Forgiveness

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Dreadsox

ONE love, blood, life
Joined
Aug 24, 2002
Messages
10,885
(CBS4) BOSTON Five-year-old Kai Leigh sat in the front of the courtroom in her wheelchair and looked directly at the man who had just pleaded guilty Thursday to firing the shot that paralyzed her.

At first, she broke down, crying harder than she ever had since the night nearly three years ago when Anthony Warren, after an argument he and his brother had with her neighbors, fired three rounds at the three-family house where she was sitting on the porch.

After a sip of water and consoling from her mother, Kai spoke.

"What you done to me was wrong," she said to the man seated just 10 feet away. "But I still forgive him."

Warren, 29, of Boston, had been scheduled to go to trial in Suffolk Superior Court on six assault and weapons charges last month but instead pleaded guilty to all charges Thursday.

Prosecutors say Warren, his brother and others had an argument with people who lived on the first floor of the building in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood where Kai lived with her family. They left, then Warren returned around 11 p.m. on July 1, 2003, and fired three rounds at the house.

One of the bullets hit Kai -- then 3 years old -- as she sat on a third-floor porch with an older sister. The bullet shattered her spine, permanently paralyzing her from the chest down.

After his guilty plea, the girl, her mother and two sisters gave statements to the judge, who then sentenced Warren to 13-15 years in prison and five years of probation.

Kai's mother, Tonya David, said she tried to hate Warren but had forgiven him a long time ago.

After Kai spoke, Warren stood in shackles and handcuffs and accepted responsibility.

"I'm sorry," he told her. She said nothing as her mother embraced Warren, and members of their families hugged in the courtroom.

"She has the strength of a trooper," David said, noting that her daughter showed more emotion at the hearing than she ever had. "She has never complained once. She has never cried about being in a wheelchair, not once, not once."
 
That's amazing. I was fortunate enough to have a great-aunt who also had a phenomenal ability to forgive. It'd be a better world if there were more people like that.
 
What a remarkable little girl.:) Letting go of hate or pain is one of the best feelings in the world.
 
Sometimes forgiveness is very difficult to do. With something that happened in my past I am still working on whether it makes a difference to forgive or not. I just try not to think about the past and let it go at that. I have forgiven in some other instances and honestly it doesn't make me feel much different. I try to be fair and open minded in life as a general rule, giving people the benefit of the doubt, so maybe this is helpful to me.

But sometimes I think when we've been hurt so deeply and so severely, and we have given up so much to either things and people taken away from us or things or people we have chosen to give up or sacrifice in order to move forward, forgiveness just takes time. That's how it is with me.
 
Carek1230 said:
Sometimes forgiveness is very difficult to do. With something that happened in my past I am still working on whether it makes a difference to forgive or not. I just try not to think about the past and let it go at that. I have forgiven in some other instances and honestly it doesn't make me feel much different. I try to be fair and open minded in life as a general rule, giving people the benefit of the doubt, so maybe this is helpful to me.

But sometimes I think when we've been hurt so deeply and so severely, and we have given up so much to either things and people taken away from us or things or people we have chosen to give up or sacrifice in order to move forward, forgiveness just takes time. That's how it is with me.

I can relate to this statement. I have no easy solution because what you have typed here is what I have been going through for almost 13 years. I have forgiven, but cannot figure out how to continue a relationship with the person. Some would say I have not forgiven, but I have. I just do not know how to move forward.
 
For me that happens because sometimes when you let go all your anger towards someone, you also let go all the unfulfilled hopes and dreams you had for that relationship, which can really leave you rudderless. Sometimes even the things about them that once gave you pleasure, turn out to have been so bound up with the painful things that you just can't seem to get at the good stuff anymore once you've let the bad stuff go. It would be nice if a rush of warm, affectionate feelings automatically moved in to fill the vacuum whenever we forgive, but at least when you've known someone long and well, it doesn't always work out like that. Which can lead you back into the unfulfilled hopes trap if you're not careful...at least for me it can. When things get like that, I try to aim for simply doing right by that person, no more no less, and if something happens that sparks my enjoyment of them again, I hold onto that memory and try to build on it...and if not, well at least I'm doing the right thing, and even if that feels kind of melancholy, it's still better than being eaten up by anger or hurt. Forgiving you can do on your own; healing a relationship though is really a two-way street.
 
yolland said:
Forgiving you can do on your own; healing a relationship though is really a two-way street.

Exactly-and for me if the other person is unwilling to make any effort and also to acknowledge the pain and hurt they have caused (I'm talking about deep emotional hurt and abusive stuff, not the average issues with other people), it is really impossible for me to truly forgive. I've tried make some sort of peace with it for my own sake but I just can't have that person/those people in my life. I guess I'm just not the person that this little girl is. Somehow it is much easier to forgive a stranger than it is to forgive your own family and friends, people who are supposed to build you up and not tear you down.

One of the deacons at my church used Kai Leigh's story as the theme for his homily on Good Friday.

1145102530_1938.jpg
 
[Q]Exactly-and for me if the other person is unwilling to make any effort and also to acknowledge the pain and hurt they have caused (I'm talking about deep emotional hurt and abusive stuff, not the average issues with other people), it is really impossible for me to truly forgive. I've tried make some sort of peace with it for my own sake but I just can't have that person/those people in my life.[/Q]

That just about hits where I have been stuck for six years.
 
Well I've been stuck for much longer than that. I wish I had some answers for you and for myself, I don't. But one thing I do know for sure, you can't beat yourself up over it and let it destroy who you are and who you know that you are. I did that for the longest time and still do it sometimes. That is not good.
 
I took a stand 13 years ago. One of the lines in the sand I drew was that there had to be "acknowledge the pain and hurt they have caused". That is where I have been stuck for six years because they will not. There is never any acknowledgment. I have reached a point where I am starting to believe that they cannot accept what they did for their own sanity. I am not sure how to move beyond that line in the sand.
 
Dreadsox said:
I have reached a point where I am starting to believe that they cannot accept what they did for their own sanity

Maybe that's it. I don't have any communication whatsoever with the person in question in my situation so I don't know. I do know what I think of him and honestly it's all very bad. I know that's not being a "good Christian" and all that, but it's a very painful situation and I doubt that he has changed at all. When all is said and done dealing with it has made me a stronger and better person so in that way I am the victor and not the victim. The same is probably true for you. :)
 
I read this last week — very moving. The pic CNN.com had of the girl crying on the stand broke my heart though. It takes something special, however, to forgive like she did.
 
coemgen said:
I read this last week — very moving. The pic CNN.com had of the girl crying on the stand broke my heart though. It takes something special, however, to forgive like she did.

There is something magical about it.
 
That's an amazing story, she's a beautiful little girl. :heart:

I've found it's very hard to forgive someone who refuses to apologize/own up to their actions. Sympathize, accept, move on...maybe, but it's very hard, for me at least to really forgive.
 
Perhaps forgiveness lies in action--or inaction. To refuse to retaliate, to escalate, to seek to harm the person as they have harmed you. Perhaps forgiveness is not to seek revenge.
 
By Megan Tench, Globe Staff | May 19, 2006

Charlie Stead still loses his composure at the mere mention of her name.

''Little Kai Leigh Harriott," he said softly.

''You cannot talk to me about Kai Leigh without getting me crying," he said, his words dissolving into quiet sobs. ''This is incredible. I'm never like this. But you know, when I saw her, I knew I had to do something."

It has been one month since television footage showed Kai Leigh, looking up from her blue wheelchair, her face soaked with tears, and forgiving the man who fired the gunshot that paralyzed her. The courtroom scene in Boston has replayed on television, over the Internet, and in newspapers across the country and beyond.

Since then, Kai Leigh's mother, Tonya David, has fielded dozens of phone calls, from reporters as far away as Australia and from the producers of ''The Oprah Winfrey Show." Kai Leigh, now 6, has been in People magazine and featured on ''Inside Edition" and is preparing for a free trip to Disney World, long her dream, courtesy of a California businessman.

The outpouring of affection was unexpected and overwhelming, David said.

But it was the gift from Stead, 68, a hardened, retired principal and the owner of a Cambridge bus company, that captured David's heart. Wanting to give Kai Leigh a special gift, an all-expenses paid trip to New York, Stead called friends who knew friends who knew the neighborhood, to find Kai Leigh.

''So one afternoon we just went to the neighborhood and walked around until we found what looked like her house," he said. ''We knocked on the door, and they weren't home. But I was glad we had the right house."

Stead had two vacant seats on a tour of New York offered by his company, Steady Riders Transportation Inc. He wanted to take Kai Leigh and her mother first to a black art gallery in New Jersey, then to Times Square and Broadway to see ''The Color Purple," produced by Oprah Winfrey.

David was hesitant at first, unsure if Kai Leigh was old enough for such a trip.

But she soon accepted, and on May 3 they set off.

''The bus was full, you know, so I got on first and I told the people that we had a celebrity guest," Stead said, chuckling. ''I said, 'Remember when that little girl forgave that foolish man.' And the whole damn bus said, 'Oh, yeah,' all simultaneously. They were nodding their heads and chatting about how they felt for her. And then Kai got on the bus, and it was just great. They just broke out in applause. Kai Leigh was smiling, and I was going to say something more to the folks, but I couldn't. I just got so overwhelmed."

The journey was filled with love, Stead said. No one spoke about the shooting. Instead, Kai Leigh and her newfound fans spoke about jewelry, her new sketch board, and the excitement of a road trip. They spoke about the work displayed in Astah's Art Gallery, since Kai Leigh is an aspiring artist, and they ate soul food at Miss Maude's Spoonbread Too in Harlem.

''It was beee-yooo-tiful," Kai said in a sing-song voice, stretching out both arms.

''Kai's eyes lit up when she was in Times Square," added her mother. ''And she just loved, loved 'The Color Purple.' Being around all those dancers and the singing, she was so happy. At one point, they walk up and down the aisle where she was sitting, and she just stared. It was a wonderful gift. Charlie, oh, he's such a sweet and good man. I mean God sent him to us. He was just amazing, and he really, really took to Kai."

But Stead said the trip was nothing compared to what Kai Leigh gave to him.

''She changed me," he said by telephone from his Cambridge office. ''She just brought so much to that trip. Imagine a little one like this. She represents what I could not do, at her age or my age. I could not forgive. I can be tough. People say I'm really stern. But now I think of her and what she was able to do. Whenever some driver does something stupid, and you just want to lose your mind . . . Now I work on saying to myself, 'Boy, that was stupid,' instead of going ballistic. I don't know how to explain it. For me, listening to Kai Leigh, it was personal."

She was 3 years old on the summer night in 2003 when she was sitting on a third-floor porch, singing songs from the ''Barney" television show, and a stray bullet severed her spine. Last month, Anthony Warren, 29, admitted to firing that bullet in an attempt to scare two women who lived on the first floor. Kai Leigh tearfully faced Warren and said: ''What you done to me was wrong. But I still forgive him."

It moved spectators to tears and admirers to donate. A bank account set up on Kai Leigh's behalf has enough to start a college fund, David said.

In Irvine, Calif., Robert Davenport and his staff were busy this week booking Kai Leigh's next trip, to Disney World in July. After reading her story on the Internet, he called David, who screeched with joy when he made the offer.

''Just seeing her on the Internet with tears in her eyes and forgiving that man was pretty heart-gripping," said Davenport, the owner of Lexxel Funding Group, a mortgage company. ''She'll be in that wheelchair for the rest of her life. We just felt like we could do something for her. It was just so touching. It goes to show you that every day, every hour, you just don't know what's going to happen and that human tragedy is out there. We just don't often think of it."

At the playground across the street from her home, Kai Leigh grinned at the thought of meeting Mickey Mouse.

''I'm going to go on the rides," she squealed before spinning in a circle in her wheelchair. She is also looking forward to meeting the Red Sox, a promise made to her personally by Mayor Thomas M. Menino.

''It's all just been unbelievable," David said, suddenly tearing up herself. ''I mean, wow, we have just been in a constant state of awe. Kai is just enjoying herself. But I feel so blessed. I feel like God wanted Kai to spread this message, of forgiveness. I really do."
 
Back
Top Bottom