As told by Melody, ARC Ride Home Driver
When Leonard got off that bus, I’m not going to lie, I judged him. Big guy, face covered in tattoos. I thought, okay, this is one of those bad boys. You see somebody and you make a judgment based on the way they look.
And then he got in the car. The moment he started talking, it changed my whole outlook completely. He was just so soft spoken, so well spoken. You could see the emotions he was going through and we hadn’t even left the prison grounds yet.
The first thing he said was, thank you guys for making the drive to pick me up. I really appreciate you.
We stopped at a convenience store and were in there for probably a half hour because he was so overwhelmed he didn’t know what to get. He’d been down 17 years and 10 months. He went straight for the ice cream. All I’ve been wanting is ice cream. So I got him a spoon.
In San Diego we took him to a Sinaloa seafood truck, which is where his family is from. The look on his face when he took that first bite was just amazing. I saw that man cry at least six times throughout the day.
His family didn’t know he was coming. His release had been unexpected. When we pulled up to his parents’ house his brother was outside, and when he realized who it was they just held each other, both of them crying. And now I’m crying in my seat.
His mom had recently had a stroke. She’s paralyzed, nonverbal. When Leonard walked through that door and said mama, she screamed. We turned the camera off. Some moments are just too personal.
His dad had kept a candle from the day Leonard was arrested, one of the saints. He said, I’ll light this once I know you’re home to stay.
After this ride I went to our program coordinator and said, give me as many rides as you have.
