That Bird Has My Wings: The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row

by Jarvis Jay Masters

They would cry when we told them what had happened to us. Then it was up to us to cheer them up.

In the moment that the sentence was read, my mind flashed back to when I was five years old, standing before another judge, who ordered my removal from my mother’s custody in

order to save my life. Eighteen years later, this very same judicial system was now ordering my execution.

I

discovered that it takes a lot more energy to hate than it does to love—

and that every bit of love I could conjure up meant that I didn’t...

How was I not able to feel all this before?

“that bird has my wings, that’s why!”

I feel blessed that my heart is not permanently damaged.