Milestones After Release

I called Larry back and waited patiently. One ring, then two, then three.

Part of me was hoping that he didn’t answer. It was past 7:30; I was ready to be logged off for the day. I’d already worked a full day and was ready to just drive home and listen to music rather than talk on the phone.

Just before I reached his voicemail, he picked up.

His voice was somber and quiet. I told him I had about 10 minutes to catch up before I was back home. He apologized for “bothering me” and said we could just talk later. Now I felt guilty. I apologized and told him I was cranky after a long day (my mom, Andrea, knows the tone I’m talking about!).

We exchanged the latest news – how his car was doing with the repairs, how my wedding planning was going. The usual talk. We’d done a check-in call like this every other week since he was released and frankly, they were starting to grow stale. He’d settled into the “free world” quite nicely and had his routine down pat now – five days at the sawmill working ten-hour days, a half-day on Saturdays, then a day of rest filled with either buck hunting or fishing. Not much had changed for him and he was perfectly content with life.

His voice perked up.

“I gotta tell you something,” he said. “Something I’m proud of.” My interest was piqued. Perhaps he’d met a girl, maybe he was planning a wedding of his own. My mind began to race.

“I checked my credit score the other day.”

“Oh yeah?” I inquired.

“Uh huh,” he said. “715.”

I felt like my eyes bugged out of my head, like I was choking on something.

“Larry, you’re telling me your credit score is a 715?” I asked incredulously.

“Yup, I checked annualcreditreport.com just like you taught me, then the three credit unions just to be safe. 715.” I could tell he was smiling through the phone.

I began to do the math in my head. How long ago had he been in class? I remembered teaching him about credit because he had written to me that his credit score was 0 after three-plus decades of incarceration. He wasn’t sure how he’d survive in today’s world without a credit score. I’d done some research and taught him how he could build his score through a secured credit card and by keeping his utilization low, but the research had said it would take about two years to build a normal, healthy score.

“Wait, Larry, when did you get out?” I asked.

“Seven months ago.”

My head spun round. “How’d you do it that quickly?”

He chuckled. “Come on, Spence, what do you mean? I just used what we learned in class.”

In his book Tattoos on the Heart, Father Gregory Boyle writes, “They say that an educated inmate will not reoffend. This is not because an education assures that this guy will get hired somewhere. It is because his view is larger and more educated, so that he can be rejected at ninety-three job interviews and still not give up. He’s acquired resilience.”

Larry isn’t going to go back to prison.

I don’t think HeartBound and our financial literacy programming educated Larry to the point that he won’t reoffend.

I think we simply gave him the confidence to see that there was a way forward, a path to follow. That he wasn’t alone or abandoned.

We gave him the how-to, but it was up to him to follow the steps. By following the instructions, he built pride and confidence in himself. And now he was sharing that pride with me.

And now I share that pride with you.

Have a blessed day.