"At first I hated the very notion of forgiveness. To tell someone who is in pain to forgive is brutal. Forgiveness can’t be prescriptive."

"My anger broke and tears filled my eyes as I cried the tears that I’d never been able to shed as a child."

"In that process I learned that to hold the ideology of separation, or racism, you have to have a closed heart. An open heart makes the ideology irrelevant."

"At times it was incredibly tough. People said we couldn’t have loved Candace because we forgave. "

"I hated his actions, but I could not hate the person."

"Forgiveness is recognizing that the offender is a human being who is deserving of kindness, compassion and love despite the harm they have done."

"Whether victim or perpetrator, part of being human is rolling up our sleeves and taking an active part in repairing harm."