Jimmy's Story

This is a story of forgiveness. I believe that unless we are able to forgive…let go of the pain and the negative feelings that are caused by someone’s trespass upon us, be it love lost or something worse, we carry that burden into every aspect of our lives.

Once we do forgive, however, whatever it was that person did to us remains, but how that person’s actions affect us in the long term is then largely determined by choice. We can easily hold hatred close to our hearts (and some people can do this indefinitely), or we can choose to let it go.

Carrying the burden of hatred uses up so much energy, that it wears us down, but, what does it achieve? It has no effect on the person who these negative feelings are directed towards. In fact, the only ones affected are ourselves, and the ones who feel our pain….those closest to us.

The more hate a person harbours, the less love they are able to give.

Hate is a cancer of the soul, and the only cure is to allow negative feelings caused by hate to be set free…to forgive.

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By far the hardest person I have ever had to forgive was me.

When I was seventeen, my best friend, Jimmy, and I stole a car...taking it for a joy ride. We had been drinking at a party, and as we were leaving, I noticed a car with the keys in the ignition. I said to Jimmy we should take it. He was a year younger than me and looked up to me. He said he didn’t want to, and upon hearing this, I called him a pussy. And rather than have me think of him that way, he agreed to steal the car with me.

I was driving, and we had been travelling for about ten minutes when he reached across my chest and pulled my seat belt down, clicking it into place. However, he did not do this for himself. Within a couple of minutes, I lost control of the vehicle, sliding across the centre of the road before hitting an embankment on the other side. The car rolled several times, but thanks to my friend's decision to do up my seat belt, I was saved. Unfortunately, he was thrown from the vehicle and died as a result of his injuries.

It had always been a mystery to me why he didn’t do up his own seat belt…and why he did mine…like he knew.

About a year earlier, we went together to get our first tattoos. I got eagles on my chest and he, a skull and crossbones on his forearm, with the words...Live Hard Die Young.

I carried the guilt of his death, and about a year after he died, I attempted suicide, never truly being able to forgive myself. And, I didn’t think I ever would until I held my twin daughters for the first time. That’s when I figured out why he had saved my life, but not his own…because if anything had changed in the past, those girls would never have come into existence. And, at that moment, I forgave myself.

I made sure that they knew of him and are aware of his sacrifice...so that they could live.

It took the miracle of bringing life into this world to somehow make up for the life I took…and from something so tragic, there came something good.