FORGIVENESS

by MONITOR
At a time when there is so much synthetic emotion about in Britain, the example set by the mother of the murdered black teenager Anthony Walker, following the conviction of his young white killers on Wednesday, should not pass unnoticed. Gee Walker and her son were both religious and this was reflected in her feelings and her words: “He loved coming to church; he was a godly person. He was very serious about that. he had a passion for basketball and a seriousness about the things of God. Anthony was my prayer partner, we prayed together. He was in training to be a good man. So when it came to making decisions in the home we made them together. We talked about it because he was 18 and I was preparing him to be a good husband and a good father, and he would have been. All that is gone now. For instance, he would wash up on a Tuesday night. He was one of the few who would commit himself to that chore. On Tuesday night now no one can wash up. He would mow the lawn on a Thursday. Now, none of us can mow the lawn. There is this massive absence in the house, this massive long pause. And we think, “When is this going to end.?” I go into the kitchen and I make his tea. I'm counting out the potatoes, one, two, three, and I'm still putting a potato in for him. I'm still doing it. I still put an extra meal aside which no one will touch. No one dares to say who it belongs to because we all know whose it is. We will never get over this. Someone has taken a piece of my heart. How do you mend a broken heart? You can't mend a broken heart.” Mrs Gee also spoke about her son's killers: ”At the point of death, Jesus said: “I forgive them, they don't know what they do.” I've got to forgive them, I still forgive them. My family and I stand by what we believe, forgiveness. It will be difficult but we have no choice, but to live on for Anthony. Each of us will take a piece of him and we'll carry on his life.”