A Prisoner of Time

Has there ever been a time in your life when you felt like time was slipping away?

For almost three decades,  I have missed so much of life that I wanted to share with you what it feels like to people inside.

I grew up spending most of my life in juvenile hall, juvenile camps, California Youth Authority, and adult prison. Never really experiencing much of anything.

I haven’t really had a meal with my family sitting at a table in my life. We always sat in different parts of the house when it was time to eat.

There was always yelling and name-calling, pissing each other off. The last time I was at home for Christmas was when I was 13. That was 35 years ago.

I never told my mother face to face that I love her except while in prison.

[Here’s what else slipped by me.]

Have you ever been to a girl’s home to pick her up for a date? I haven’t.

Do you have any children? I don’t.

Have you ever sat on the porch and looked at the stars and realized how beautiful they are? I haven’t.

Think about this: Have you ever looked at your girlfriend or wife and just told her how happy you are with her being in your life and seen how she looked at you? How her eyes light up and the smile that is so beautiful that it melts your heart?

Wouldn’t that be nice to see her smile because she now knows that you really love her just for her? Man, I wish I could have a moment like that.

Have you ever went over your girlfriend’s house to pick her up and when the door opened you just looked at her and said something like, “Wow!”  Don’t you think she would feel special?

Well, I haven’t done that either.

Have you ever sat down for a nice meal and really ate the food, while truly understanding how good the food tastes? I mean, tasting all the spices, seasoning, cheese, meat, salad, dressing and the drink? The whole experience of the meal and thought, this is good? LOL.

Have you ever thought about all your friends or family that passed away? Think about how they died? Did they suffer? How old they were? What were their last thoughts? Did they cry?

Have you ever thought about all the people around the world who don’t have any food to eat? How they must feel? How the children bodies look because they haven’t had a good meal in years? Have you ever really thought about that?

Have you ever thought about how people on the other side of the world must feel to wake up to bombs being dropped on them?

Have you ever taken the time to think about the guy or woman that you passed on the way to the store sleeping on the ground?

Do you think about anyone other than yourself?

There is a beautiful saying that you should try to live by. It says, “if you would contemplate your own death, you wouldn’t laugh!”

All the people around the world who suffer, and all the people in this country who suffer: we overlook them because we are too busy to think about others.

[Here in prison] I have thought about my own life and how I have treated others and realized that I need to think about others.

When you see someone else in life you should give that person a thought. Make someone else’s day that much better. A simple smile or hello will do.

See a guy or woman on the streets and give them a dollar.

See a child and make that child laugh. Buy that child a bag of chips.

Donate your time or money to a food bank. Feed the homeless.

I haven’t done a lot since I’ve been alive, but I know this: “time is very short.”

I have taken the most beautiful thing that could ever be taken from someone and that is, “LIFE.”

Imagine that. I have taken a life. Murder. I’ve done that. Been locked away since Nov. 6, 1993.

Would give anything to go back to that time and change the past.

But, as we know, the past can never be relived.

I would love to take a woman out to dinner and make her smile.

I would love to see people walking up and down the street and say, hello.

Would give an arm to walk in a Walmart and shop for some food that I was going home to cook.

I would be the happiest man in the world to walk inside a Juvenile Hall and tell the guys inside my story so they wouldn’t make the same mistakes I made.

I would love to have a daughter just to hear her say, “I love you daddy.”

I would love to sit and speak to my victims and say, “I’m sorry.”

I would laugh until I cried if I could see my San Francisco 49ers play in person.

Knowing in my heart that my own family isn’t the most competent group of people in this world, I would still love to wake up one day, get in my car, and go visit them.

I would love to help a homeless person get back on their feet.

I would get a kick out of making someone else smile. Doing the right thing for a change, while free, would be enough to send me over the moon.

The only problem I have is— well we all have the same problem.

We are all running out of time.

You should start living your life as if it was your last day alive. Don’t judge others.

We were not built to live forever.

Time is precious. We must use it wisely.

Efren Ballard is serving life without parole at Ironwood State Prison in Blythe, Cal. This essay is published in collaboration with The Beat Within, a San Francisco-based justice system writing workshop.