Forgiving the Really Big Things // Forgive and Forget, Part 5

You have a son. He's out walking one night. A car hits him. Leaves him for dead on the freeway so that a few minutes later, the next car on that dark road kills him. Imagine. This week on a different perspective we've been talking about forgiveness. In a world where we often experience emotional bumps and bruises it turns out that forgiveness is as important to our emotional well being as physical healing is to our bodies. But every now and then in life a tsunami hits, something so incredibly overwhelming that we could have never predicted it or imagined how we would cope. I always thought that the most incredibly difficult thing would be to bury your own child. To stand by the graveside and look at that wooden box and think, "It should be the other way around." What if someone killed your child? How would we get on and live life? I'm joined again today with Lorraine Watson who's going to take us through exactly that, Lorraine, welcome. Lorraine Watson: It's good to be here, Bernie. Berni Dymet: So Lorraine, your son died recently. How long ago was that? Lorraine Watson: Just over 18 months. Berni Dymet: That's pretty close; it's not that far. Lorraine Watson: No, it isn't. Berni Dymet: How did that happen? What happened? Lorraine Watson: Well, my son was running across a motorway where he shouldn't have been running in the middle of the night and the car hit him. The man left the accident without stopping and left him lying on the ground. Subsequently some minutes later another big BMW hit him and killed him. Berni Dymet: Can you remember when you got the phone call when they told you? Lorraine Watson: Yes, we got the phone call from his wife and I can still remember the absolute horror in her voice as she kept saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry" as if it was her fault. When we heard the news it was the worst thing that you could imagine. Berni Dymet: Yes, it must be a tough thing to try and even get your mind around that. Lorraine Watson: Well, for quite a period of time we couldn't move, we just sat. It is almost impossible to imagine. He was our eldest son. Berni Dymet: He had kids himself? Lorraine Watson: He had two little boys that he left behind. Berni Dymet: How did they cope? Lorraine Watson: It was very difficult for them. They were four and five and the little boy particularly, the four year old was very, very angry and he kept saying, "I'm sick of this, I just want my daddy back!" So that was really hard. And because they look very like him it's very hard to see them as well at that time. Berni Dymet: What's his name? Lorraine Watson: Chris. Berni Dymet: Tell us about him. What was he like? Lorraine Watson: Chris was a very active person. He was a runner and just enjoyed life really. He was a businessman and a very successful one and he just liked doing all sorts of different things really. Berni Dymet: So did they catch the guy that knocked him down? What happened there? Lorraine Watson: Well, the first guy took his car and hid it at a people's place and they saw the crime watch program that featured the accident. They knew that this car had done the damage so they rang into the police. So he was found almost immediately, but he denied it. And for 12 months we had court case after court case trying to determine what had actually happened. Berni Dymet: And the outcome has been? Lorraine Watson: He admitted it at the last moment that he had used the car. Berni Dymet: So justice has taken its course presumably. Lorraine Watson: Well, he only got some hours, community service and $10,000 to his children because they couldn't, in fact they didn't prove that he killed him because he didn't. Because the second car actually did that. Berni Dymet: Wow, how does that feel? Lorraine Watson: It was really horrific. I think the worst part during it all was the thought of Chris lying on the road in the dark on his own alive waiting. Berni Dymet: So just the simple act of him having stopped and pulled Chris off the motorway would have saved his life. Lorraine Watson: The coroner said it was quite within the realms of possibility. Berni Dymet: Were you angry? Lorraine Watson: At the time, dreadfully angry. It was a needless sort of a thing for me. And if he had stopped, then he would not have been even charged. And if he could have reached out to us in any way, we would have been very happy to let that incident go. But he couldn't do either of these things. Berni Dymet: So how do you move on from that? I mean, how do you stay on the track? You obviously have been through a horrendous ride with your husband and your family. Have you done anything to move on from that? Lorraine Watson: Well, one of the first things we determined was that we were going to grieve loud and long, as we needed to do. And Allan and I both did that. In the process I thought I would go mad. It was just as if insanity was just a heartbeat away. If I hadn't chosen, I could have just flipped over. And it was a real temptation, I might say...