Summary: Epilogue: Moving Forward

Chris Wilson’s business was going well, and he’d traveled all over the world meeting community leaders, giving talks, and learning that the problems he’d faced were faced by people all over the world. He still got letters from Patuxent inmates, telling him how he’d changed their lives, and he felt good about the example he’d set for others, giving them hope and the inspiration to make their own Master Plan. It wasn’t only inmates whose lives he had changed, though. His story inspired many within the criminal justice system, too. Even the assistant attorney general for the state of Maryland told him she’d been following his work and was moved by it.

On April 8, 2017, Chris Wilson drove up past the Patuxent Institution to the neighboring women’s prison. He’d been invited to speak to female inmates at the annual Moving Forward conference. Eighty-five percent of them were mothers, he’d found, so as he spoke to them, he reminded them that their families and communities needed them. They needed to make a plan to get out and stay out of prison. After the talk, he was greeted by Judge Serrette, who’d given him a chance all those years ago. He asked her why, and she said she’d read all his letters and plans and wanted to give him a chance. As he was writing this book, he says, he thought about ending the story there. But he wanted to add one more thing.

He’d been cornered by two Black men with guns. They knew who he was and said he’d been causing trouble. He’d stayed calm, and they’d gone away, but a few days later, he’d seen one of the guys at a convenience store. He’d told him not to make the same mistake he’d made. He’d offered help getting a job. The man wasn’t interested, but he also wasn’t as antagonistic as before. Wilson says he just plans to keep on going like this, putting his message out there and hoping people will take the opportunity to make something beautiful out of their lives.

Analysis: Epilogue: Moving Forward

This epilogue leaves the story on an uplifting note, as it has Chris Wilson come full circle: he began the memoir in prison, and he revisits a prison at the end—but not as an inmate. His choice to continue in the narrative past his conversation with Judge Serrette suggests that he doesn’t want to end the story with how his own life changed because someone else gave him a chance. And he doesn’t even want to end with her admission that it was his own planning and letter writing that convinced her to give him the chance. Both events are important, as they speak to the importance of extending a second chance to people and to the importance of hard work and persistence. But there’s a larger message Wilson wants to convey. He wants to show that he has used his chance to try to give others a better chance. This is an empowering message. He did not just receive a second chance. He didn’t just plan for that chance and use it to rebuild his own life. He used that chance to help others. They might be going down a path like the one that led him to prison. They might be in prison already and in need of a “Master Plan” to get back on track. As he says, he wants to help others “make something beautiful of their lives.”