Forgiveness
On the morning of Sunday, November 8, 1987, Irishman Gordon Wilson and his 28-year-old daughter, Marie, went to watch a parade in the town of Enniskillen, Northern Ireland. As they stood beside a brick wall waiting for units of British soldiers and police to come marching by, an IRA terrorist bomb exploded behind them.
A half-dozen people were killed instantly by the blast, and Gordon and his daughter were buried several feet deep beneath a pile of bricks. Gordon could feel injuries to his shoulder and arm, but was unable to move. Then he felt someone touch his fingers.
"Is that you, Dad?" Marie whispered. "Yes, Marie," her father answered. He heard the muffled sounds of people screaming from pain, and then the much clearer sound of Marie's screams, he squeezed her hand tightly, repeatedly asking her if she was all right. Between her screams of pain, she repeatedly assured her father that she was okay.
"Daddy, I love you very much," were the last words Gordon Wilson heard his daughter say. Four hours later, after they were finally rescued, she died in a hospital from massive brain and spinal injuries.
Later that evening, a BBC reporter asked to speak with Gordon. After he described what had happened, the reporter asked him, "How do you feel about the guys who planted the bomb?"
"I bear them no ill will," Gordon replied. "I bear them no grudge. Bitter talk is not going to bring Marie Wilson back to life. I shall pray tonight and every night that God will forgive them." In the ensuing months, many people asked Gordon, who eventually became a senator in the Republic of Ireland, how he could forgive such a murderous act of hatred.
"I was hurt," Gordon said. "I had just lost my daughter. But I wasn't angry. Marie's last words to me - words of love - had put me on a plane of love. I received God's grace, through the strength of His love for me, to forgive." For years after the tragedy that took his daughter's life and almost his own, Gordon Wilson worked for peace in Northern Ireland.
Turning Points
Page 9
March 2006