Forgive the man who killed Dad? Never
The sister of a man who lost his life in last year riot may bear his killer no milice, but no one has the right to ask the bereaved to do the same
The fires were still smouldering and the rubble had barely been swept away, but that didn’t stop the victims of last summer’s riots being called upon to forgive the thugs who had not only shattered their shop windows, but destroyed their faith in humanity.
The Rev Sally Hitchiner went a step further. She asked her parishioners in west Ealing to forgive the looting teenager who punched a local pensioner and left him to die.
Darrell Desuze was this week jailed for eight years after beating 68-yearold Richard Mannington Bowes to the ground as he attempted to put out a fire near his property.
“As a community, we must acknowledge the loss and ensure it doesn’t happen again, but also foster a society that promotes forgiveness,” said the Rev Hitchiner. Remarkably, Mr Bowes’s sister, Anne Wilderspin, did indeed forgive. But what right did anybody have to ask that of her?
Forgiveness has become the F-word that we’re expected to embrace – and it seems that hardly a week goes by when it’s not being sought for any kind of misdeed. This week, forgiveness was even summoned for Stanley Lord, the captain of the Californian, which ignored the SOS sent by the nearby sinking Titanic.
Anybody that can find the strength to forgive somebody who did them or a loved one a terrible wrong is certainly an extraordinarily strong and compassionate person. However, the simmering undertone seems to be that if you can’t bring yourself to forgive, you are lesser for it – someone who was offered, and declined, the opportunity to be the bigger person. Forgiveness, we’re told, sets you free. Harbouring blame will eat at you.
Well, if that’s the case, my insides must be gnawed away to nothing. In 36 years, I’ve never found it in me to forgive the man who killed my father.
My dad was killed by a drunk driver on his way to the airport for an overseas business trip. It was in the mid-seventies and while Jimmy Savile’s “Clunk Click Every Trip” campaign was all over the TV, hardly anyone, and especially not men, wore seatbelts. Dad, who was 33, died from the impact of the crash. The other man, whose name I don’t even know, lived. He didn’t go to prison, and I really don’t care that he didn’t. His incarceration wouldn’t dull our pain, and even though there were times I thought he was evil personified, the rather pedestrian reality is that he was just an ordinary man who drank alcohol and got into a car.
Unless that man has no conscience, I am sure he has had many tormented thoughts about what he did. His punishment is a life sentence of regret. I don’t envy him that.
But what I have never felt compelled to do is to forgive him. Why would I want to do that? Thanks to him, I had no father from the age of nine. My elder sister didn’t have her father give her away at her wedding. My younger brother, only three when his father died, has no memory of him at all. My mother, widowed before her 30th birthday, had to sell our house, learn to drive and get a job so she could provide for three children under 12.
Had he lived, Dad would today be a 70-year-old grandfather of seven. I often try to imagine what he’d look like. I don’t have many photographs of him. When he was alive, the most popular cameras were ones that came with a flash cube. Half of the time it never went off, and you had to set the picture up all over again. Any film you did take had to be put in the chemist for developing and collected a week later. It was a hassle, so mostly we didn’t bother.
A couple of days after Dad died, I remember coming downstairs at night after hearing a strange noise from the living room. It didn’t sound human, more like an animal in pain and I wondered if our neighbour’s cat had become trapped somewhere.
It turned out the noise was human. It was the keening of my griefstricken grandmother, who had just arrived at the house to plan her only son’s funeral. As long as I live, I will never forget that sound. And that is why I’ll never forgive the man who made me hear it.
Even though he is a stranger, the idea of forgiving my father’s killer makes me think that I will somehow relieve him of the guilt I want (and need) him to carry. One well-meaning but misguided relative even proposed a little swift justice of his own, an offer that was quickly turned down.
Not forgiving doesn’t mean you are frothing at the mouth for vengeance; I’ve never wanted the man who killed my father to die or to be harmed. But I do feel that any forgiveness, even though he’ll never know it had been been granted, will somehow lessen his responsibility for his actions. I’m reasonable enough to know that the driver who killed my dad never set out to end a life that day. But he did, and I can’t forgive him.
In other parts of my life, I’m not immovable when it comes to forgiveness. From the work colleague who sabotaged a promotion to the boyfriend who cheated and the friend who never repaid the money I lent her – I’ve let it all go.
But the man who killed my father? I don’t think so. Forgiveness goes hand in hand with forgetting – something you can’t make yourself do, however much you may wish to.
One small thing I can be grateful for is that my family’s tragedy is not a high-profile one. We’ve never been publicly asked the forgiveness question. As a rule, we’re not a family that talks about our feelings, but on this I know we all – Mum, sister and brother – would be united: you broke our family and we can’t forgive.
How many times have we seen broken, sobbing relatives of victims being asked – often before anybody has even been caught, let alone brought to justice – if they forgive the person who murdered their child, partner or sibling? Many say they do, but I often wonder if the pressure of expectation, and the fear of being judged if they don’t, makes them feel they have no choice.
When the subject of granting forgiveness comes up, the implication is always that not only is it the decent thing to do, but that forgiving instantly affords you the moral high ground. Perhaps, but not going around killing or causing harm to others does that, too.
I accept that some people forgive as part of their own healing process. When Barry and Margaret Mizen forgave Jake Fahri, the youth who killed their son Jimmy outside a bakery in 2008, it was with a quiet and measured dignity. Deeply religious, they knew they couldn’t move on while they harboured anger.
Doreen Lawrence, on the other hand, has not forgiven the men finally convicted of murdering her son Stephen. If she had a pound for every time she was asked the “F” question, I imagine she’d be a very rich woman. Mrs Lawrence has stated that as long as her son’s killers continue to show no remorse, she cannot contemplate forgiveness.
Yet it seems to me that the forgiving of wrongdoing has become more important to us than the remorse of the perpetrator. It’s as though expecting the sinner to repent is unrealistic, but innocent people who’ve had their lives torn apart should step up.
Should I ever reconsider my stance, there are plenty of organisations, books and programmes to show me the way. There’s The Forgiveness Project – a charitable, non-faith organisation that aims to heal through the promotion of forgiveness. There’s even a nine-step forgiveness programme invented by Dr Frederic Luskin of Stanford University, California. Three steps fewer than it takes to recover from alcoholism. Impressive!
If I don’t fancy the counselling sessions, I could always read a book. In the past six months alone there have been a dozen published on the importance of forgiveness, with titles such as: The Peace of Forgiveness, Let It Go, Do Yourself a Favour – Forgive and The Power of Forgiveness.
Essentially, the message is: forgiveness releases you from your prison, while holding on to anger and resentment will blight your life.
Forgive me (see, I can do it), but I don’t agree. I’ve got on with my life and am perfectly happy with the way it’s turned out. I don’t need to be liberated from anything because my life contains no more bitterness than anybody else’s.
I just think that not everyone deserves to be forgiven – and that we need to halt the relentless drive that demands they are.