When I stepped outside the jail, a voice inside me said, "Come back.
If you don't come back now, you'll never come back." So I graduated from law school and I went back.
I went back to see Patrick, I went back to see if I could help him with his legal case.
And this time, when I saw him a second time, I thought I had this great idea, I said, "Hey, Patrick, why don't you write a letter to your daughter, so that you can keep her on your mind?" And I handed him a pen and a piece of paper, and he started to write.
But when I saw the paper that he handed back to me, I was shocked.
I didn't recognize his handwriting, he had made simple spelling mistakes.
And I thought to myself that as a teacher, I knew that a student could dramatically improve in a very quick amount of time, but I never thought that a student could dramatically regress.
What even pained me more, was seeing what he had written to his daughter.
He had written, "I'm sorry for my mistakes, I'm sorry for not being there for you." And this was all he felt he had to say to her.
And I asked myself how can I convince him that he has more to say, parts of himself that he doesn't need to apologize for.