Forgiveness

She was a year ahead of me in school, a tall, dark-haired beauty of a girl who loved horses and had a unique sense of style. In her final year of school she designed and made a dress that won her the inter-school needlework competition, with professional photos taken of her modelling her creation.

Her mom and my mom were good friends. They'd commute to Cape Town together each day, talking deep life subjects.

We got the call one Friday night, late.

Lindi and friends had been at a pub in Cape Town when a group of armed men attacked - freedom fighters that were out to kill whites in retaliation for apartheid. Lindi and three others died.

We were in shock. How does one respond to something like this? Lindi was just out of school, hadn't oppressed anyone under apartheid, was hardly old enough to fully understand what it was - and yet she had been killed.

Understandably, her family was deeply wounded. Her father still finds it hard to talk about, many years later. Lindi's model photos were the ones chosen for her funeral - the images many of us still remember so clearly when we hear her name.

And yet, through pain, there can be healing. Lindi's mother Ginn has found it. And the man who ordered the attack has received forgiveness.

Yesterday he was on our campus, as he launched a book of poetry. Together with Ginn, Letlapa has co-founded the Lindi Fourie Foundation (see p8, pdf file). They are working together to show that reconciliation is possible, in the direst of circumstances. Such forgiveness is rare, is awe-inspiring.

I don't know that I would be able to show such forgiveness, to take the hand of my daughter's killer and create something beautiful from the horror. I don't think I have the strength in me. Lindi's dad doesn't - he refuses to forgive.

But if Ginn can forgive such a great wrong, with such grace, surely I can forgive the little ones in my life?