How she forgave her daughter's killer

Some readers may suspect that my interest in forgiveness in these extreme circumstances has roots in our life and a road traffic incident two years ago which deprived our daughter of one of her legs. Surprisingly, perhaps, (as a search through this blog for 'forgiveness' with attention to dates, will show). That's not to say that I don't find connections. A lot goes back to a sense that we talk a lot about forgiveness but we often don't think that clearly about what's involved. My interest comes more from trying to wrestle pastorally with the issues presented by grieving families and the rough-and-tumble of everyday miscomprehension, unthinking uncare and/or malice.

So it's good to see the topic aired here: How I forgave my daughter's killer | Life and style | The Guardian: I still find the writer focuses on isses which flit the surface; the presenting issues of anger and pain without examining the relationship between those things and love and feelings around justice, punishment, revenge and counter-transference of such things. It is also a bit short on just what is forgiveness and what excusing and then what the costs are.

Let me, however, pick out of the article the things that I think are really important for helping us to learn forgiveness.

'When Charlotte was murdered, �forgiveness did not enter my mind. For a long time, I wanted to know, who is this wicked girl that took my daughter? Who did this evil? My baby was gone. I was just coming to terms with the loss. I had to weigh things up, to really allow my emotions to take their course.' ... I kept ­staring over at her. I wanted her to look at me, to look at the pain she had caused me, for her to see that Charlotte had a mum who loved her. I wanted her to show me how sorry she was. ... I wanted her to feel a bit of my pain at losing my daughter. ... Mary came to understand more of Beatriz's background. "I learned about all the bullying and intimidation she had ­received, about all the things that had happened to her at home and at school.
"So I wrote back to her and said, 'I forgive you, I believe you didn't mean to do it, although there is a price to pay for the choice you made.' ... ­Certainly she wishes her "an ­emotionally stable life, a good life. I hope she turns out to be a ­wonderful mother. I don't wish her any evil. I don't wish her to lose a child. I would not wish that on anyone."

I think all the elements that I have come to recognise as necessary are there. The one issue that isn't clear in this account is the relationship between excusing (which is recognising where there are factors that relieve the perpetrator of culpability) and forgiving (which is foregoing vengeance or 'counter-transference' whilst recognising the genuine culpability of the perpetrator). In this telling most of the weight falls to excusing -and that is right and proper and can make forgiving easier. The account as we have it here doesn't help us to understand how she did the harder work of letting go of the 'residual' culpable wrongdoing and its entails. That's a shame because that's where most of us need the most help and support: to forego just anger and its successor events and to re-open the possibility of a positive relationship with the perpetrator.