A continuation of the interview with Sheriff Will Diaz. Will Diaz is the central character in the four novels that currently make up The Lawman Series. The fifth book is expected out about Christmas of 2025.

Richard Muniz: You indicated once that when you first went to meet Pastor Morgan, you were apprehensive.

Sheriff Will Diaz: I didn’t have fond memories of the man. I mean he was your standard issue SOB in school. He was a bully. And when you’re Freak in Residence, your life becomes a living hell. I figured he hadn’t changed much despite the fancy title and paper on the wall.

Muniz: And.

Sheriff Diaz: It took me a while to warm up to him and to realize that he’d grown up. Life does that to a person if you let it.

Muniz: What do you mean?

Pastor Robert Morgan. The guy voted to spends his life in prison.

Sheriff Diaz: What holds people back in a lot of cases isn’t their past. It’s their willingness to stay there.

Robert, like I said, wasn’t the best person. Half the school yearbooks had his picture drawn over with fangs or he was given a barbed tail.

If Robert had allowed it, he would have stayed that person. But someplace he decided to be more. And so the future convict of the year went to the Navy and excelled there. He became a SEAL. He went to school. And he became a Pastor. He wasn’t going to let his past hold him back.

And I realized I had a choice. I could hang onto the image of him and keep a wall up between us.

Muniz: Or? You didn’t finish the thought.

Sheriff Diaz: Or I could look at it as something epic. You know, in the old stories where an enemy becomes a friend. Now, he’s a brother.

Muniz: And what did he do with you?

Sheriff Diaz: He counseled me. I began to realize there was more to this man than the guy I thought he was. He was different. I could talk to him. He might not have walked the same miles I did, but he knew what color my boots were. I learned to trust him.

Muniz: What was some of the things he helped you realize?

Sheriff Diaz: To stop carrying things. An example was the Herrera wreck. I always felt bad that I couldn’t save those guys.

Muniz: You’ve told me about that wreck. There was no saving them.

Sheriff Diaz: I know that. But there was still part of me that demanded I should have. If only I was good enough. I lived with that for years. I had to let it go.

Muniz: What was some other things he helped get you over.

Sheriff Diaz: That incident in Saudi.

Muniz: Which one?

Sheriff Diaz: Where I almost shot my Platoon Daddy.

Muniz: That must have been scary.

Sheriff Diaz: It was. It led me to the Lord.

Muniz: I know that. But why did he have to help you get over it.

Sheriff Diaz: I didn’t realize it was a problem till he pointed it out to me. You see, I’d tell that story to almost anyone who would listen. And then one day he asked me if and when I was going to stop carrying that around.

Muniz: Excuse me.

Sheriff Diaz: First John, Three fifteen

Muniz: What is that.

Sheriff Diaz: John is telling us that if we hate our brother, we’re as good as a murderer. So, in some really serious ways, I’d never repented of that sin. I was still pointing a gun at the back of his head. I hadn’t practiced forgiveness like I should have.

Muniz: I’m not following.

Sheriff Diaz: Forgiving someone isn’t about letting them off the hook. It’s about letting yourself off the hook. As long as you’re hanging onto it, you’re not going anywhere except in circles. And the problem is with a hook is the longer you’re on it, the deeper it goes. It will become infected and make you sick. In this case, sick in your heart and mind. I’d hung onto it long enough.

Muniz: So, what did that do for you.

Sheriff Diaz: I was a mess before I got the Gulf and I think he knew it. Looking back, he was doing his best, in his own clumsy way, to keep me alive and focused. When I forgave him and got the anger and hate out of the way, I saw that. In a lot of ways I owe him for getting me through it alive.

Muniz: What did you do with that.

Sheriff Diaz: I tried to find him and talk to him. I discovered he’d died.

Muniz: Wow.

Sheriff Diaz: That’s an understatement. All these years I was hurting and the man I blamed was dead. Every ounce of anger, frustration, humiliation, and pain had been focused on him. All that to realize he was just trying to get me through it.

You see, Rich, anger is a monster. It’s a monster we try to keep caged inside us. But if we don’t let it go, one fine day it will reach through the bars, grab us, and eat us alive.

Muniz: Like it almost did you.

Sheriff Diaz: Like it almost did me.

Muniz: Which brings us to Eva and Max.

Sheriff Diaz: Ah, Let’s not talk about them just yet. Ask me about other people in my life.

CONTINUED

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