by Ernesto Alvarez, Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga, CA
How many second chances do we get in life? I have laid here in my prison cell thinking about that many times. I am not just talking about second chances in life after you have done something that completely derailed the course of your life, like taking your freedom, but even the second chance in life that may seem so irrelevant at the time like going back and finishing school. Second chances are what make life worth living because it is what drives us to become better people if we are willing to do so.
I will tell you this, I never appreciated second chances until it was nearly too late. I grew up in a small rural area of Mexico that allowed me to run around as a small boy without much supervision. I drank water from a small puddle one day and got very sick. I suffered a viral stomach infection and was admitted into the local hospital placed on life support. As a small boy fighting for his life, I still had no idea as to the seriousness of what had happened to me. I survived, of course, and yet I grew up with the attitude that the world still owed me everything.
As an adult and a gang member I would end up being shot at multiple times, fighting with other gang members in the neighborhood, and not once being hit with a bullet that was meant to take my life. When I got arrested for gang related murder, I was facing the death penalty and eventually got around that. However, I would still get sentenced to 238 years to life in prison.
At this point my life was over. In my mind, I had nothing whatsoever to hope for and that made me a very empty person inside.
In 2015 the California legal system started to take a dramatic shift in how inmates had been sentenced. I, myself would be affected by the changes in the law, so much so that my sentencing would be put under review by the Supreme Court. When I first discovered how I would be affected and that I could possibly go home, I did not know how to take this. I began thinking about second chances again. I had had so many in my life and still did things that harmed others and myself, how could I deserve yet another second chance? Well it was happening, and I realized that today I see that second chance from a completely different perspective. I am not that small little boy that was unsupervised in that little village of Mexico anymore.
Today, I understand what life is about. I have made a lot of changes in who I am and was back then, and holding myself accountable for everything that I have done is something that I do each and every day now. I know that I will work very hard if I get this chance to go back out into the world, twice as hard as anyone else that is out there today. But, I am ready for that.