I've wanted to write something about the concept of "forgiveness" for ages but could never quite get clear in my own head what I felt about it. After the recent tragic events in Aurora, Colorado, I've been thinking about it again, and I still find myself unclear on where I stand on the idea of forgiveness.
Forgiveness seems to be required in this life of ours. We are almost expected to forgive as if, in some way, by so doing, we will either be a better person or our lives will be easier if we do. I'm not sure I believe that either of those things are true.
I've often been amazed (and impressed!) when I've heard people who've suffered some dreadful wrong, say that they forgive the perpetrator. Sometimes this is said incredibly soon after the event. Often, the people who say this have strong religious convictions and they say that these convictions have allowed them to forgive. I've wondered about that too. I don't doubt their sincerity in saying it for a moment, I suppose I just wonder what leads them to be able to DO it or to feel that can do it?
I have sometimes said to people that there seems to me to be a huge difference between "forgiving" and "forgetting". Forgetting is a human concept, something I can relate to even if I can't do it myself! But "forgiveness" seems like some kind of deity-related thing to me, I'm not sure that MY forgiveness of anything matters either way really. After all, who am I to forgive anything or anyone?
For many years now, I've campaigned against the death penalty in the USA, this is something I will always continue to do as I genuinely believe it is the wrong response to anything and I also do not believe it deters any type of crime. However, I also understand that many other people support it, sometimes they support it with little understanding but other times those who support it really do seem to have thought about it and concluded that it is a suitable thing to do. I don't particularly want to re-hash those arguments here as they seem so emotive and so difficult to separate from our passionately held beliefs.
But, many years ago, I had cause to search my own heart very fully about this issue as I had the awful experience of having a very dear friend murdered. He was simply shot down in cold blood, no rhyme or real reason behind it (is there ever?) and, at that time, I suppose I really did question my own beliefs and question what I believed in.
Oddly enough, even that experience did not change my view that the death penalty was wrong although it's true to say that it took me a very long time to get anywhere near to even being able to look at a picture of the guy who did it. For years, I avoided all mention of it, I avoided the trial, I avoided anything that was even remotely connected to it because, somehow or other, it made it far too real and I just wasn't ready to deal with that.
And, if you'd asked me whether or not I "blamed" anyone for what happened, I'm not sure what I would have said as the perpetrator was unquestionably psychiatrically ill and so perhaps I would have said that I "blamed" a system which had somehow let him fall through the proverbial net. I have written quite a few times about the laws as they relate to insanity pleas and I am one of those people who believes that states such as Arizona, who use a modified version of the M'Naughten Rules opposed to using both prongs of M'Naughten as many other states do for adjudging insanity pleas, are wrong, but I'm not going to get into THAT now either!
And I honestly think that, had you asked me more recently, whether or not I "blamed" anyone, I would have said only a society which does not provide appropriate treatment for those who are clearly mentally ill. And, as for forgiveness, I think I would have said it wasn't something which should concern me, my forgiveness really was neither here nor there. But, very recently, I had a conversation with someone that made me re-think many of the conclusions I'd come to after the event itself. I was making a documentary about something and, while chatting to one of the participants, he suddenly said "before I take part in this, you and me need to talk about something and you know what that "something" is" and I had to admit that I had no idea what it was and so he enlarged upon it for me.
He told me that it was his belief that for years I had blamed him for what happened to our mutual friend, I had judged and assessed his reaction to the event negatively and had harbored bad feeling towards him for decades as a result and, beyond that, that I had never trusted him since. I was really rather taken aback by this and initially denied it, very hotly denied it, but on reflection, I realized he was right. I HAD done all those things and yet I'd somehow never realized that I was doing them.
When I look back I can see quite clearly that I did indeed feel very angry with him at the time because, in my opinion and also in the opinions of others who mattered greatly to me, he had dismissed it as something that could happen to anyone and somehow seemed to be able to get on with his life afterwards without that one terrible act affecting everything he subsequently did, something which I could never quite achieve and, if I'm honest, I still don't think I manage today. I didn't see, at that time, that maybe that was the only way he could move on, perhaps that was all that was sustaining him at that time.
I was very young when it happened, just 16, and I wasn't a particularly mature 16 year old. I was very attached to the person who was murdered and, coming from a fairly turbulent childhood, I relied heavily on those adults who'd been around me since I was born and upon whom I felt I could rely. I trusted his opinion, I valued his friendship and, more than that, I needed his input into my life. Without it, I felt lost and very confused. Maybe that is what grief is all about, maybe I just never realized that when I used to say that I never really felt I grieved for him in an open and obvious way. I didn't wail and cry, I'm not sure I ever actually even shed a tear until many years later and maybe others concluded that I, too, wasn't particularly affected by it. But it's certainly true, now I have the benefit of my retrospectoscope with which to look back, that I DID indeed blame this particular individual, someone who had no part in the crime, but just happened to be someone close to me who,in my rather skewed and young opinion, hadn't reacted in the way I'd expected him to.
The murder affected many of those around me in different ways - some seemed able to move on, others did not. I can think of at least one person who rarely left his house afterwards, installed a plethora of security devices and became nervous and uncomfortable whenever he was around large groups of people. I was very angry about that for years, angry that one mad act had changed someone else that I loved dearly, changed their life and made their life so much more difficult and, for a long time, so very unhappy. And not just those around me, it also changed the way I lived my life, changed the entire course of my life in many ways and, even more than that, it left an indelible stain on me, something which I've never been able to shake off, about the absolute absurdity of existence coupled with the enormity of realizing that terrible things happen all the time to really good people. Not that anyone deserves to be gunned down and murdered of course, but just that it took away my innocence for ever - that one single-second act, changed my view of the world permanently.
It is now many years since the event itself, more than 30 years in fact, and perhaps time has enabled me to look at it a little differently, perhaps that saying is true, the one which goes "you will never get over it but you WILL learn to live with it" but...
Do I forgive the perpetrator for doing it? Do I now forgive the friend who until recently I hadn't even realized that I'd blamed?
I'm still not sure I can answer either of those questions, despite knowing what I'd LIKE to be able to answer or perhaps what I SHOULD answer. The guy who picked me up on it while I was making the documentary had an interesting take on it. When I asked him why he had never pointed it out to me before, and why he had never challenged me about it, he said "because you needed someone to blame, perhaps we all did, but you definitely needed someone. You were very young, you'd had so much turbulence and so few people you could trust in your life, that I just thought if you wanted to blame me, so be it. It was probably safer for you to do that than to blame society, or anybody else, so I just thought it was better for you to let you do it".
And that really struck a chord with me. Here was the person who I had blamed, judged, refused to trust, and all those other things for so many years without even truly realizing, saying something truly important and genuinely forgiving. I had to admit to him that, even after all these years, and even after realizing that I had unfairly and unreasonably blamed him, if I was entirely honest,I still wasn't sure that I was either ready or able NOT to blame him. And he said "that's ok, I'm not sure you will ever forgive me, you still need it, maybe that's the only thing that allows YOU to move forward, we all need something and that's ok".
I'm not at all sure it IS ok. I wish, genuinely, that I could do something about the way I feel but feelings are so instinctive and so devoid of reason or rationality at times that, even though I'd love to be able to say I no longer feel the things I used to about it all and about him, if I am totally honest, I can't.
Maybe we all need to be able to blame someone or something which things go badly wrong? Maybe "blame" is a way of dealing with or coping with life's traumas. I'm not sure. I DO however know that blame isn't really very useful (or, at least, I don't think it has been in my life) and yet it seems to be a universal thing, something which maybe we all do without even realizing. I still don't "blame" the perpetrator interestingly enough, I just can't bring myself to blame someone who was clearly and indisputably clinically insane at the time of the act, neither the Prosecution nor the Defense questioned that as it was so evidently true.
And, in case you're wondering, the perpetrator of the murder of my friend, was charged with second degree murder. He initially entered a plea of "not guilty by reason of insanity" (something I don't disagree with), but he subsequently changed this to a "guilty" plea, against his lawyer's advice, claiming that "God had ordered him to enter a guilty plea" and was declared competent to plead guilty (something which I DON'T necessarily agree with). The judge finally ordered that he should receive psychiatric treatment in prison and sentenced him to 20 years to life imprisonment. He has subsequently taken part in various documentaries about his conviction, speaking mostly by telephone from the penitentiary. He has lobbied for release on parole a number of times but, thus far, has never been released. I suspect he WILL one day be released and, much as I support the idea of rehabilitation and the concept of everyone deserving a second chance, I really can't begin to imagine (if I'm honest) how I would cope with his release, if it ever happened...
And so I suppose I just wonder... how do others forgive and, DO they REALLY forgive? And, if so, WHAT do they forgive? I would quite like to be able to take part in "forgiveness" in some way, I'd like to genuinely believe that I could do it, but I'm honestly not sure that I can. Not really, not deep down. I mean, I could say it, but I'm just not sure how realistically I could mean it.
I'm not the most forgiving person clearly, although if you'd asked me that before this guy pointed out the above to me, I think I'd have said I WAS. But I was only kidding myself obviously. So, I wonder, is forgiveness ever real? Or is it just something we say in the hope that one day we can actually do it?
