How Forgiveness Changed One Man’s Life After Tragedy
The following is an excerpt from “The Gift of Forgiveness” by Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt, copyright 2020. Reprinted with permission from Pamela Dorman Books/Viking.
Chris Williams
On the evening of February 9, 2007, Chris Williams went out for dessert with his wife and their three youngest children. Within the hour, his life would be changed forever. As he and his family drove back home, Chris recalls seeing a car speeding down the hill, coming directly toward them. He tried to swerve out of the way, but they were struck with tremendous force by the oncoming car. He recalls hearing the deafening sound of the impact. Once the car had come to a stop, there was a deadly silence. As he looked over at his motionless wife in the passenger seat, he knew she was gone. He struggled to turn around to see if his children in the backseat were okay. He looked at his son and daughter, both not moving, and knew in that instant that they, too, were both gone. While he couldn’t see his other son, he had a feeling that he was going to be okay. As he turned back to the front of the car, he looked at his life‑less wife, pregnant with their unborn child. He was numb with shock, unable to process what had just happened. He closed his eyes, feeling helpless and hopeless; the pain was unimaginable, and he wished he could die, too. Then he opened his eyes and saw the other car that had just hit him. He was suddenly overcome by a strange sense of peace. Despite the horror of the moment, he already knew that he would forgive the other driver.
While many of us would find it impossible to forgive someone who has taken so much from us, Chris knew that he had a choice to make. He recalls, “The one thing that nobody can take away is our ability to decide how we react to those situations. Was I going to go down the path that I knew wouldn’t give me justice, wouldn’t give me closure, wouldn’t bring my family back? If anything, that path could actually poison the remaining family that I had with anger and vengeance. Or could I make a choice to let all of that go and choose to be healed in another way?”
Just as Chris had his own way of coping with the tragedy, so did the people around him. His mother had a very difficult time moving on from the sudden loss of her grandchildren and daughter‑in‑law. Right after the accident, he says his mother was unable to forgive. “She wanted vengeance. Whenever there was a parole hearing, she wanted me there, though I would never go.” Chris’s mother had to feel what it was like not to let it go. She learned that, for her, withholding forgiveness “starts to destroy you, it starts to eat you up. She finally realized, ‘This is not for me, I can’t do this.’” People often hold on to anger, thinking it will somehow heal their pain. Realizing that doing so just leaves them stuck in the midst of the trauma, unable to heal—that’s when they turn to the only hope left for them: forgiveness. Being able to extend compassion despite suffering and loss has helped Chris cope with his pain. Holding on to anger is like keeping the wound fresh and open; you never give it the chance to heal.
Choosing the path of forgiveness gave Chris and his family peace. It also helped restore the life of the young man who had been driving the other car. His name was Cameron. For Chris, forgiveness was the only choice that would allow him to reclaim his life. He knew that seeking revenge would leave him locked in a never‑ending cycle of anger and resentment. “Going down a path of anger or vengeance or desire for retribution—there’s no happy ending down that path. It may make me feel good for a while, but it doesn’t bring the people back. It doesn’t make the pain and anguish go away. It just feeds into a poisoned atmosphere of anger and injustice.”
Forgiveness wasn’t easy. It was a constant struggle. As Chris describes it, “I found that this desire to let it go was like a battle, minute by minute. I’d say to myself, ‘If I could do this for five more minutes, and then the next five . . .’ Over time, it became a little easier to do. Gradually, I developed a greater ability to let it go. It’s like an athlete getting better at the sport they’re practicing.” The ability to forgive gets easier as time goes by and you have a chance to develop what Chris calls “your forgiveness muscle.”
Chris sees forgiveness not as an obligation, but as a gift: “I believe it’s the greatest gift you can give yourself. It’s your ability to regain control when you experience something that seems to take every choice away from you. It’s an opportunity to feel relief when you might be in the most horrific pain. The person who forgives ultimately gets 100 percent of the benefit.”
Forgiveness also helped restore the life of the driver of the other car. He says he always wanted what was best for Cameron, the young man who’d caused the accident. Amazingly, Cameron’s health and well‑being were always on Chris’s mind, from the moment they were rushed into the emergency room. Chris remembers being in the ER and repeatedly asking about Cameron’s status, even as he struggled with his own anguish. “Whenever I felt angry or sad, I didn’t want to direct it at him, because that would bring him back into my life. What I wanted was the ability to go through those emotions, as powerful as they are, with my family and my friends and my loved ones.” By channeling his grief away from its source and toward the support of his family and friends, Chris was able to let go of the trauma and deepen the bonds with the people he loved the most.
The secret to Chris’s extraordinary ability to forgive lies in a burden that he has carried throughout his life—one that he knew Cameron would have to carry, too. When Chris was sixteen years old, he was driving to work one morning when he struck a young boy who had run out into the street. The boy was taken to the hospital. After clinging to life for several days, the boy died. Although there was nothing he could have done to prevent the accident, Chris has been tormented by the boy’s death ever since. The boy’s family was kind toward Chris after the accident, even writing him a letter attempting to relieve him of his guilt. Despite their understanding, Chris still suffered from the guilt of having taken a life. Decades later, when he lost his own family, he instantly felt empathy for Cameron. He knew that he and Cameron would now struggle beneath twin burdens: Chris would carry the grief of losing his wife and children, and Cameron would carry the guilt of having cut those lives short. But from the beginning, Chris found solace in empathy. Their shared burden became a bond between Chris and Cameron that helped each heal as they moved forward.
Chris didn’t want the accident to consume Cameron’s life; he wanted him to live a life of purpose. In one of their meetings, Cameron asked him, “After everything I did to your family, how can you forgive me?” Understanding the young man’s pain and wanting him to move on, Chris asked Cameron to pick a date by which time he would have let it go.
Chris’s forgiveness was inspired in part by his faith, something he could always fall back on when he needed reassurance. He knew that his wife and kids were in heaven, and he was guided by what he felt they would want for him. “My faith tradition is that they live on. In a sense, I felt like I was being watched. And I felt that they wanted me to be happy. If I got angry, my wife would suddenly appear and the first thing out of her mouth would be, ‘What are you doing? Why are you sad? Why are you angry? We’re okay. Move forward, and be happy. We’ll all be together again.’” Thinking of his wife served as a constant reminder that choosing to forgive was the only way he could live.
Being able to trust in his faith allowed Chris to come to an understanding about the accident that had changed his life forever. Reflecting, he said, “Sometimes those tragedies, those trials that come into our lives, even if it’s accidental—God has a way of taking that, and with his grace, making something amazing from it. Then it becomes the bedrock of a foundational experience in our lives that leads us on to greater heights.”
For most of us, the process of forgiveness might seem impossible in the moment we need it most. Some of us may take months to get there, others years, and some may never be able to forgive. When I asked Chris if he had advice for people who felt like they might not be able to forgive, he said, “I would remind them to give yourself permission to grow. It’s okay to give yourself permission to be on that journey forward. Don’t expect to already be at the destination. Don’t expect to immediately understand forgiveness.” The same permission Chris gave himself helped him guide his own children in their struggle toward forgiveness. As he told me, “I think they really appreciated the fact that I was there for them throughout the journey, and it wasn’t like I was expecting them to get to some destination immediately or expecting perfection.” Everyone gets to forgiveness in their own way and in their own time. We need to be gentle with ourselves and kind to one another. Everyone will have moments when they need to feel supported—moments when they feel most alone.
Chris says that, for him, forgiveness is a practice. “It’s really a way of living that says, ‘I am going to retain control over my choices regardless of what others might do or say to me.’ It is something you have to practice every single day so that you stay true to it.” It is Chris’s faith in the power of forgiveness that carried him through unimaginable tragedy, and restored his path to hope.
Chris’s extraordinary story taught me a powerful lesson about forgiveness: the pain we carry from old wounds can open us to the pain of others. Our past mistakes can make us more empathetic, and old losses can make us more compassionate. Our struggles remind us of our humanity and make us capable of transcendent acts of kindness toward others, and ourselves.
