Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002

by David Sedaris

Oprah had a show about people who have forgiven the unforgivable. One girl forgave the fellow who stabbed her twenty times and then stabbed her father, a minister, to death. She had pleaded for a stay of execution, as had the man whose grandmother was stabbed to death by a gang of teenage girls. I remember when that case was all over the news. The grandmother who was murdered taught a Bible studies class. A woman on the panel forgave the man who killed her son while driving drunk on Christmas Eve. He’s a frequent visitor at her home now. There were two other guests, a woman who would never forgive the man who raped and drowned her sister, and a black woman who was shot in the stomach by gang members who then molested her daughter. She said she could hear the girl crying out, and Oprah said, “Did you help her?” “No,” the woman said, perhaps feeling put on the spot. “I was shot and bleeding profusely.” She explained that she still has a bullet lodged in her kidney and doesn’t see the sense in forgiving anybody. “Hate is what’s kept me alive,” she said.