Translator: Delia Cohen Reviewer: Cristina Bufi-Pöcksteiner
John Wetzel: Hope is such an important commodity in here,
but I think there's another commodity in here
that we as a society -
and maybe we as a department and maybe we as all of us people -
don't do real well,
and that's the notion of forgiveness.
I think somebody earlier talked about judging somebody from their worst day.
And we're really good at that front end of the piece,
but that back end of the piece -
forgiveness -
we're not so good at.
So to talk about that, it's my honor to introduce Heather Lavelle.
(Applause) (Cheers)
Heather Lavelle: Nine years ago,
as a result of depression, alcoholism, and drug addiction,
I killed a good friend of mine.
This isn't somebody whose name I didn't know before that night.
This was somebody I knew well, who I loved.
I knew his hopes and his dreams for the future.
I knew he loved me.
That's why this is so difficult.
How do you come back from this after committing such a horrible crime?
This is a story about the serendipity of events that led me on a journey
of self-discovery and, ultimately, self-forgiveness.
At one point in my life, I was successful in business.
I had graduated from college.
I came from a loving family, had supportive friends.
It all looked good from the outside, but there were chinks in the armor.
And when things started going wrong in my life,
I started to sink into a depression.
I hid it from everybody and started drinking heavily,
which made me more depressed.
I felt like I was living a double-life.
There was the me that my family saw, who didn't drink in front of them
and was successful, happy, kept up a good appearance.
Then there was the me who was full of anger and bitterness
and drank until I passed out every night.
My increasing level of depravity was fueled by drugs and alcohol.
I started letting the important things in my life slip,
and I couldn't hold it together anymore.
Those two worlds started crashing together,
and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
I started using cocaine, then smoking crack.
Once I was smoking crack, nothing else mattered.
My world became very small, dark.
My life no longer mattered to me, and neither did anybody else's.
All I'd ever known was using drugs and alcohol as a protective barrier
to insulate me from my emotions and shut down my feelings.
After my arrest, that protection was gone,
and I was left to face the reality of what I'd done.
I hated myself.
Coming back seemed impossible after becoming so evil.
I felt dead inside, like my soul was gone.
Once you're dead, where does the spark of life come from?
At this, the lowest point in my life,
God made his presence known to me in a powerful way.
Without his intervention,
I may not have ever been able to move on from that bleak point in my life.
I learned that the district attorney
was going to seek the death penalty in my case.
That sparked something inside of me.
For the first time in many years, I wanted to live.
It was really just an angry reaction.
How dare you think you can tell me when I'm going to die?
Whatever the reason, my life started to matter to me.
Not knowing if anyone would ever want to speak to me again,
I gathered the courage to call my mother.
Before I could say anything,
Mom said,
"Heather, you're my daughter and I love you.
I don't know what happened,
but you're my daughter and I will always love you."
I'll never forget that conversation for as long as I live.
It did something to me; it opened my heart.
When I called my father, he said,
"All you can do now is redeem your life."
Those words stuck with me.
This idea that my family had forgiven me and that God had forgiven me
began to allow me to move on.
It blew my mind that people were willing to forgive me
for something that I considered unforgivable.
I started to believe that maybe there was hope for me.
Over the next few years, people were placed in my life
for reasons that I couldn't understand at the time.
A lot of friends helped me along the way: some new, some old.
New friends like Ginger would listen to me cry in those early days
when I couldn't imagine telling anyone what I'd done.
Ginger was such a beautiful woman,
and I can remember telling her that she was so good
and I didn't want to contaminate her with the ugliness that was inside of me,
like a black ooze coating my insides.
Then there were old friends like Myrna, who I'd known from A.A. many years ago.
Myrna heard about my arrest and she contacted me.
And before she passed away, she worked the steps with me.
And she made sure that I was going to be okay,
by connecting me with other members of A.A.
My friends were helping me to come to terms with who I was,
my addiction, my childhood, all the other issues in my life.
But I was allowing a wall of denial to build up around my crime
and why I was in prison.
It was easy to allow people to think it was all my co-defendants' fault.
I didn't correct people when they made that assumption.
It wasn't until I participated in a violence prevention group,
that that wall of denial started to crumble.
That group made me confront the reality of who I am and what I'd done.
I would say, "I'm not a violent person."
And they would say, "But you committed a violent crime."
I began meeting with a psychologist, regularly.
At first, I couldn't even say my victim's name,
but I knew I had to face what I'd done.
It was time to come to terms with my past.
Somewhere along the way, I made the decision
to do the hard work necessary to come to terms with my past
even though it was one of the most difficult things I'd ever done.
I stopped brushing aside the psychologist's suggestions,
and I began actually doing the work.
I did the work of facing my guilt and shame.
I talked about how I got to that point in my life.
I talked about how I could assure myself
that I would never arrive at that point again.
I journaled about my feelings and things I wanted to say to my victim.
I talked about the events of that night
and of the preceding days in excruciating detail.
I had to experience that night from my victim's perspective.
It was gut-wrenching work, but necessary for my survival.
The pain and anguish were killing me.
I had to come to a place of acceptance.
I could no longer pretend
that the part of me that committed this horrible, violent act
didn't exist.
After years of not feeling worthy to address my victim's family,
I wrote them a letter.
Mailing that letter freed something in me.
It allowed me to start sharing about my experience.
When women come to me with their guilt, shame, and remorse,
I can tell them about how much writing that letter helped me
and encourage them to start doing the work necessary
to put themselves in a position to write a similar letter.
I would never have been able to write such an honest, introspective letter,
had I not done all the work that led up to it.
I met a man who had forgiven his son's killer.
I was amazed that anyone could have such a capacity for forgiveness.
Meeting him has allowed me
to express my thoughts and my feelings about my crime.
He symbolizes my victim's family, who I may never get the chance to meet.
I've been able to talk about what I did, why I did it,
how it made me feel then, and how it makes me feel now.
He told me that it's okay to ask for forgiveness.
He also told me that I live my life as if I've forgiven myself.
He's right.
I no longer hold back out of guilt and shame.
I care about the people in my life.
My physical, mental, and spiritual health are valuable to me.
Life is precious.
I'm engaged in life, and I live with intention and deliberateness.
I have hope for the future.
I'm not the same person I used to be.
Forgiving myself doesn't mean that I forget.
I could never forget.
What I did is a part of me, but I can move on.
I don't have to remain stuck for the rest of my life.
I believe that something more than luck or fate
has placed all these people in my life.
They're all woven into my journey of self-discovery and forgiveness.
Each of them, placed in my life at the exact time I needed them,
has offered support, guidance, compassion, strength, wisdom,
and forgiveness in their own way.
All of them are like threads woven into the tapestry of my life.
Each thread woven at the right time and in the right place
to form a unique and beautiful design.
You can come back from such an unimaginable low point.
I'm living proof.
Ladies and gentlemen, don't ever give up on yourself,
no matter how broken you are.
Create your own path of healing and redemption.
May God bless you.
I am Heather Lavelle.
(Applause) (Cheers)