Whether a prisoner of concrete walls, iron bars and razor wire fences, or economic woes, or mental insecurities – everyone is hungry for a ‘why’ to get through one more day.

My name is Charles “Chucky” Mamou, Jr., and I have been a prisoner on Texas Death Row since 1999.  It is here that I found myself a student of my own self, a man whose mental incarceration has been pardoned.  I now see things with clarity, without bias.  I am not the same man I was a decade or so ago.  Now, don’t get it twisted – my imprisonment and death sentence did not bring about such change.  For any person to fully attempt to start the process of change, it has to start with the changing or reforming of one’s own mind. I took a liking to the cliché, ‘You are what you think yourself to be’.

A robber doesn’t walk around thinking what sermon he’s going to preach on Sunday, nor is he singing Amazing Grace to express the joys of his heart.  He’s thinking about his next heist.  But, I’ve come to accept what many deem unthinkable – humans do change!  Some from good to bad.  Many from bad to good.  It all begins with a thought toward a different approach that hasn’t been tried before. 

Life finds meaning through ‘why’ and cautious hindsight that allows us to decipher what is important to each one of us.  For me, such sanity comes from my devotion to my mother, children, family and sincere friends.   More importantly, the devotion they have for me that sustains me.  It keeps me smiling when my face should be caked with frowns.  They help levee my eyes so that my tears do not cause my heart to flood in misery.  They are my ‘whys’ and continue to give me hope for a brighter future. 

My family has allowed me to see the other victims that don’t get much attention in a death penalty system.  The victims who go unnoticed, uncounted, unheard and not spoken enough about.  As much as I understand that it is because of me that the ones I love have become victims, I see an incredible resiliency in them, a beacon that no longer allows my own ignorance to be the master of my mental chaos.

I don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring.  I can only concern myself in the now.  What I learn in the now will allow me to be a better person in the tomorrows that lay ahead – should any tomorrows come to pass.  And, I can smile in this moment, because I am mentally alive.  Indeed, I am stronger and wiser in mind, if nothing else.  Stronger today than I in my yesteryears.

Life isn’t how you see it, it’s how you make it.  We’re here for a reason.  To learn from lessons that are unseen.  We are here for more than McDonalds and the mall.  We are here to love those who adopt hate.  We are here to understand each other without the divide that ignorantly sees some as lesser beings due to the color of their skin, when it’s the content of their character that should be sought.  We are here to rehabilitate the rehabilitatable.  We are here to forgive, even if redemption isn’t feasible.  We are here to seek our meanings, our whys, and make a difference.

This is what I have observed.  If we completely understand self first – then we can understand others.  We are all designed in the same likeness, with the same capacity for peace, love, and respect of ourselves and our fellow brothers and sisters.  This is my understanding.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.  Charles “Chucky” Mamou is living on Death Row in Texas.  He is out of appeals and has always maintained his innocence.

He can be contacted at:
Charles Mamou #999333
Polunsky Unit 12-CD-53
3872 South FM 350
Livingston, TX 77351

Writing By Charles Mamou