Forgiving the Unforgivable
by: Paul Kaihla, 
04. Nov, 2007 
10 Comments
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Getting to know my sister's killer
He apologized and asked for my forgiveness. And now it was time for me to put my lengthy spiritual preparation — which led me to this prison outside Huntsville, Texas — to practice.
I thanked John Black for reading his letter to me, for agreeing to meet, and asked him to be totally honest, even if he thought the truth might be painful or offensive. I told him that I was speaking on no one's behalf but my own, and that I was not trying to see if 'justice had been served.' Rather, I wanted to have open communication, compassion and understanding.
'Praise God,' John Black said simply and sincerely.
I then told him a story about the day I returned to my 3rd grade class after my sister's funeral. All my classmates were told what happened, but no one said anything to me, except a boy named Bobby who was deemed 'slower' than the rest of us; he had an especially sensitive and empathetic heart.
Bobby and I were talking on the playground. He was curious about the man who killed my sister. 'What color hair did he have?' he asked. Other, 'normal' children would have 'known enough' not to ask such a direct question. Not Bobby. I went home after school and asked my mother, and the next day I found Bobby. 'His hair is brown,' I told him.
Almost thirty years later, as the intention to forgive John Black arose, that story surfaced in my mind with new significance. The little-kid wisdom is this: We want to see the person who has done this. We want to bring him before us, to look at him.
John Black and I talked for two and a half hours, seated at our folding table, monitored by prison officials. I asked him about his early life. He described his family—his distant, truck-driving father, his brothers and his one sister. He ran track in high school. He didn't have stories of abuse or violence, yet he spoke of his deep insecurities. In his letter to me, Black wrote: 'I don't think it is possible in a letter or even in a meeting of several hours to recount all the things that defined who I was back in 1978, but I was definitely a lost soul, mentally sick and spiritually dead.'
There wasn't, however, any particular incident or experience that illuminated the 'why' of the crime. It was to remain inexplicable.
John Black joined the military service at age 18, and wanted to be a policeman. He was married, unhappily, to a woman he had met in the military. We delved into the night of February 27, 1978, went through the events of the day, all the way through the crime and his arrest the following day. Neither of us flinched over the specifics.
I pressed him: 'What was going on in your mind at that point? What do you remember thinking?'
He tried to answer, but had explanation, saying, 'That's just it — I wasn't thinking.'
Learning to live with mystery is, to me, an important aspect of any spiritual path. How John Black, coming from a relatively stable home, with no prior criminal record nor any hard drug habit, with above-average intelligence, a wife and a job, could have done such a thing, will forever remain a troubling mystery.
John Black said he was grateful to have been arrested once he realized what he had done. His said his own actions were so incomprehensible that he wondered if he would have killed again had he not been caught. I had been told that John Black often quotes Bible verses, but he didn't do it much during our meeting. Nor did he smile a great deal, as I had been warned he would. In fact, there was a warmth about him, an intelligence, a spirit of inquiry in his eyes.
We took a short break, and when we resumed I told him about his victim, my spirited and beautiful sister.
NEXT: The Moment of Truth
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I want to thank Tom Hudgens for sharing this amazing story with us. It is well written, heartfelt and made me feel hopeful for a world where as he describes his wishes: "......I want to live in, where people can come together and talk and come to deeper understandings." Beautifully said.
I was deeply touched by his descriptions of John Black. Clearly, Tom's heart was open when he attended this meeting and this allowed him to see John Black for who he was that day not the day he murdered his sister. I was equally touched by John Black's statement about Tom's sister: "I think, through you, your sister still has something yet to say to me." What a powerful awareness to have and how brave to be open to hearing not only from the sister's living brother but also from the sister he had murdered. This says to me he had taken full responsibility for his actions and was willing to bear the full weight of hearing of the pain he had caused. Through Tom's willingness to meet with John it would appear they both received healing.
The divine timing of it all is a miracle in and of itself. I loved how Tom showed the magical sychronicity when he said: "He delivered his first sermon three years ago, the same year I began meditating at Spirit Rock in Marin County, California. The subject: reconciliation."
I have taken so many things away from this reading and one of the most important is the reminder to stay with the mystery. In the words of Tim Hudgen:
"Learning to live with mystery is, to me, an important aspect of any spiritual path." WOW!! What a wonderful reminder and Tom had you just said this to me and not shared the intimate details of your path to forgiveness these words would not have been as meaningful to me. Your forgiveness was not conditional, not based on "facts" that would help you make sense of it all. This is a very powerful lesson about the mind. It thinks it needs data to understand, to decide what to do next when what it needs is trust and in my opinion guidance from spirit.
Thank you! and thank you Soul Code I love this site. I will be recommending it to my friends.
Namaste
Jonina
amazing story...read something recently that probably is applicable here..."forgiveness does not mean what you did is ok to me...it simply means i am no longer willing to carry around pain in response to your actions"...
i almost cried like a million times
Hi Tom,
Your heart rending tale of forgiveness will always stay in my heart and would always serve as a beacon light!
Thank you very much for having the courage to share your own story with all of us!
God bless you!
Best Regards,
Sagira. J
India
Hi Tom,
To err is human and to forgive is divine!!! Tom, you have set a great example to mankind.
Wish you luck and God bless you always - Take care
Regards,
Varsha
India
Hmm. Well. I was raped, and I think you're full of CRAP. It's very easy for people who have never been through trauma to sit and tell you how wise you are: I think you're an idiot. Forgiveness means to stop letting another person's toxicity affect you. You can do that without going head-to-head with a murderer. I noticed that you told him more about your sister. WHY? Does he deserve to know, simply because he raped and murdered her?
But maybe you're on to something. I should send my rapist a newsletter. You know. Just so he knows I haven't forgotten.
I hope you realize that sociopaths get off on attention like that. If you felt the need to forgive - fine. But when you contacted him, you were playing into his hands. I'm sure he was bored in his cell 24/7 and jumped for joy when he found out he had the opportunity to relive it and rehash the details - with one of her family members - who wanted to FORGIVE HIM!
Sociopath - 1
Tom - 0
Dear Tom
May your heart and soul be filled with happiness. Everyone has the right to feel free of burdening and confusing emotions. I am sorry for your loss. But at the same time, what you did very few people can.
Bless you
praseena
Dear Tom,
I thank you very much for sharing your greatness of spirit, shown in your act of forgiveness. It is so much easier to blame and be a victim, and so much more freeing to see the high perspective where we are love and light, and act from that. We all behave in hurtful ways, each time we forget that love in our heart.
Thank you again,
With love & kindness
Marlise
My only problem with this story is that the offender was very forgivable. He was repentent, open, and kind. The title to this article is misleading. There is a huge difference when somebody doesn't want to be forgiven or doesn't care if you forgive them.
In this story, he author gets closure by talking to the offender in an edifying way. But, if the offender doesn't want to talk to the offended and hates the offended, what closure can there be in this manner? You can forgive all day long, but when there is no closure, no admission of guilt, no remorse from the offender, that's a very different thing and a much harder pill to swallow for the offended. This article doesn't address that, which is what I was hoping for. It's a feel good hollywood movie story. I can't draw much from it for myself and apply it to the heinous, real world things I have met with in my life. Life is more gritty than this swill. Other than that, it was well written.
June 28, 1976. I was 16. My sister 18. Her boyfriend took a risky move driving and she died. She had basically left home to live with him, and had not reconciled with my parents or me before she left without notice, about three weeks earlier. I had seen her since, but not my parents.
Two weeks ago, I am back home, visiting my mom. I was teaching her about how to add friends into Facebook. One of his sisters came into the conversation. And what's he doing, I ask. Oh, he lives in town she said. He has two grown daughters.
I know my mother very well. She never had any anger toward him. She certainly missed her daughter, my sister. We'd cried plenty over her being gone. But never any anger toward him. We were sad for him, but never any anger or blame.
The moment talking about him passed. No drama or workshops or epiphany.
My conclusion is this: the forgiveness is not for the other person.
My life gave me several chances to relearn this. One that comes to mind is when I was beaten beyond recognition at age 21 in the process of getting my car stolen. I had flashbacks and nightmares for years following. After all the adrenalin and years passed, the only thing that gave me any peace was forgiving the person that I knew I would never see again.
Eckhart Tolle's book Awakening describes my experience better than I can. You can read that if you or someone you know it trying to forgive.