Forgiving the Unforgivable

His older brother and him
Had been inseparable,
The best of friends.
He idolized his brother,
And was completely devastated
When his brother was murdered.
Hatred for the man
Who shot him
Consumed him,
And it didn’t abate
Even when that man
Was sentenced
To life in prison
Without possibility of parole.
He felt guilty
For being alive
While his brother was dead,
And languished
In a prison of his own creation
For four hate filled years.
Finally he had to ask himself
If this was the way
His brother would have wanted
Him to live his life,
And the answer was,
“Of course not.”
He had to forsake his hatred
In order to get on with life,
And he did that
By composing two letters,
One to his brother
And the other to the man
Who killed him.
In the first letter,
He promised to live a life
That would make his brother proud.
In the second letter,
He forgave his brother’s killer
And prayed that the man
Would also forgive himself
For the things he had done.
The transformational power
Of those two letters
Was miraculous.
He became another person entirely
Than who he had been
The last four years.
His face lit up
And his spirit rebounded
As if a 1000 pound burden
Had been removed
From his shoulders.
He still missed his brother,
But he honored him with his life.