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My dad was brought up as a Jehovah’s Witness. He was the head of the house – what he said, went. My sister was a goody-goody, because even though she was ten years older than me, she was afraid of him. But I never was: if he told me to make him a cup of tea, I’d say, ‘haven’t you got legs?’ And I’d get a beating. Because of that, I never listened to him. My older brother was psychotic and I never got on with him, but my little brother was my support. He was always trying to look after me. I left home at 17 and begged my mum to do the same. She used to say, ‘I’ll leave when you are 18’, and then she’d look at my little brother and say, ‘I’ll leave when he’s 18’. But one day she rang up and said she was ready. She’d suddenly seen how my dad was dictating her life, and she wanted her freedom. We found her a little place near to where she was born and I moved in with her and my brother. Dad came home one day and his wife and son were gone. Mum and I started having the relationship we’d never had before. She was so happy and relaxed, and we’d go for coffees and just talk. She got in touch with my dad via my sister, just to let him know she was safe. She told me that she still loved him, but for who he was; not for what he had done to her. One day he called to say he had a load of post for her to collect. She had been thinking about going back for a visit anyway, so that my brother could see his old friends. But it was as if she knew something would happen, because she told me the night before that she thought he was going to kill her. Yet somehow she talked herself into it. I made her promise to wake me up in the morning so I could go with her. But she didn’t. I woke up the next morning to the police at my door and I knew instantly what had happened. My first reaction was that I had to see my dad. I had to know if he had killed her deliberately, or if it was some kind of accident. I wrote him a note saying, ‘I know what you’ve done. It’s OK. I love you and want to see you’. I signed it, ‘your daughter’, hoping he would think it was my sister and agree to see me. When he saw that it was me he burst into tears. I made up my mind there and then, that as long as he told me the truth, without a word of a lie, I would stand by him. I know that if I had been a mass murderer, my mum would still have visited me every day in prison. I tried my best to do what she would have done. He was the only link I still had with her. Throughout the trial he kept his word and never lied about what he had done, and eventually he was sentenced for manslaughter with diminished responsibility and sent to a psychiatric hospital. While he was in there we started having a proper father-daughter relationship. I’d come to him for advice on all my problems. I called him ‘Papa’, and he would tell me he loved me. He was the dad I always wanted. But he knew that if he ever started up the old behavior, he’d never see me again. My sister just couldn’t understand what I had done. She took my little brother and brought him up, but she pretended to everyone that our parents had died naturally. I never pretend. For me, it is much easier to forgive because then you can be free. She’ll have to live with her anger everyday for the rest of her life. Or worse, it might turn into regret. I’d already lived most of my life with hatred for my dad. I didn’t want it anymore. Forgiving him was such a big release. I’ll never forget what he did – but forgiving has brought me peace inside. When my dad got really ill with cancer and we knew he was going to die, my little brother asked to see him – just once, so that he could get some closure. The weak, bed-ridden figure he saw was nothing like the military man who used to bully us all. My dad told my brother he could die in peace now, knowing that his youngest child had forgiven him too. We can all make mistakes – that was the best thing my mother taught me. I now automatically look for the good in people I meet. I still miss my mum everyday; but I think she would be proud of me. - Natalia Aggiano

May 7th 1990 seemed like any other day but my state of mind wasn’t good. I was smoking weed, drinking and not wanting to attend school. I had this evil streak in me. I was so angry, and because I was hurting I wanted to hurt others. That evening some friends called for me and told me not to bring my gun which I assumed was because they didn’t want me to get arrested. I thought they cared for me but in fact they had a plan to have me killed. They were trying to teach me a lesson for being too confident. One bullet hit me in the spine and paralyzed me instantly. I remember yelling, ‘I got shot…I got hit’. I knew something was terribly wrong. With that one bullet the cycle of harm came back to haunt me because six months prior to this shooting I had shot a kid over drugs and now it was happening to me. I could hear the Police and I could hear neighbours gathering and saying ‘he’s dying’. All I wanted was my mother. I wanted to be held and not die with my entire community staring at me. It was so strange because at the same time as feeling all this fear I could also literally feel evil leaving my body. I had been this angry person who wanted to hurt people but as soon as I hit the ground there was no anger left. That tough kid just vanished. I spent six months in hospital and that was where the real paradigm shift happened. I had plenty of time to look at my life and I realised that I had hated everyone - my mom’s boyfriend for being a violent alcoholic, my mother for not walking away from him, and my dad for not saving me. And of course I hated myself too. I’d been a kid with a loving family and a good environment but had chosen to embrace anger and hate. It was my mom who told me that my spine would never repair. I was sitting in my wheelchair and as she told me she handed me a Bible. “I think this may help” she said. I thought she was mad but I read it anyway and learnt about forgiveness. When I left hospital I was home schooled, I went to physical therapy three times a week, and was with my mom constantly. We really connected during that time. She lived in this world of denial, always believing I could go to college and live a great life. That’s one reason why I am where I am today. She got me to never believe that I was disabled. I wanted to be an investment banker but in college I lost my way because of the temptation of weed, alcohol and women. I skipped class and eventually was put on academic probation. I knew I was screwing my life up and my mother told me to ask God what I was supposed to do. The very next day I got a call asking me for the first time to tell my story to kids teaching violence prevention. I realised then that this was what I wanted to do with my life. Helping others became my healing. Forgiveness began in the hospital. As my friends were seeking blood in revenge, I’d tell them to let it go because I knew that violence wasn’t the answer. Later, I was asked by Breaking the Cycle to talk in schools about forgiveness. At first the words sounded so strange in front of inner city kids but I knew Ghandi and Martin Luther King had both talked about forgiveness and so they became my mentors. The more I understood what they had said about the power of forgiveness the more I knew it was my path. Nowadays when I talk about drugs and gun control to young people I always talk about forgiveness too. I always tell them that forgiveness is extremely difficult. It takes more courage to be non-violent and forgiving than to be violent. I also tell them that what happened when I was 15 taught me that hating turns you into a hateful person. I hated violent, abusive people and so I became violent and abusive. I hated bullies and so I became a bully. Hate holds on to you whereas forgiveness frees you, and if you want to forgive others, then first you need to learn to forgive yourself. Our family was destroyed by the murders of three people in one night – my sister-in-law Connie and my two nephews Allen and Bobby, 16 and 14 – cut down by the hatchet of a madman. It was obscene, painful, heart shattering. At the time I could never have known this tragedy would be a call to love. - Hashim Garrett  

When we were told that our daughter had been murdered, it was just such an unbelievable thing. I stood there in shock, watching the color drain from my husband’s face. We had shared so many happy times together, and our son-in-law was not the violent type. We flew to Florida and brought our two young granddaughters back to Augusta for the funeral. We never asked the children anything but one of them said, “daddy hit mommy.” The prosecutor described it as a crime of passion, and assured us he’d call the minute Eugene went before the judge, but we heard nothing. Six months later we discovered that Eugene had been sentenced to just one year probation and was back home looking after the children. His mother had money and had used her influence to help him. I don’t resent her – if I had money I would have done the same for my son. I tried to stay in contact with my granddaughters, but my letters and presents were never acknowledged. Finally, after 18 years, I went to Florida to visit them. I must say, Eugene had done a good job in raising them and it was an extremely happy occasion, but sadly I never heard from them again after that. Joyce’s death broke us as a family. My husband, like my older son Roy, never talked about it, while I became totally wrapped up in my own little woven nest. My younger son Jerry was the most hurt. “Mother,” he said, “if you’d taken me to Florida I would have killed Eugene, because he killed a part of me”. Jerry had been happily married for 17 years when he decided he’d fallen in love with a 22-year-old girl. His wife was heartbroken, and I was upset and angry, but he wouldn’t listen to us. He got a divorce and married the girl, but things didn’t work out and when they ran into financial difficulties his new wife walked out on him. Alone and with no money, he moved in with a boy who took drugs and had a record as long as your arm. One day Jerry came to my work. We said hello but I was still angry and didn’t ask if he wanted to talk. I thought, “If you’re going through a hard time, then good, because now you’re being punished for what you did.” To this day I’ll never forgive myself for not reaching out to him. A few days later Jerry took a gun and went with his friend to a convenience store where he shot a man dead. I’ll never know why he did it, but I’m certain he was thinking of his brother-in-law when he pulled the trigger. The following day, the two of them went to visit their roof contractor boss and Jerry’s friend shot and killed the poor man. After that Jerry alerted the police. He told me later, “I was very much afraid the killing would have continued”. My son strongly regretted what he’d done and felt he deserved to die, but when he called from prison to say he’d been served his execution date, I just about lost it. I was glad my husband was now no longer alive: he couldn’t have borne the pain. Jerry didn’t want me to witness the execution but I fought tooth and nail to be there. I couldn’t let him die in front of a room full of strangers. There were just two of us watching – myself and a relative of the roof contractor. The wife of Jerry’s victim wasn’t there, and I would say she’s the most sympathetic person I’ve ever known. She never publicly denounced what my son did, nor did she ever call for his execution. Just before the lethal injection, Jerry turned to take a good long look at me and then blew me a kiss. After that he closed his eyes and I watched the blood drain from his face. I don’t know what could be harder than watching your son die like that. A mother does not see a 30, 40, 50-year-old man strapped to that cross-like gurney. She sees the child she gave birth to, the child that in her eyes never grew up. I deeply resent a government that kills its own citizens – its own children. It still feels so raw and so painful, and yet I feel no hatred or blame – neither for Eugene nor for those who killed my son. My anger is entirely directed towards myself for turning my back on my son when he needed me most. - Celia McWee (Laid to Rest; February 14th, 2011)