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Aug 11, 2006

"The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves." --Eric Hoffer

A Grieving Mother's Incredible Compassion

As the fourteen year old L'mani Delima apologized for pulling the trigger of a .38-caliber pistol five times and killing 12-year-old Phoenix Garrett, the victim's mother had one request for the judge: "Can I hug him, please?" The mother of the Harlem child, Jacqueline Birkett-Johnson, wanted the young man to know he could change the direction of his life. "I wanted him to know before he left that Phoenix's family felt compassion for him," said the grieving mom, an eighth-grade teacher at a Bronx public school. "We are not going to forget what has happened, [but] we want to forgive him."