Forgiveness

Today, Samira Daoud was sentenced to 6 years in jail for killing 16-year-old Alex Hayes. She was drunk, on a suspended license and she was so drunk, she didn't even know she struck someone. Alex died, alone in a ditch, broken and alone.

When I first read this story before Christmas, my first thoughts and feelings were of rage, hatred and revenge. Especially when I read that she had already been convicted of driving under the influence and she continued to drive on a suspended license.

Today, as I read the sentence, I felt nothing but compassion for Samira Daoud as well as for the family of Alex Hayes. I mentally gathered all the compassion and forgiveness I could muster inside myself and sent it to her and to the families on both sides. It is not easy for either side to deal with this loss.

Is what she did forgivable? She will need to forgive herself in order to survive. If some of the stories that she survived are true, she is living a nightmare locked inside of her and she is her own jailer.

Alex Hayes' family, need to forgive in order to honour Alex' life and not focus on the last few hours of his life and its horrendous, unfair and despicable end.  Alex is not his death or the way he died. He was a vibrant and fun-loving teenager from what I read.  In order for his family to not live in the same hell that Ms Daoud lives in, forgiveness is what will allow them to move past the pain and into happy memories of their beloved Alex.

I understand that the pain is still fresh and that no matter what the sentence was, it would not have been enough and cannot bring Alex back. It could have been 10 years, or 25 or life in prisons, it still wouldn't have been enough. Ms Daoud will punish herself more than anyone can ever know or understand. You see, she had a sister killed by a drunk driver, and the pain of that caused her to become what she hated the most.

Ms Daoud has received a life sentence, in her mind and spirit, she is suffering.

Even the most evil of humans deserve forgiveness and it is not for us to deny them that right.

There will be no healing without forgiveness. For anyone.