I woke up yesterday and realized that for the first time in almost 20 years, I can not recall the name of the man who was driving the small pickup truck that hit and killed my son, Joshua.
For almost 20 years I have harbored feelings of hatred, genuine hatred, and anger towards this man who to this day remains faceless to me. He never should have been on the road that night. His license had been removed by the state of California and he was alleged to have been drinking. He was never arrested or held after being briefly detained by police.
I remember several days after Joshua's funeral and burial, seething with anger because this man never bothered to phone us, send a card or a letter, or offer any sort of condolences of any kind. At the time, I wanted to rip this mans neck off and commit his soul to Satan, if I had to sell my own to do it.
Some time in 1993 when my former husband, Joshua's father, and I were in the midst of serious economic despair, we didn't even so much as have a home telephone and I had 3 year old twins hanging on my sides and was hugely pregnant with my youngest son, we took every coin we had in our possession and phoned this man - the man who drove in the pitch black of night on a lone country road and in the blink of an eye, took away the child who first blessed me with the title of "Mommy." So much metal to precious skin and then...gone. An altogether too short life, blown out like a candle in a single exhalation of breath.
He didn't know what to say to us then. He offered no excuses as to why he was on the road. And in my mind I knew it wasn't right to ask him why he never bothered sending condolences, sympathies or failed to show up at the services for Joshua. Besides, what would he have said, "Hello Audrey, I'm the man who killed your son?" Painful and awkward would not have done justice to the emotions a scene like that would have caused.
And now? Now I sit here and know, without a single doubt in my mind or heart that it's time to forgive this man.
It's time.
In forgiving him perhaps I can find it within my own soul to forgive myself for not being there for Joshua and trying to prevent this from happening in the first place.
The wound that Joshua's death left behind is terminal. There will never be a day that passes whilst I tread the earth that the familiar ache and sting of his loss isn't present with me. However, I no longer have to carry around the dagger of hatred, anger, and blame for this man, that I have been holding close to me, like some morbid piece of carry on luggage of the soul.
It's time.
Time to lay this burden aside and cast into the ocean of time the sharp blades of condemnation and judgment which were never mine to carry or bestow upon him in the first place.
It's time.
Time for me to rest my head at night with one less shard of painful broken glass slicing it's way through my heart and the corridors of my soul.
It's time.
Time for me to say the words...
I forgive you.
