 --> 00:08:26.040
That’s about all I’ve got, man.

00:08:26.040 --> 00:08:27.130
That’s okay.

00:08:27.130 --> 00:08:29.460
Because when it's all over,

00:08:29.550 --> 00:08:33.550
when you're diminishing day by day,
it strips away

00:08:33.550 --> 00:08:38.550
all the illusions and kind of,
you see that the only thing that does

00:08:38.720 --> 00:08:41.560
matter is our people, our relationships.

00:08:41.560 --> 00:08:43.680
Wherever you find that, that's it

00:08:43.680 --> 00:08:45.520
and that's all that matters.

00:08:49.020 --> 00:08:50.940
Oh, I like that yarn, man.

00:08:50.940 --> 00:08:51.780
That's dope.

00:08:52.070 --> 00:08:53.360
Three months later

00:08:53.530 --> 00:08:56.740
Tomorrow is the day that we're going
to do the presentation down in hospice.

00:08:56.740 --> 00:09:01.950
So it's up to us to put all this together
by tomorrow.

00:09:02.540 --> 00:09:04.210
Lots of coffee will be consumed.

00:09:04.210 --> 00:09:05.870
Probably some book lights used.

00:09:05.870 --> 00:09:08.130
We won't have much
to put together tonight.

00:09:08.210 --> 00:09:09.590
We might actually get some sleep.

00:09:09.590 --> 00:09:11.880
This is a sleep mask. Oh, can you see me?

00:09:11.880 --> 00:09:13.300
Not at all.

00:09:13.300 --> 00:09:16.300
I'm actually asleep right now because it works so well.

00:09:18.720 --> 00:09:19.390
To me,

00:09:19.390 --> 00:09:23.430
it's just about shaping the environment
and anything we can do to make it

00:09:23.430 --> 00:09:24.390
more welcoming.

00:09:24.390 --> 00:09:27.400
So that literally, as a patient
is coming in

00:09:27.400 --> 00:09:29.650
from the ambulance coming in on a gurney,

00:09:29.650 --> 00:09:33.780
the first thing they see
is this massive labor of love.

00:09:34.150 --> 00:09:37.240
It really speaks to who we are
and what we're about.

00:09:37.530 --> 00:09:39.120
They're going to see this

00:09:39.120 --> 00:09:42.910
and see that somebody took the time
and the effort for them

00:09:42.910 --> 00:09:46.790
and their loved one to let them know
that they're not forgotten.

00:09:47.370 --> 00:09:49.500
I’m going to be very happy to give this to hospice.

00:09:49.500 --> 00:09:50.790
I mean, you guys did a great job.

00:09:50.790 --> 00:09:52.170
That is beautiful work.

00:09:52.170 --> 00:09:53.420
It is.

00:09:53.710 --> 00:09:54.710
Yeah.

00:09:54.710 --> 00:09:56.670
It's going to look like this.

00:09:57.630 --> 00:09:59.760
At the beginning of summer, we
came up with the idea

00:09:59.760 --> 00:10:02.010
to do a piece for hospice.

00:10:02.010 --> 00:10:03.510
As you come down the corridor,

00:10:03.510 --> 00:10:07.310
it's a blank wall and you have no idea
you're in hospice until you're inside.

00:10:08.310 --> 00:10:12.820
And the idea that we came up with actually
comes from the beginning of hospice,

00:10:13.070 --> 00:10:17.490
when it was AIDS unit,
and we had a visit by the AIDS quilt.

00:10:17.610 --> 00:10:21.030
So we wanted to also pay tribute to that.

00:10:21.030 --> 00:10:22.410
It's actually getting kind of
cold out here.

00:10:22.410 --> 00:10:24.870
I kind of want to snuggle in that thing right now.

00:10:24.870 --> 00:10:28.250
But I'm really proud of you guys
for doing work like this.

00:10:28.250 --> 00:10:31.710
For that compassion.

00:10:33.000 --> 00:10:37.380
You can tell when somebody has their moment
that changes them.

00:10:37.380 --> 00:10:42.970
Because you can see just in the way
they do stuff, you can see the change.

00:10:42.970 --> 00:10:46.810
This is from the guys to you guys
and to the families

00:10:46.810 --> 00:10:47.890
that come to visit.

00:10:47.890 --> 00:10:49.690
Are you going to hang that somewhere?

00:10:49.730 --> 00:10:50.690
Right outside the front door.

00:10:50.900 --> 00:10:52.100
I’ve got a better place.

00:10:52.690 --> 00:10:55.440
Put it over my bed as a cover.

00:10:55.900 --> 00:10:57.610
That's really nice.

00:10:57.690 --> 00:10:59.700
We'll be here with him.

00:10:59.700 --> 00:11:00.400
I know that.

00:11:00.400 --> 00:11:01.860
All the way through.

00:11:01.860 --> 00:11:02.620
I did a lot of wrong,

00:11:02.620 --> 00:11:05.910
but it's the right things that I did that
I want to be remembered for.

00:11:06.080 --> 00:11:09.080
And that's what I'm working on now.

00:11:10.750 --> 00:11:11.920
Hey Marcus.

00:11:11.920 --> 00:11:14.460
So the quilt, you've heard about it.

00:11:14.460 --> 00:11:16.880
Clay and I did this portion here
in the middle,

00:11:17.840 --> 00:11:18.880
and then, yeah,

00:11:19.550 --> 00:11:21.010
everybody in the group kicked in, man.

00:11:21.470 --> 00:11:23.680
It’ll be here long after I’m gone.

00:11:23.680 --> 00:11:25.930
Yes, it will.

00:11:25.970 --> 00:11:27.470
There we go.

00:11:27.720 --> 00:11:30.350
And we’ll take it down to the gazebo, if that’s cool?

00:11:30.350 --> 00:11:32.770
The first time my daughter
visited me in prison.

00:11:32.770 --> 00:11:37.650
It started off a little awkward,
but just a few minutes in, it was great.

00:11:37.980 --> 00:11:41.280
But the end was just awful.

00:11:41.900 --> 00:11:45.700
Because when it was time to go,
she tried to just take my hand

00:11:45.700 --> 00:11:47.240
and pull me with her.

00:11:47.240 --> 00:11:49.120
You look good today.

00:11:49.540 --> 00:11:52.290
I said to her, you know I can't go,
I have to stay.

00:11:52.290 --> 00:11:53.960
And she told me,

00:11:53.960 --> 00:11:58.670
It’s okay Dad, I'll tell them you're a good person.

00:12:02.680 --> 00:12:05.090
Excuse me.

00:12:05.390 --> 00:12:07.720
I know I can't fix what I did,
but I can try.

00:12:07.720 --> 00:12:09.390
I can go that direction,
you know what I mean?

00:12:09.390 --> 00:12:14.150
Like, I guess just trying to be as good
as the man she thinks I am

00:12:14.520 --> 00:12:17.520
is a big driving factor.

00:12:18.610 --> 00:12:22.190
I think something as simple as a hat can
make somebody feel cared about, you know?

00:12:22.570 --> 00:12:27.620
And that's really strange and cool,
I think.

00:12:27.990 --> 00:12:29.120
Okay.

00:12:29.120 --> 00:12:31.910
Hey, Clay, can you get the door?

00:12:31.910 --> 00:12:33.660
Pardon.

00:12:34.920 --> 00:12:42.090
Lifers released on parole have one of the
lowest recidivism rates of anygroup.
Less than 1% commit new violent crimes.