Dear Matthew
This letter remains unseen by the driver whom I will never fully name. I don't believe that public shaming is the way forward.
Since 2020 I have explored Restorative Justice more than once, but for today there are seemingly too many steps to go ahead.
Restorative Justice to me means sitting across the table and reading this letter aloud.
For today, I continue to live with this, 'somewhere out in the world there is a young man who could be my son. I've never met him, but he was the first to see Mark's dead body.'
What is justice?? How does one navigate betrayal by systems that don't do their part to make another accountable? For example, when a Press Release contains more than one error and Statutes expire so that there is no record of negligence that resulted in the death of another?
Once again, I release all involved. That's how this dance goes....
January 18, 2019
Dear Matthew,
On Monday I received the Engineering
report and reconstruction of the collision between you and my husband
Mark. On Tuesday January 15th, the 4th
anniversary of Mark’s death, I sat with a trauma counselor to debrief it. Finally, Mark is honoured. The truth has set me free.
Today I set you free. The
space that you have occupied will now be taken up by love. Mark’s love.
Today I will no longer travel down the
road of revenge. I will not continue to slowly die inside because of my desire
for you to feel my pain. The pain of shattered
dreams, widowhood and, even greater, the pain of watching my son without his
dad. Having lost his own father at age
7, Mark set an intentional goal for his son to know him. That is how he lived his life. Invested in us.
I have wrestled with, ‘what will it
take’ to make my pain go away? How many tickets? Jail time? A scar on your soul
that won’t heal? Today I realized that you can’t possibly feel our pain. You didn’t have the privilege of being loved
by or loving Mark.
After Mark was killed, I found it hard
to sit still. Perhaps you saw me running
through the neighbourhood in Tall Timbers.
While running by your cul-de-sac I sensed the Spirit of Love whom I know
as God saying, ‘He is my son even if he doesn’t know it’. I wrestled with this for a long time; I
didn’t want you in the same group as me.
But it’s true. We share this
common thread of being human and trying to find our way through this thing
called life. God also gave me a tender
heart towards you, knowing that you were a young man who could have been my
son.
Today I release you into the hands of the
Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of Love, whom I know as God. I
can’t imagine the pain that you’ve experienced.
Perhaps you’ve buried it. If that’s true, I hope you find help and
healing and whatever you need to set yourself free.
In the trauma unit, after I identified
Mark’s body, I experienced what I could only call “God” using me to get a
message to you. If I recall correctly, I
asked this message to be relayed, ‘we won’t blame you for the rest of your life.
Mark wouldn’t want that’. I experienced
this as a message of forgiveness, of setting you free. More importantly, of
setting myself free. I have had to
wrestle it out with God, especially since the RCMP seemed to magically erase
any sense of negligence on your part.
Once again, I set you free despite how the events unfolded following the
collision. In turn, I free myself to find my way through the brutal and
beautiful in life.
I see today as a new beginning as we
each walk forward. I don’t like the
saying that things happen for a reason.
I do see that unimaginable suffering can be used to shape us, if we
allow it. We get to choose if we will
live better or bitter. Today I walk away
from bitterness and choose life.
Lastly, I respect that your spiritual
views might be very different than mine, but I leave you with one thought…what
if it’s true? That you have a Creator, a
Father who says, without shame, “This is my son Matthew, whom I love.” I truly hope that you get to experience this
kind of love and the mature kind of love that comes from navigating seasons of
life with a partner by your side. Mark
and I shared over 30 years together.
May the same courage that it took to
stay at the scene help you find your way to wholeness and healing.
Sincerely,
Lynda Janson
Widow of N. Mark Janson, “Mark”. Husband, Father, Son, Brother, Friend.
Delta Fire Captain #130
