The Healing I Didn't Seek

I didn't find forgiveness. It found me.

I wasn’t trying to forgive when I forgave the truck driver who killed my parents.

It wasn’t something I consciously set out to do. I don’t recall contemplating, “Can I forgive that guy for what he did?” I can’t even find the entry in my journal for the day I made that decision. And I only briefly touched on forgiveness in that journal. I recall mentioning it casually in an email I sent to a friend back in Madison, whose reply made me aware of how momentous that shift was.

If anything, I was trying to quiet some of the incessant cacophony of grief and turmoil in my head.

When I look back on that time, I see myself as a surfer in a roiling ocean of giant waves, striving for equilibrium. Losing my parents was only one of the stresses in my life.

I was in a new city. Seattle was a long way from family and friends in Madison and New Mexico. Though a voice in my head had urged me to “network like crazy” as soon as I arrived, I had only been living there for about ten weeks.

Grad school in linguistics at the University of Washington was intellectually demanding, with lots of reading, writing, and thinking. It took a ton of energy to push my brain to focus on this new direction. Though I had taken a few courses in linguistics back at the other UW in Madison, I had to create a new mental framework for this novel content. It was a steep learning curve.

I had a part-time work-study job on campus. The job itself wasn’t terribly difficult, but it did require my presence in an office for about 19 hours a week.

My cat Gimli, my constant companion since high school, was 15 and diabetic. I had to structure my days around his twice-daily insulin shots.

I was living alone for the first time in more than ten years. That meant I was the one who had to shop for groceries, fix meals, wash dishes, clean the cat box, and keep my apartment tidy.

And then there was the big stress: just a month before I lost my parents, I had ended a nine-year relationship. This was a man I had pursued for several years before our relationship began, and whose interests, hopes, and dreams intersected nearly perfectly with mine. This was the man I thought I would spend the rest of my life with.

Until I realized I couldn’t. The security and nearly perfect overlap of ourselves had become a prison for both of us. I had supported him while he got his Ph.D. in Math at UW-Madison. Because teaching jobs were scarce, his one and only job offer was at UNLV. Our plan was for him to eventually find a teaching job in the Puget Sound area while I pursued my dream of a Ph.D. at the University of Washington. But a few weeks into my new life in Seattle, that prison shattered when I realized I was happier without him.

The decision to end the relationship was what we both needed, but I was the one who dealt the irrevocable blow, destroying all hopes of a future reconciliation. We were both struggling with the breakup, but the greater share of pain was on his side, as I witnessed from the steady stream of painful emails, phone calls, and letters he sent my way.

I felt unmoored.

The loss of my parents, along with my closest relationship, set me adrift. In my newfound single status, it was as though I was sending out invisible tentacles seeking something to grasp.

My mind churned and bubbled with one-sided dialogues and arguments with my now-deceased parents, family members, my ex-boyfriend, the truck driver, my professors, and just about everyone I knew. My journal was filled with confusion and frustration as I tried to navigate all the changes. Grad school demanded so much of my mental energy. I felt my head would explode from the turmoil inside me.

Something had to give.

I remember the day I forgave the truck driver, not as an extraordinary day, but as a normal one. A gentle but insistent whisper in my head invited me to forgive him. I have no idea where that voice came from, but I have heard that voice at other pivotal moments in my life, and when I follow its suggestions, good things happen.

My logical side pointed out that while nothing could change the fateful events of November 1, 1993, I was free to change how I thought about that day. The emotional side of me felt only relief that I could let go of the anger and grievances that held me in a vice. Immediately, I felt as if a weight had been lifted off me and as if something deep inside was breaking open to allow joy and happiness to enter my life again.

I can’t pin that day down in my journal. But once that decision was made, it was irrevocable. And over time, my forgiveness of the truck driver has expanded to empathy.

What was that day like for him? I cannot imagine what it would be like from his perspective.

Putting myself in his shoes, it must have been devastating to know that because he fell asleep at the wheel for just a minute or two, he caused a terrible accident that killed two people. He didn’t do it out of malice or to intentionally cause mayhem. It was just a horrific collision between two vehicles that happened to both be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Eyewitness accounts from depositions described his red and bloodshot eyes. I think our lawyer was trying to imply that perhaps his eyes were red due to drinking or drug use, and that had contributed to the accident. Today, I like to think his eyes were red from crying.

I didn’t set out to forgive the truck driver. It wasn’t a conscious choice on my part. I didn’t lay out the pros and cons. I didn’t really understand what forgiveness was or what it meant. I wasn’t following a process, or a series of steps, or instructions. I hadn’t read any books or poems or magazine articles about the benefits of forgiveness.

This was before I started working with a therapist, so no one was suggesting that it could help me feel better. At that time, my religious identity was somewhere between atheism and agnosticism, so I didn’t have any spiritual guidance on the power of forgiveness.

My choice to forgive was more like a deep desire within me to find a more loving path forward. To find peace and to reclaim joy.

Forgiveness helped me heal.

It didn’t fix any of the other turmoil in my head, but it did ease the cognitive and emotional burden on me. I was still grieving my parents, still in Seattle, still separated from friends and family, still stressed from grad school, still trying to figure out my life as a single person, and still dealing with the fallout of my breakup. My aging and ailing cat would be with me for another year. And on the positive side, I was building a network of friends in Seattle.

Forgiving that truck driver for his momentary lapse helped me move forward with my life. It freed me to live from each passing present moment instead of being chained forever to that terrible memory.

Yes, I still miss my parents, who have now been gone for more than half of my life. But I know that the last thing they would have wanted for me was to never climb out of that deep pit of grief.

And perhaps the greatest gift was the foundation I built for future tragedies.

When my brother Geoff died 16 years later from drinking, I forgave him for his continued addiction. I forgave myself for not intervening when I suspected he had relapsed.

I forgave the still unknown person who murdered my stepson in 2023. I forgave my stepson for the circumstances that led to that random encounter at a homeless encampment. And I forgave myself and all the family members and friends who had been unable to save him from the ravages of addiction.

And, on a smaller scale, I forgave my former bosses for what I perceived as mistreatment, but which ultimately led me to where I am now.

So gentle reader, I ask you this: What is the burden you have been carrying that forgiveness would take away? What past grievances are you clinging to? Would you rather carry those burdens from the past forever, or would you rather have peace?

I know which one I’m choosing. Let’s create a better world, one act of forgiveness at a time.