The Financial Reckoning: Starting Over After Prison Got Even Harder

The Financial Reckoning: Starting Over After Prison Got Even Harder
Coming Home to Uncertainty — Part 4

The shelter lights came on promptly at 7:00 a.m., just like they always did.

The night before I had seen three of my four kids for the first time in nearly three years. It was a hard moment. They had changed so much in what felt like a relatively short period of time. Kids grow up fast. Faster than you realize when you’re watching it from the outside.

But as I lay there staring at the ceiling that morning, something from the night before kept bothering me.

My ex-wife had mentioned that the bank wanted to speak with me about my car loan.

At the time it didn’t make much sense. As far as I knew, that loan should have already been taken care of.

By the end of that day, I would learn just how wrong I was.

My ex-wife had told me that the bank wanted to speak with me about the loan connected to my car — the same car that had been written off by insurance while I was away.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that the insurance cheque had been paid to her.

Instead of paying off the loan, the money was gone.

Eventually she admitted what had happened.

She spent it.

All of it.

The lien on the vehicle had been under $10,000. The insurance payout had been well over $20,000. If the loan had simply been paid off, the situation would have been frustrating but manageable.

Instead, the loan still existed.

And now the bank wanted its money.

I also knew that my credit card had been maxed out while I was gone. It had a $10,000 limit and I had never carried a balance on it before.

There was also a line of credit that had been opened in my name during my absence. Another $5,000.

At that point I hadn’t even begun to dig into the full details. I honestly didn’t have the emotional energy for it yet.

All I knew was that I might be walking out of prison and straight into somewhere between $40,000 and $60,000 of debt.

And I was homeless.

I called the bank about the car loan, with my ex-wife on the line.

I hated every second of it.

One of the big problems with being homeless is the lack of private space. I had nowhere to make a call like that without people overhearing the entire conversation.

I found myself pacing the aisles of the Dollarama at Rideau and King Edward while I spoke to the bank.

I couldn’t stay still.

Partly because I was nervous, but also because I didn’t want anyone standing close enough to hear the entire conversation.

I was sweating under my winter jacket inside the store.

My heart was racing.

At one point I realized I had walked the same aisle three times without even noticing what was on the shelves.

And the entire time, one thought kept running through my head.

If I upset my ex-wife, I might never see my kids again.

That weighed heavily on me.

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During the call I tried to walk a careful line.

I needed to protect myself, but I also couldn’t risk angering the person who had the power to shut me out of my children’s lives.

So I explained to the banking officer that I had been away for the past two and a half years and that I had no real knowledge of what had happened financially during that time.

They already knew I had been detained. I didn’t feel the need to explain the exact circumstances.

It was one of the most uncomfortable conversations I had ever had.

After the call I felt like I was in shock.

My heart was racing.

I stepped out of the Dollarama and started walking through downtown Ottawa. The city looked exactly the same as it had an hour earlier.

But my life suddenly felt much heavier.

Rebuilding my life had just become harder.

Much harder.

I knew that I had made terrible decisions nearly three years earlier. Decisions that had already cost me dearly. Prison had taken years of my life, and I believed I had paid for those mistakes.

But standing there on Rideau Street, it suddenly felt like the consequences were still unfolding.

Not just because of the decisions I had made, but because of everything that had happened while I was gone.

I stopped walking for a moment.

Then I just crumpled — emotionally and physically.

I needed help, and I had no idea where to turn.

Who would even care?

In that moment I felt completely worthless.

Completely hopeless.

I started walking again, wandering through downtown Ottawa in even more pain than when I had first arrived in the city.

I felt sadness.

I felt anger — bordering on righteous anger.

I felt betrayed.

While I was gone, my ex-wife had been telling me exactly what I wanted to hear. All the while I had no idea what was actually happening behind the scenes.

The pressure I felt in that moment was immense.

But even in that moment, one passage of Scripture came back to me.

“I waited patiently for the Lord;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the pit of despair,
out of the mud and the mire.”
— Psalm 40:1–2 (NLT)

Standing there in downtown Ottawa, I definitely felt like I was standing in that pit.

At that moment I couldn’t see a way out.

All I could see was debt, uncertainty, and a future that suddenly looked even more complicated than it had the day before.

But that verse reminded me of something important.

God doesn’t wait until people climb out of the pit on their own.

He meets them there.

The first week of freedom was teaching me a difficult lesson.

Walking out of prison didn’t mean the consequences were over.

In many ways, the real work was only beginning.

And I was about to learn just how complicated rebuilding a life could really be.

This post is part of the Coming Home to Uncertainty series about rebuilding life after prison.

Previous: Part 3 – Two Hours of Normal

Next: Part 5 — Freedom Was Only the Beginning

View the full series: Coming Home to Uncertainty