DailyGood

For the last 27 years, DailyGood newsletters have offered a daily email that inspires you to respond to life with creativity and kindness. To join a community of 149,669 subscribers, subscribe here.

Jun 21, 2009

"Only the brave know how to forgive; it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at." --Laurence Sterne

A Twelve Year Old's Forgiveness

The 12-year-old boy paralyzed by a robber's stray bullet as he was taking a piano lesson in Oakland last year had a message for the gunman Tuesday:"I forgive you." Christopher Rodriguez delivered his words after rolling in his wheelchair to the front of the Oakland courtroom where Jared Adams, 26, had just been sentenced to 70 years to life in prison. Then he shook the convicted man's hand. "I don't know where that came from," Christopher's mother, Jennifer Rodriguez, said later. "We didn't talk about it or plan it. It came from within himself."