Awhile back I had the opportunity to talk with an aunt who filled in some gaps for me in the story of how her sister was killed when she was only 14. This aunt I never knew was named, like me, for her mother and was her right hand when it came to caring for three younger siblings. My father was about five when he saw this sister laid out on the kitchen floor after being accidentally shot in the stomach by a neighbor boy who'd come back from a hunt. His gun had discharged as the two young people stood at the front door talking.
The aunt whose memory I probed about the incident was only three when it happened and her only memory of the older sister is similar to my father's.
But it is the aftermath of that horrific day that intrigued me most, especially in the years since I've become a mother myself and come into a love for my own children like none I ever thought possible.
What happened in the days and months after Aunt Marjorie was killed, I wanted to know.
My aunt says my grandmother was quick to forgive the young man responsible for the tragedy.
You read that right. She forgave him. And at the funeral service she told that boy that Marjorie wasn't mad at him and neither was she, that they both knew it was an accident.
And at some point, my grandmother resumed visits with the boy's mother, despite their terrible shared experience. Or maybe because of it?
How could Grandma summon such grace, I asked. How could she forgive someone for taking away her precious daughter? My aunt says Grandma lived the teachings of Jesus, the part about loving and forgiving and all. And that's what saw her through and left her a better person than if she'd wallowed in pity and anger.
I should live long enough to be half as good as Grandma.
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