A Mother Forgives Her Son's Killer

A week or so ago I heard on NPR's Morning Edition a story from the Story Corps section about a mother who lost her son to violence and her embrace of the man who, as a teenager, got into a fight and killed her son at a party. Normally this type of tale is shamelessly manipulated and calculated to wring the maximum amount of emotional response from the listener as part of an agenda. In this case, cynic and skeptic that I am, I did not detect any of that. It seemed an honest account of an unusual capacity for human forgiveness. It spoke of a mother's pain that led her to attempt contact with her son's killer near the end of his sentence when the 16-year old had spent half his life in prison. They now live next door to each other and seem to think of each other almost like mother and son. The young man is in college and she is anticipating seeing him graduate. She speaks of hoping to see him get married someday. Inspiring stuff indeed.