(Note: This entry is explicitly graphic and disturbing. The names and identities of those involved have been obscured but the events described are unfortunately very real. If you want to avoid unbelievably heartbreaking emotion that has potential to ruin your mood and outlook on humanity, I’d advise against reading any further.)

I shouldn’t have looked for answers. I know better than to ask questions I don’t want the answers to.

I’ve written to a woman in prison for a while. This troubles my husband because he feels it puts our lives in danger somehow, even though I’m writing to her under a penname. I’ve assured him that the woman isn’t looking for monetary donations (one of the only reasons I chose to correspond with her versus other inmate applicants), she is in custody miles and miles from here, and, besides, she is sentenced to life in prison without a chance for parole.

I enjoy speaking with her for a number of reasons. She is engaging and optimistic and brilliant. She loves to talk about literature and philosophy and I always enjoy hearing her perspectives on hope and optimism, given the circumstances of her life. She is by no means a hero to me but, for someone who has a tendency toward contemplating giving up in her darkest moments, it is helpful for me to hear what inspires people to keep going when, to an outside observer, it would seem that she would have nothing left to live for. She loves to talk about her children and has illustrated to me the various hardships in her life that contributed to her enormous pile of mental anguish and regrets. As I promised in my first letter, I have never discussed with her the conditions of her incarceration or the cause for such an extreme sentencing.

I sensed that this was a horrible idea when the Google bar filled in the rest of her name before I’d even finished typing. Clearly what this woman had committed had not gone unnoticed by the media. In shock, I read dozens of the stories printed years ago regarding her crime and sentencing, hoping they weren’t true but realizing that everything lined up her descriptions and the facts described by the press. I had hoped that this woman had committed something that I could at least understand, something I could possibly sympathize with if only from a very far distance. I knew that a woman who was sentenced to life in prison indicated that she had done something very very bad, I just did not see this one coming.

She has told me about her first marriage to an older, wealthier man and how this ex-husband was abusive toward her and her two children. What she did not tell me was that, when he was awarded sole custody of their third child, a 3-year-old boy, she took a .12 guage rifle and shot the toddler in the head while he was watching television.

I couldn’t stop sobbing. Immediately I ran to where my daughter was playing on the living room floor and cradled her in my arms, whispering, “I love you. I will never let anyone hurt you.” while she struggled to return to her toys. I tried to explain to my husband why I was so heartbroken, I found I was unable to say the words out loud to tell him what this woman I was in correspondence with had done to her own child.

According to police accounts, she had called the paramedics immediately after it had happened and, after sobbing in hysterics for hours, had gone into complete shock after the incident. A modern day Medea, she was unable to talk about what she had done but nodded her head as a formal confession in the interrogation room. She sat through trial and went to prison without speaking a single word other than to answer the questions of her prosecutor. She never resisted her arrest, her sentencing, her fate.

Now comes the part where I am torn and at an obvious moral empass. My immediate reaction is to cease communications with this woman altogether, horrified and heartbroken at the actions she was capable of in her past. My first instinct is always to recoil from those whose actions I find unforgivable and disgusting, to judge them as a person unfit for any hope or compassion from anyone, whose life is not worth living.

However, all the great leaders that I claim to admire so adamantly advocated and practiced a lifestyle that was completely different. Jesus proudly walked with prostitutes, thieves, drunks and other sinners that society shunned and had no value for. The Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King, and Gandhi spoke about forgiveness and compassion toward every living thing, no matter their evil intentions or actions. In one of my favorite quotes, Mother Teresa proclaimed, “”People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Love them anyway.” These are all people whose lives and actions I admire and hope to emulate. I recognize that they acted from Love and not Fear, something I constantly talk about practicing every day. What sort of giant hypocrite would I be if I blatantly, consciously made the decision to act in opposition of this mentality? I realize that I am not Jesus or the Dalai Lama or any of these other earth-moving humanitarians; I may never have the inner peace, strength and faith that they stand for and I probably will never change and influence the world as much as any of them. But I cannot feel anger and despair toward the Fear-based habits of society and people as a whole if I am only perpetuating these actions. This is the one aspect of humanity that I do have control over, that I can change and push things forward with. I would be betraying my beliefs entirely and working against the progress I wholeheartedly desire if I was to deny the responsibility and privilege I have of contributing to forward motion and progression.

This, of course, comes as the Universe’s immediate retaliation for the smug judgment I admitted to in my previous blog entry. Although I consciously knew it at the time and had even admitted to my flinging humility by the wayside to feel superior to women whose Crazy was ruining their lives, I knew, also, that I am not ever the ultimate Judge of any one person’s life or worth. Today’s new information was the grounding smack in the face I needed. No matter the level of Crazy that someone else is capable of, no matter how horrible and unfathomable their actions may be, no person is any less deserving of Love and compassion than I. If I believe that every human has the potential to be a tool and messenger for God, then I have to allow myself to share that with people, too. I don’t believe that I as a person have the ability to save anyone’s soul or change anyone at all, nor do I have the capacity to ultimately forgive someone for their actions or lifestyle. But, because I recognize Spirit as a Higher Power who works through everything he’s created, I have a responsibility to practice Love as a representative of His power and creation. This, I believe, is our role as people in accordance with the world and its inhabitants.

So, fighting this horrified Fear that consumes me, I will continue to write this woman who is a brutal murderer of her own child. Her actions terrify and repulse me and fill my heart with grief and fear, but I am not the Judge of her worth and I owe it to myself and everyone around me to suck up some humility and realize that. I will continue to treat her like a person who deserves hope and optimism, whose life is worthwhile and capable of rehabilitation, who is loved and valued by a Higher Power. I will work to speak with her as I’ve always done and find positive, redeemable potential characteristics in her and I will work every day not to recoil and misrepresent my core beliefs because of my own selfish Fear and desire for judgment.

But Jesus… When the Universe has a hard lesson for me/my growth, it pulls out every fucking stop to knock me on my ass. I don’t know if I can deal with much worse just yet. It’ll make me think twice about opening my big mouth so brazenly.