Why Forgive?

Why Forgive?

Anne Naylor

What purpose does forgiving serve? And how do you forgive? The "how" was what I asked myself some 16 years ago, as I went into my divorce feeling emotionally distraught.

We are well-educated in acquisition: Gaining knowledge and qualifications, getting a good job, finding a lifetime partner for marriage, buying a home, cars and extraordinary technological inventions to make our lives more comfortable and enjoyable. Our place in the world often revolves around what we are seen to have. Our beliefs support this reality. We look good and therefore we are good. Celebrities are envied for the lifestyle they have acquired.

But what about letting go? As creatures of habit, we get attached to life's goodies. Our sense of worth and well-being may be closely linked to the material world, and the convictions we have about who we are in it.

Letting go of attachments, and self-forgiving when necessary, do not come easily. Loss can be painful. We more naturally want to strike out and blame someone, almost anyone, rather than accept the pain, be responsible and able to respond to life's changes and challenges. It is as though our life, our survival, depends upon our being "right" about how we think things should be.

Following a radio interview in 1995 on the theme "forgiveness" -- when it is really difficult --the interviewer and I declared March 15 to be International Forgiving Day, to be celebrated annually and globally.

Here is an excerpt from the article, “Choosing to Forgive” : The main purpose of Forgiving Day was to open the conversation on forgiving; to touch into the experience of what forgiving could mean; to accept that sometimes, it is just not possible to forgive; to recognize the value of forgiving. “

Over the 10 years that I celebrated the vision with friends, I came to understand much more about how forgiving works and the benefits of forgiving, especially self-forgiving. Since then, the conversation on forgiving has become more widespread. Now, the benefits of forgiving related to health and well-being, better sleep, increasing awareness and intuition, enjoying the present moment and happy relationships have been well documented.

If your trajectory through life -- your goals, dreams, plans and aspirations -- has been disrupted by the economic downturn, you might be trying to make new sense of your life purpose. Being willing to let go of all you have worked for may feel counter-intuitive, unless letting go makes space for something better.

Doctors Ron and Mary Hulnick, authors of “Loyalty To Your Soul: The Heart of Spiritual Psychology” write about Compassionate Self-Forgiveness. This process takes forgiveness out of the hands of the ego and into the heart of greater awareness, understanding, love and deep healing. We can become one who is forgiving, starting with ourselves.

In response to my article, “Can We be Emotionally Free?” my wise friend Trixie, 93 years young, declared emphatically, "No!" If not free, could we be emotionally flexible? That is to say, could we have the space within us to accept our emotions and ride with them? To forgive ourselves when we react with harshness and criticism, especially towards those we love the most?

One day this week, the winds were high and the sea turbulent. Strong winds speak to me of the "winds of change," where water represents the emotions. On these stormy seas, I watched wind surfers and kite surfers skimming across the rough water surface at high speed, letting the wind carry them along and sometimes high into the air.

The image remains with me as I contemplate how I might soar with the winds of change and not allow myself to be overwhelmed by powerful emotions of resistance, how I might choose the lightness of flow over the reluctance to adapt.

The absence of forgiveness us drags us down. Forgiving liberates us.

So, why forgive? Could it be, as Doctors Ron and Mary Hulnick offer in their book, that we are not human beings with souls, but we are spiritual beings having a human experience? What if through forgiving, compassion and love we are able to realize more fully who we truly are, beyond the mental and emotional mask of our egos? Could we become more at peace with ourselves and those closest to us? Perhaps our adversaries truly serve as our teachers and guides to bring us back home to our hearts and our deepest connection with others.

Then, a true statement of forgiveness might be, "I forgive myself for forgetting that I am Divine," any time we lose sight of our greater reality.

John-Roger wrote: Self-forgiveness is not an act of contrition or penance. It is a profound and radical approach to letting go of tensions and problems and preoccupations. When you hold a judgment against someone else, you are holding it inside your own body ... It's much easier to let go and forgive yourself.

Anne Naylor is an author and motivational speaker. This article was originally published in the Huffington Post,   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anne-naylor/forgiveness_b_831916.html

Crossing the Bridge Together: Lessons of Forgiveness from Vietnam

The Olympia Forgiveness Project

Invites you to

"Crossing the Bridge Together:

Lessons of Forgiveness from Vietnam."

Sunday, August 5^th at 12:00 p.m. (Noon)

Olympia Capitol Campus

Vietnamese War Memorial

This event is an opportunity for American Veterans of the Vietnam Conflict and Vietnamese people who were present during the conflict to share lessons of forgiveness they have learned.

This will be a time of mutual respect, sharing and listening and a brief ceremony to celebrate lessons learned, perspective gained and community built. This is not a political event, but rather an opportunity to learn from each other and remember the challenges of the Vietnam Conflict through the eyes of another.

After some introductory remarks anyone who has learned something about forgiveness from their time in Vietnam will be invited to step up "to the mike" and share.

We will begin the event at 1200 (Noon) in the grassy area near the Vietnam War Memorial at the Capitol Campus and we anticipate that (depending on the size of the gathering) we will be together for an hour or so.

Questions- Dr. David James, 360-789-1726

davidjames1955@gmail.com

To Forgive is to Heal

To Forgive is to Heal

Deepak Ballani

If forgiveness is divine, as Alexander Pope once wrote, then it is an aspect of religions that we are called to imitate, as much for our own good as for that of others. When we are wounded by someone's thoughtlessness, rejection or deliberate cruelty, we have two options before us: We can try to get even or pretend that we haven't been hurt. The other option is to forgive.

Newspaper "Agony Aunt" Abigail Van Buren of "Dear Abby" fame once asked women readers if any of them had forgiven an unfaithful husband and had since had a happy marriage. The response was overwhelming. One woman wrote: "What a grand and glorious thing it is to rise above the pain." Others admitted that it wasn't easy to forgive, but they consistently recommended "the rewards of forgiveness, the futility of harboring a grudge" had made them do the unthinkable, that is, to forgive.

The most popular misconception about forgiveness is that when we forgive, we forget. Most of the time, we don't forget. The woman who forgives her husband's philandering is not asked to forget his weakness, but rather not to let the negative behavior direct their lives and stand in the way of building emotional bridges.

Try forgiving a friend who betrays your confidence, or a co-worker who lies about you. When the real effort of forgiveness takes place, it's not easy at all; instinct urges us to pay back in kind. There is usually a pause between the anguish and the time when trust and love can take root again. Forgiveness is part of a process that begins with suffering and ends, as its final and long-range goal, with the event of reconciliation. It works only when we become aware of the depths and causes of the anger burning in us so that we can forgive wholeheartedly and ensure an enduring peace. A particularly helpful exercise in the process of forgiveness is to try to understand the one who is wounding us as a person, and not just as the cause of our pain.

Forgiveness should come from within, and not be a mere show of magnanimity; it should help the forgiver in all future dealings with the person who is forgiven.

A declaration of forgiveness may appear as naive, weak, utopian – sometimes even outrageous. Indeed, those were the sentiments of many members of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church of Montgomery, Alabama, USA. The parishioners had endured harassments, threats, beatings and even house bombings. They gathered in 1955 at Dexter for guidance from their pastor, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. His message was simple: When Jesus said, "Love your enemy, he meant every word of it. We never get rid of an enemy by meeting hate with hate; we get rid of an enemy by getting rid of enmity."

We cannot escape from this prison of birth and death until we have cleared our karmic account; Jesus said we should ask forgiveness of those we have wronged, while we are still living in this world.

Forgiveness depends on the situation and the people involved. In the end, all forgivers do the same thing: they restore self-worth to the offender, the cancel a debt; they experience such peace that they lose the urge to retaliate, and live as freer persons, unshackled by the weight of suffering.

Deepak Ballani wrote this article for the Times of India http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-09-17/faith-and-ritual/30118974_1_forgiveness-alexander-pope-dexter

Foe's Photo Haunts Vietnam Veteran's Quest for Forgiveness

Foe's Photo Haunts Vietnam Veteran's Quest for Forgiveness

Sharon Cohen, Associated Press

ROCHESTER, Ill. — He was just 18, a restless kid raised on John Wayne movies who signed on with Uncle Sam, saw a real war, then came home carrying a single image that haunted him like a ghost.

For Richard Luttrell, it all began the day he was trekking up a mountainous trail in a place called Chu Lai. That's when he spotted him, the first enemy soldier he'd seen eye to eye. He was only 30 feet away, bent over in dense brush, pointing his AK-47 at Luttrell from above.

The two soldiers locked eyes. Neither spoke. Seconds passed. Luttrell's feet seemed forever frozen in that one spot.

Then he made the first move. He emptied the clip of his M-16, the staccato sputtering of bullets shattering the silent stalemate.

Afterward, some guys in Luttrell's platoon rifled through the belongings of the three Vietnamese soldiers killed in the firefight. No, the young private told his buddies, he did not want the shiny gold belt buckle of the man he had shot. Nor the wallet, which was tossed on the ground.

But then he saw a photo that had partially fallen out. He picked it up and stared: It was a color portrait of the soldier in a khaki uniform next to a girl, maybe 7 or 8, with long, thin braids, her head slightly tilted toward him, both looking ever so somber.

Both had narrow jaws. Both had round noses. It seemed clear they were related, perhaps father and daughter.

For reasons he can't explain, even to himself, Luttrell decided to keep the photo. He stuck it in the back of his wallet and he carried it with him.

For 22 years.

Finally, one day, with a new generation already reading about Vietnam in history books, Luttrell decided it was time to move on, to say goodbye to the haunting memento no bigger than a few postage stamps but still somehow an albatross to him. So he left it at the Vietnam War memorial in Washington, confident he had seen it for the last time.

But last year, he saw the very same photo he had given up in a book. And a mission was born: These three decades later, Luttrell has set out to find the girl in the picture.

So much has changed since then: The United States and Vietnam are friends now. A former prisoner of war is now America's top diplomat in Hanoi. And Richard Luttrell, the boy who went to war, is a grandfather--a grandfather with some unfinished business.

"It's hard to put into words," he says, "but deep down, somehow, I'm looking for some forgiveness somewhere."

If Richard Luttrell's wartime experiences were a book, his search for the girl would be the epilogue. The final chapter came on a gloomy November day nearly eight years ago in Washington.

Luttrell had traveled to the black granite wall of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to pay tribute

to his comrades. And he had come, too, to make a special delivery: He was ready to part with the tattered, faded photo buried in his wallet.

Over the years, Luttrell had glanced at it now and then, dutifully transferring it every time he bought a new wallet, separating it from family photos, far enough to be out of sight, but not far enough to be out of mind.

His wife, Carole, had urged him to get rid of it.

"I said it kept looking at him," she says. "Every time he would look at it, he'd get upset."

But Luttrell couldn't discard it. The soldier in him had in some way forged a bond with this stranger, who, like him, was a patriot, fighting for his country. "It would have been disrespectful," he says, "to have thrown it away."

For years, Luttrell couldn't even talk about the war.

That began changing in the 1980s, when he started going to counseling to deal with post-traumatic stress and began working on a fund-raising project for a war memorial at a local cemetery here in central Illinois.

But even as his curly brown hair turned to talcum-powder white and his scrawny frame filled out, as his first daughter and his second were born, he found it harder to face the photo.

"You've got a wonderful life, you have two children, you look at this picture and she doesn't have a father," he explains. "As my children grew, I kind of always wondered what the fate of this young lady was, or what his fate could have been. It could have been the other way around."

Luttrell always suspected that it was a father-daughter in the picture, but there was no way to know. And he never knew what was said in writing scrawled on the back; he never had it translated.

The fall night in 1989 before his pilgrimage to the wall, Luttrell sat in his hotel room in Fairfax, Va., pen and pad in hand, and wrote an impromptu "Dear Sir" note, as if he were talking with the man he had killed decades ago.

He explained why he was about to relinquish the photo he had carried since 1967. It was part eulogy, part confession, part apology.

"Forgive me for taking your life," he wrote. "I was reacting just the way I was trained to kill V.C. [Viet Cong]. So many times over the years I have stared at your picture and your daughter, I suspect. Each time my heart and guts would burn with the pain of guilt."

"I perceive you as a brave soldier defending his homeland. . . . [But] It is time for me to continue the life process."

At the wall, Luttrell pored over the names etched in the granite, searching for fellow members of the 327th Infantry. He found no one he knew.

Then he carried a plastic sandwich bag containing the note and photo, put it down at the base of the wall, placed a rock on top, had his wife shoot some pictures of him, and walked away.

"It was like a heavy burden had been lifted," he says. "I just thought that was where it belonged. That was going to be the final resting place. I never thought I would see it again."

Last fall, a Vietnam veteran who is a friend walked into Luttrell's office in the state Capitol in Springfield, where he writes grant applications for the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs, and handed him a book, "Offerings at the Wall."

"Turn to page 52," he said.

The past was there, bigger than ever: a copy of his letter and an enlarged copy of the photo on the following page.

Luttrell had known his photo had become part of a permanent archive, but had no idea it would surface in a book.

He already has his own private collection of Vietnam history: His medals (including two Purple Hearts) are framed on his dining room wall. And his scrapbooks are filled with memorabilia--the telegram his mother received after he was shot in the shoulder in 1968, an "Uncle Sam Wants You" pocket-size calendar he stashed in his helmet, photos of him as a skinny private and more current ones, beaming, standing next to one of his heroes, Gen. William Westmoreland, when he visited the area in 1994.

Several years ago, Luttrell also wrote and published his own book, "All Her Boys," named after his mother's penchant for writing letters and sending care packages to his Army buddies.

But some memories are too much to bear. Even now, at age 49, Luttrell won't watch Vietnam movies--he shudders at the bloody images of heads being blown to bits. And, even now, he doesn't sleep through the night, a holdover, he suspects of all-night vigils in the blackness of the jungle, clutching an M-16.

So when the photo came back into his life, it was like poking at scar tissue still tender to touch.

Still, he says, this is the only way he can heal. So he is eager to find the little girl, who would now be approaching middle age.

Last fall, Luttrell wrote a letter to Le Van Bang, the Vietnamese ambassador in Washington, seeking his help.

"For years I have carried the guilt of taking his life," he wrote. "It is always with me; like a cancer, it eats away at my heart and my mind. I realize that with only a picture it may be impossible to locate this soldier's identity or his family, but I could not live with myself any longer if I did not try to resolve this matter."

The ambassador, who served in the war at the very same time, responded by telling him that he was moved by the request and would pass it on to the Vietnam Veterans Assn.

"The dead had fulfilled their duties, the living have yet to do theirs," he wrote Luttrell.

The photo already has popped up in a newspaper in Vietnam, prompting one veteran to write Luttrell this spring and compose a song about his quest.

Luttrell hopes that publicity will lead him to the girl, or at least the soldier's family. He wants to put a name with the face. He wants to explain how he died--and that it was an honorable end.

But if any of the soldier's relatives reject his entreaties to meet or speak with him, he will understand. "Whatever it is, I can live with it," he says. "I'll know in my heart that I've done all that I can."

Already, he feels calmer, knowing he has gone this far.

"I still feel some guilt," he says. "Somehow, we all want to be forgiven. It's amazing we can forgive all kinds of people in our life, people who've done us wrong. But try and forgive yourself--that is the hardest damn thing to do."

Sharon Cohen wrote this article for the Associated Press

http://articles.latimes.com/print/1997/aug/10/news/mn-21100

Forgiving the Unforgivable II

Forgiving the Unforgivable

Marina Cantauzino

Mumbai did not leave deep scars; it healed deep wounds," writes Master Charles Cannon in Forgiving the Unforgivable, the true story of how he and his 24 associates from the Synchronicity Foundation for Modern Spirituality responded to terror when they were caught up in the 2008 attack on the 5-star Oberoi Hotel. Many might wonder how this modern spiritual teacher from Virginia could say such a thing when four from his group were seriously injured and two -- a father and his 13-year-old daughter -- were murdered.

For this reason I felt some apprehension when picking up the book to prepare for a scheduled podcast discussion with Master Charles on the subject of forgiveness. Whilst I wanted to learn how a group of people caught up in the 45-hour siege could instantly embrace compassionate forgiveness, I was not convinced it was true. To talk of the attack as a "peak" experience and for members of the group to say they were "grateful" for it, or describe being in state of "bliss" on their return, is a difficult and delicate message to communicate.

However, what makes this book entirely credible in my eyes, carrying the reader along so that there is never any doubt about the authenticity of the experience, is the very thing that first gave me the impetus to start The Forgiveness Project-- and that is the knowledge that it is based on the personal testimonies of those who bore witness and those who endured the most. Peppered throughout the 288 pages are the true stories of the survivors, which even include Kia, the woman whose husband and daughter both died. Kia, extraordinarily, from the moment she heard the news, experienced "the deepest grief and pain" at the same time as feeling "love, forgiveness and compassion" for the Islamist terrorists.

It seems that these real stories describe an intrinsic part of the human experience -- albeit one that is rarely documented. They illustrate how people who for years have practiced a holistic, meditative life-style when tested are capable of responding to trauma without capsizing fear or reactive anger. Instead, these people are able to accept what has happened to them and use the experience to grow into an "ever more evolved wholeness." As Master Charles puts it, "This is about being where your feet are," or to borrow from the Greek stoic Epictetus, "It's not what happens to you but how you react to it that matters."

If you have learnt never to have a "why me?" attitude, and always accept that life is not unfair, it just is what it is, then, when terrorists burst into your hotel dining room, shooting everyone in sight, you are able to glimpse humanity in the enemy. As Linda, one of the survivors, describes:

"I watched a young man turn the corner and what immediately struck me was that he looked the same age as my son. I thought 'ah, my universal son is speaking to me with a gun. How could I have let him get to this?'"

In the dozens of stories I've collected for The Forgiveness Project, although there are many victims of atrocity who talk about finding the gift in the wound, there are few who have responded to violence with love as quickly and spontaneously as this group of spiritual seekers. But one story that is featured on The Forgiveness Project website does draw parallels with the Mumbai experience. That is the story of Julie Chimes, who in 1986 was savagely attacked with a carving knife by a paranoid schizophrenic

Julie explains:

"When the knife entered me, something exploded in my awareness and a part of me became detached from my body, calmly observing the mayhem with total understanding. I can remember shouting out that I loved my assailant, which, given the circumstances was as much of a surprise to me as it was being stabbed."

Just as with the Mumbai survivors from the Synchronicity Foundation, Julie found that in the aftermath of the attack, while the rest of the world focused on blame and retribution, vengeful thoughts were for her never a consideration.

"As I blamed no one, there was nothing to forgive, but there was still a lot for me to learn and understand," she says. "So I went in search of teachings and people who had touched on the same loving perspective. I wanted to know if it was possible to reach this place of peace without some horrific trauma."

Working with people who have experienced extreme trauma, I have become convinced that those who have suffered the most have the most to give, if they are only able to reconcile with their past and restore a measure of hope. And so, in the same way that The Forgiveness Project operates, the Mumbai survivors have used their healing stories to reach out and help others understand how it is possible that those who have been most traumatized can ever respond to hatred with compassion.

Marina Cantauzino is the Founder of the Forgiveness Project UK and this article can be found in the original at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marina-cantacuzino/meaning-forgiveness_b_1449453.html

Forgiveness Meditation by Jack Kornfield

Forgiveness Meditation
Forgiveness of others, forgiveness of yourself

To practice forgiveness meditation, let yourself sit comfortably, allowing your eyes to close and your breath to be natural and easy. Let your body and mind relax. Breathing gently into the area of your heart, let yourself feel all the barriers you have erected and the emotions that you have carried because you have not forgiven - not forgiven yourself, not forgiven others. Let yourself feel the pain of keeping your heart closed. Then, breathing softly, begin asking and extending forgiveness, reciting the following words, letting the images and feelings that come up grow deeper as you repeat them.


FORGIVENESS OF OTHERS: There are many ways that I have hurt and harmed others, have betrayed or abandoned them, cause them suffering, knowingly or unknowingly, out of my pain, fear, anger and confusion. Let yourself remember and visualize the ways you have hurt others. See and feel the pain you have caused out of your own fear and confusion. Feel your own sorrow and regret. Sense that finally you can release this burden and ask for forgiveness. Picture each memory that still burdens your heart. And then to each person in your mind repeat: I ask for your forgiveness, I ask for your forgiveness.


FORGIVENESS FOR YOURSELF: There are many ways that I have hurt and harmed myself. I have betrayed or abandoned myself many times through thought, word, or deed, knowingly or unknowingly. Feel your own precious body and life. Let yourself see the ways you have hurt or harmed yourself. Picture them, remember them. Feel the sorrow you have carried from this and sense that you can release these burdens. Extend forgiveness for each of them, one by one. Repeat to yourself: For the ways I have hurt myself through action or inaction, out of fear, pain and confusion, I now extend a full and heartfelt forgiveness. I forgive myself, I forgive myself.


FORGIVENESS FOR THOSE WHO HAVE HURT OR HARMED YOU: There are many ways that I have been harmed by others, abused or abandoned, knowingly or unknowingly, in thought, word or deed. Let yourself picture and remember these many ways. Feel the sorrow you have carried from this past and sense that you can release this burden of pain by extending forgiveness when your heart is ready. Now say to yourself: I now remember the many ways others have hurt or harmed me, wounded me, out of fear, pain, confusion and anger. I have carried this pain in my heart too long. To the extent that I am ready, I offer them forgiveness. To those who have caused me harm, I offer my forgiveness, I forgive you.


Let yourself gently repeat these three directions for forgiveness until you feel a release in your heart. For some great pains you may not feel a release but only the burden and the anguish or anger you have held. Touch this softly. Be forgiving of yourself for not being ready to let go and move on. Forgiveness cannot be forced; it cannot be artificial. Simply continue the practice and let the words and images work gradually in their own way. In time you can make the forgiveness meditation a regular part of your life, letting go of the past and opening your heart to each new moment with a wise loving kindness.

Jack Kornfield is one of the leading teachers of Buddhism in America today.  He is a co-founder of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Northern California.  More about Jack can be found at http://www.jackkornfield.org/meditations/forgivenessMeditation.php

Man who lost his family finds forgiveness brings peace

Forgiveness Brings Peace

Rochelle Riley

Fifty-one weeks after Tom Wellinger killed Gary Weinstein's family, the jeweler decided to accompany his attorneys to a meeting with Wellinger at the Oakland County Jail."They did preliminary questions, and then my attorney said, 'You got any questions for him?' " Weinstein recalled. "I hadn't really prepared."

So he asked the only thing that mattered: "How's your kids?"

And in that moment, they were what they were: two family men who lived within a mile of each other, whose names were on the same page in the Farmington Hills phone book, two fathers whose children attended the same schools -- until Wellinger took Weinstein's away forever.

A Farmington Hills family's routine trip to the dentist Tuesday afternoon ended in tragedy when a speeding SUV with a drunken driver behind the wheel smashed into the car, killing a woman and her two children.

"Here he is," Weinstein said of their meeting, "a father like me, and that was the only question I had."

In that jailhouse conference room, stripped bare of pretense and away from the community ripped apart by the May 2005 tragedy, two fathers who had never met talked briefly about forgiveness. They did not discuss details of the crash. There were no recriminations, no tears.

In response to Weinstein's question, Wellinger, without hesitation, said he hadn't seen his son in more than a year. He was underage and not allowed in the jail.

"I haven't seen mine either," Weinstein replied. "He asked me could I ever forgive him, and my quick response was: 'Can you forgive yourself?' "

The jailhouse conversation was the last between Gary Weinstein and Tom Wellinger, who is now in prison. But Weinstein said he has reached out to Wellinger, asked to speak to his children, to help them heal.

Unthinkable. Unless forgiveness is involved.

Weinstein has now decided to tell his story as part of a documentary film and healing campaign called Project: Forgive, the brainchild of Shawne Duperon, 48, a filmmaker and child molestation survivor whose life also changed the day of the crash. She was friends with both families.

Her children had baby-sat the Weinstein children. She knew and loved Judy Weinstein, who was her husband Terry's business coach. Duperon was numb when she learned they had been killed. But the day would get worse.

"A couple of hours later, I got the call that Tom had done it," she recalled, the shock from that day still visible in her eyes. Wellinger's ex-wife was her partner in monthly Mastermind groups, where people work to improve their personal and professional development.

"There are two Toms," she said, "Tom, this man who killed a family and is in jail, and Tom, a beautiful, loving family man who happened to make a horrific mistake."

The saddest twist of fate, she said, was that Tom Wellinger's immediate family had flown to Michigan the day of the accident to stage an intervention over his drinking. It was scheduled for the next day.

Judith Weinstein and Alex, who was in the front passenger seat, died at the scene, police said. Sam was ejected about 20 feet from the car, landing in a driveway. ... There were no brake marks on the roadway to indicate that the driver of the SUV ever saw the Honda or tried to stop.

"Tom had been sober for years," Duperon said. "He was a very giving man, an extraordinary man, and life hit him, and he went back to drinking again. It's that circumstance where you have that amazing person who in the next breath killed a family. It's a difficult thing to hold in your brain.

"The day that Gary's family died, I knew that day that we were going to do this project, a project that is now a movement and a mission," she said. "This is a deep inquiry into what is forgiveness. This documentary will look at what happens when we forgive, what happens when we don't."

Duperon's coproducer is Scott Rosenfelt, who produced the Julia Roberts movie "Mystic Pizza" and executive produced "Home Alone." Duperon also is collecting thousands of stories from around the world detailing how people have forgiven. She hopes that like Jack Canfield's successful "Chicken Soup for the Soul" series, stories of forgiveness will impact those who might need to offer it.

"Forgiveness is critical, and I think it's one of the big challenges in our culture," said Canfield, who will appear in the film and whose "Soup" series just sold its 500 millionth book worldwide. "We're a culture where a lot of people hold grudges forever, and I think all the research shows that it filters to your health, your relationships. ... I think it's a very important project."

A cross-country journey of healing

Sixteen weeks after the accident, Weinstein got a call that his jewelry store was on fire. Almost instantly, he made two decisions:

He decided to rebuild, moving the business to temporary quarters down the road while redesigning a new store, changing it from the gallery it was to a charming salon with a sofa and jewel-filled shadow boxes.

And he decided to play golf. Weinstein had mostly stopped going to his jewelry store. Customers seemed uncomfortable. They didn't know what to say. So like Forrest Gump, the beloved movie character who suddenly began running one day, Weinstein decided to golf across America.

"I decided to play golf in all 50 states in eight months," he said. "I put 42,000 miles on my car, but I never played alone. I only flew to Hawaii and Alaska. I played two rounds per state. I always told people who I was and what happened, and that was very therapeutic."

He spent no energy hating Tom Wellinger.

"There is an understanding in the community and in the world that alcoholism is a disease," Weinstein said. "If I think that it's a disease, then he was clearly sick. ... In some ways, I don't hold him totally responsible. I knew him as a guy of conscience and commitment. He fell off the wagon. ... I know there is some kind of difference to be made in what occurred."

Weinstein is the youngest of four brothers who are all jewelers. He has two sisters, a teacher and a social worker.

He said his journey has been easier because his family trained themselves to always express how they felt. You might say they lived like they were dying or that, at any moment, life could change.

He also attributes much of his success and life philosophy to Landmark personal development seminars, something that he said chased away many girlfriends but intrigued the woman he eventually married. Judith attended a seminar with him and eventually became a Landmark leader.

An attorney who "hated arguing," Judith Weinstein had begun doing conflict resolution sessions with auto executives and was planning to grow to international work. She had just returned from Germany before the accident.

Police said Wellinger's blood-alcohol content was more than twice the legal limit at 3:30 in the afternoon when his Yukon, traveling 70 m.p.h. in a 45-m.p.h. zone, rammed into the back of Judith Weinstein's Honda Accord as she waited to make a left turn on 12 Mile near Orchard Lake Road.

On that last day, older son Alex got up at 6 a.m., dressed and left for school.

"I had already kissed him and hugged him the night before," Weinstein recalled. "I was whole and complete. I kissed them, said I loved them.

"That morning, Judy and Sam were at the kitchen table doing some math," Weinstein said. "They were talking about the orthodontist appointment after school and Judy wrote out the note.

"I still have that note saying, 'Can Sam be excused at 3:15?' I don't think his teacher ever got it," Weinstein said. "He accidentally left it on the table."

 

Moving forward to find happiness

Weinstein's national golf tour took him to Connecticut, where he met a couple of employees from Golf Digest.

"They happened to be terrible golfers, but they were IT guys," he said with a laugh. "They said they'd like to tell their editor about me." At the time, Weinstein said he was unable to talk about the crash because of a civil suit pending against Wellinger's employers.

A federal court jury Thursday declined to hold a driver's employer, UGS Corp., now Siemens, responsible for the Farmington Hills crash he caused. The plaintiffs argued that Thomas Wellinger was drunk and shouldn't have been allowed to drive himself to a doctor's appointment. But co-workers testified that Wellinger didn't look drunk.

With the case ending in December 2010, Weinstein's first-person story appeared in the May 2011 issue of Golf Digest, including a mention that he planned to play golf in 100 countries in 20 years.

"I had this vision that I had unlimited funds coming," Weinstein said. "But the lawsuit didn't quite work out, so I'm still committed to the venture."

From the Golf Digest article, he has, however, received a number of invitations to play, from clubs in South Africa, France, Switzerland and Belgium.

With his work at the store, his world travel and now a steady girlfriend, Gary Weinstein appears to have moved on. But when you suffer a tragedy as great as his, it is always present. What you decide is how you live with it.

And Gary Weinstein, now 54, has decided not only to live but to help Tom Wellinger live, too. "I want him to speak so that the world will know he's not a monster," Weinstein said. "My understanding is that he's not. I can appreciate that people who know what happened to me think I should be vindictive against him for what he did. But I don't come at it from that point at all."

Wellinger was sentenced to 19-30 years for three counts of second-degree murder. Initially, Weinstein thought that wasn't enough. But later, he signed documents agreeing not to block attempts for an early release.

Weinstein said his sole focus is "how to go forward and how to make a difference in the world."

"What happened was outrageous. It was obscene ... but now ... I live from happiness. There's always a smile on my face. It's almost like I was a fish in the water and didn't know I was in the water. Now, I'm much clearer about it."

Weinstein wants that for Wellinger's children. "I know they're in pain," he said. "I know they don't have the tools I have to move forward. ... They blame themselves for not taking action. I welcome a conversation or an embrace so they can move forward. I'm just that guy who can say to them that they don't need to hang onto that. They can live a life that they don't have to be ashamed of their father. ... It is just what happened. It is just what's so."

Marianne Williamson, the Los Angeles-based international author and self-awareness expert, said that forgiveness is about yourself as much as other people.

"What is growing among us, not only as individuals, but collectively, is a realization that it's necessary to forgive if we're to move on with our lives, if we're to begin again. Resentment is a toxin, and I think it was (writer and actor) Malachy McCourt who said that holding resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the other guy dies. ... You can be bitter or you can be better."

In the nearly seven years since his family disappeared in an instant, Gary Weinstein became ready for other things, as well. He called his high school prom date, Eileen Keegan, who was living in Las Vegas, and renewed their friendship. That turned into a simple, but complicated romance.

They do not plan to marry. She wears a diamond on her left ring finger to symbolize their commitment. But when Gary Weinstein's life ends, he said he will have had one wife and two sons, whose memories he carries on his left ring finger.

There, he wears three interconnected bands: one of pink gold for Judith, who dyed her brown hair red because he liked redheads; one of yellow gold for Alex, and one of white gold for Sam, "for purity."

Yes, Gary Weinstein knows who he is and how far he's come. He knows that the twists and turns are easier to maneuver when you aren't carrying the extra baggage of anger and resentment.

Forgiveness did that.

Thank you so much Rochelle Riley rriley99@freepress.com

http://www.freep.com/article/20120401/COL10/204010497/Man-who-lost-his-family-finds-forgiveness-gives-him-peace