From Chapter Eight: The Other Victims

More than once I have been the recipient of sympathy from people who, hearing about the murder of my son and daughter-in-law, tell me that "the worst thing that can happen to a mother" has happened to me. I tell them, no. The worst thing would be if it had been a son of mine who used a gun to snuff out the life of another person, and I express sadness and concern for Brenda Clark, the mother of the eighteen-year-old who killed John and Nancy. On two occasions, mothers of murder victims challenged me on this. Their argument was that she was much better off than we were because her son was still alive, and she could visit him, see him, hug him.

I would think about that and I would be happy for her that at least she was spared the terrible pain of having to bury a son, his life ended by a person or the state. This was another reason why I detested the death penalty, which could cause such ultimate pain for mothers who had already been plunged into hell. I never would want to be a part of a system that could bring such torment to a mother.

The memory of my Aunt Margie being taken away in a straightjacket when the agony of her brother’s death in the electric chair finally consumed her mind had always made me feel tremendous sorrow for the families of those who commit crimes. I’m not denying that, in all too many cases, the families are among the factors that make a person turn into a criminal, a lawbreaker, a murderer. But this does not justify judging all members of a crime perpetrator’s family as unworthy of concern. As Christ said in the Gospel of John, when the scribes and Pharisees were about to exercise the death penalty on the woman caught in adultery, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." I believe the message here is that judging is God’s territory; ours is compassion, without boundaries. . . . .