When I was shot at
I chose to remove myself
rather than to stay
Cori MacNaughton
. . . continued from yesterday's post.
Please note that this post may be triggering for some who have undergone trauma in the past.
Another inspirational story I read on compassion and forgiveness was included in the incredible book "Man's Search for Meaning," by Viktor Frankl, who was incarcerated at Auschwitz during World War II. Like most of those imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps, Frankl had committed no crime, but was imprisoned simply for being Jewish.
When one day, as part of Hitler's "final solution," Frankl was forcibly castrated without benefit of anesthesia or painkillers; rather than giving into anger or hatred for his treatment, Frankl chose to view his captors with compassion, realizing that they felt that they had no choice in the matter, but must simply follow orders.
In that circumstance, he saw that they were in reality more imprisoned than he was, even though he was being physically restrained, because he still had the freedom of his own mind, whereas their minds had been taken over by the Fuhrer.
Frankl's decision to view his captors with compassion, and to forgive them for their actions even as they were committing them against his person, had a profound effect on me growing up, and has informed my views on compassion and forgiveness ever since.
One day, when I was twenty, I arrived early to work, and stopped across the street at a 7/11 to buy a small carton of milk. I knew it would be a couple of hours before I would get a chance to eat anything. I worked at the Carnation Company world headquarters, on Wilshire Boulevard, and they had a break cart that would go around at 9:30.
As I walked into the shop, I noticed a group of school children waiting for the light to change, so that they could cross the street. I went inside, purchased my milk, and went back outside.
I got into the car, started the engine, looked over my shoulder to reverse out of the parking space, and the window beside my head exploded. I hit the floor of the car immediately, and I remember looking up at the window, which was completely spiderwebbed, apart from about a six-inch hole slightly to the right of center.
I stayed where I was for several moments, but when I realized that no more shots had been fired, I opened the door, at which point the glass above the hole fell apart. Which is when I got mad. My car was in the shop with a transmission problem. I had borrowed my dad's car and now I had to tell him that some jerk had just shot out his window.
I walked back into the 7/11, and asked if anyone had seen or heard anything, which, naturally, no one had. I briefly glanced to where the children had been standing, wondering whether any of them had seen anything, and also concerned that they might have been injured or frightened, but they were long gone.
And then I called the police. And, as I stood outside the 7/11, speaking to the officer on call, I felt very exposed. That it was a gunshot I had no doubt. Though not as common as it would later become, random drive-by shootings were not unknown in the L.A. area, and a friend of mine in Venice had recently told me of one that had taken place in front of a cafe in his neighborhood in broad daylight.
I also felt quite belittled, as the officer suggested that heat buildup inside the car might have caused the window to blow outward, despite the fact that I had already told him that I had exited the car, and had just gotten back into the car when the window exploded -- inward. There was glass all over the dashboard, the seats and the floor of the car. It had not exploded outward.
Not to mention what that sort of heat buildup would have done to me physically, had it been extreme enough to cause the car window to explode; that kind of heat would kill anyone in the car long before the window exploded.
Additionally, for a car window to explode simply because of heat is exceedingly rare, even during the hottest weather, and this was a relatively cool morning. There is also the logical assumption that, had it been really hot, I would have rolled the windows down. Imbecile.
Next I called my boss, told her what had happened, and told her that if she wanted to, she could probably see me in the parking lot across the street as I waited for the police to arrive. She told me to take as much time as I needed, and she did say later that she had seen me talking to them, as she had taken some papers for a manager to sign on that side of the building.
Then came the call I was dreading, as I called my dad, and told him about the damage to his car. And, being a good dad, he didn't give a damn about the car, but wanted to make triple sure that I was really okay, and didn't need him to come and get me. And I reassured him that my worst injury was a scratch from a tiny piece of flying safety glass, and that despite what happened, I still had to go to work. Which, after we ended the call, is precisely what I did.
I did find it interesting that the police officer who responded to my call found no trace of a bullet, though I later found a piece of one, which turned out to be a .357 magnum hollow point. Whoever shot at me was serious.
Even more surprising to me, he recommended that I not go home, although I couldn't think of anyone who would shoot at me, and he allowed that it was possibly random. He also advised me to avoid whomever I was dating, as they were the most likely suspect, which considering the perfectly nice man I was dating at the time, I found highly implausible.
So at lunch time, I called my next-door-neighbor, who I had given a key to my house, and asked if she would watch my dog Ebony for the weekend, which she agreed to do. I then called the man I was dating, told him what had happened, and asked if he would mind if I stayed the weekend, and he immediately said that I could stay as long as I felt I needed to.
In retrospect, not surprisingly, although I had already been toying with the idea of moving up the coast to attend UC Santa Cruz, that was the day I firmly decided to leave Los Angeles. I strongly felt that, should I stay, I would become a statistic. Not high on my list.
A week later, to the day, a woman was shot and killed in her car, while waiting for the light to change at that same intersection.
A few months later, while still working there, a coworker (whom I did not know) failed to show up for work one day. When her boss couldn't reach her, she called the young woman's apartment complex to ask if they would check on her. They discovered her body, as she had evidently been killed a couple of days before, evidently by someone that she had let into her apartment.
As with the serial killers when I was a kid, it was part of the collective conscious of our whole company, at least among those of us who worked at the world headquarters, and we all felt vulnerable; particularly the women.
In later years, as a young and relatively attractive woman, I was stalked three times; once in California, and twice in Tampa Bay. And the police and sheriff departments are not helpful to a woman being stalked. Their hands are tied until an actual crime is committed, at which point, it may well be too late.
So do I forgive the person who shot at me, and the one who killed my coworker? Yes. Happy, well-adjusted people do not commit such crimes; they are typically committed by people who suffered severe trauma in childhood, and/or are suffering from extreme mental illness.
And no, I am not suggesting that this in any way exonerates them for their actions, or that legal means to stop them should not be pursued. Far from it. In all such cases, if guilty, I think they should be prevented from committing such crimes again, and I consider life sentences to be entirely reasonable.
And, for me, it goes beyond human offenders, and includes the animal world.
As a SCUBA diver, and sometime hiker, I have long told friends and family that, should I be attacked and/or killed by a wild animal, I do NOT want anyone hunting down said animal; I want them to be left the hell alone.
I absolutely love sharks, cougars, wolves, bears, and all other animals even theoretically able to kill humans, and although that is not the way I would prefer to go out, if it happens, I'm okay with it. I was most likely in their territory at the time, as I highly doubt that any wild predator is going to knock on my door in order to eat me, unless of course it's a CandyGram. ;-)
The bottom line, for me, is that forgiveness is far more for my own benefit than it is for the person I forgive, who in many, if not most cases, will never be aware that I have forgiven them for anything.
By forgiving them from my heart, and even by simply being willing to forgive, in case I'm not quite able to do so yet, I free myself, and transform the energies of pain, grief, anger, resentment, etc., into true and lasting healing.
Forgiving is the ultimate action of the Golden Rule, to truly treat others as we wish for them to treat us, and frankly, to earn our own respect by doing so, and to know our Oneness, deeply and fully.
A refusal to forgive is, really and truly, a refusal to forgive self, and is at some level the choice to remain in pain and suffering. I've never known anyone hanging on to a refusal to forgive for whom this has not been true, though I am well aware that this is far easier for someone else to see in us, than it is for us to see it in ourselves, from inside our own pain.
And, certainly, there may be exceptions of which I am not aware. But the fact remains that refusing to forgive is suffering that is self-inflicted. And true forgiveness brings much more than simple relief.
And I would love to hear your take in the comments.
To Our Mockingbird - Day 113 - Daily Haiku
To Write a Haiku - Day 112 - Daily Haiku - Photography
Cinco de Mayo - Day 111 - Daily Haiku - architecturalphotography
Six Years in This Place - Day 110 - Daily Haiku - Smartphone Photography
Feeling the Essence - Day 109 - Daily Haiku - Smartphone Photography
I Am So Grateful - Day 108 - Daily Haiku - Smartphone Photography
Sitting by the Fire - Day 107 - Daily Haiku - Smartphone Photography
Remember Always - Day 106 - Daily Haiku - Smartphone Photography
Spring Flowers Are Here - Day 105 - Daily Haiku - Landscape Photography on our farm
Only in the South - Day 104 - Daily Haiku - Original Photography, funny
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I took this photo of the blue and white irises by our back porch earlier today, using my Samsung Galaxy Note 8 smart phone, because they are just that gorgeous. I dearly love irises.
The photo of our dog, Lolo, and our late cat, Miod, I took as they were cooperatively begging at the dinner table, despite our longstanding rule of not feeding them from the table.
You can see how much that deterred them both.
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