For years, Kevin said he would forgive Brian for shooting him when he could walk again.
From a human perspective, that made sense to him.
How could he forgive someone for taking away his ability to walk?
How could he forgive someone for changing the course of his life?
But over time, Kevin began to understand that forgiveness wasn’t about changing the past. It was about deciding what the past would be allowed to do to the rest of his life.
The journey began long before Kevin ever entered a prison to meet Brian.
His relationship with Brian’s mother, Joyce, became an unexpected turning point. Our family had avoided Joyce because of our anger toward Brian, even though she had not committed the crime.
When Kevin eventually met and talked with Joyce, he saw her humanity in a different way. That encounter planted a seed of forgiveness that continued growing.
Years later, Kevin called me while I was driving on I-80.
He told me something I never expected to hear:
He was going to forgive Brian.
The decision had not come from forgetting the shooting. It came from Kevin recognizing that he was tired of carrying the anger.
In December 2015, Kevin began the formal process of meeting Brian through California’s Victim Offender Dialogue program.
There were letters.
There were conversations.
There was preparation.
And eventually, Kevin and Brian sat across from one another in prison.
The meeting was tense and emotional. Kevin told Brian that he forgave him for attempting to kill him. Brian was stunned. He accepted Kevin’s forgiveness but didn’t know how to process it.
Kevin later explained that he wasn’t forgiving Brian simply for Brian’s sake.
He was doing it for his own peace.
He was releasing the resentment he had carried for years.
Forgiveness did not erase the shooting.
It did not restore Kevin’s ability to walk.
It did not make the consequences disappear.
But it changed Kevin.
The manuscript describes the transformation as a movement from anger and resentment toward peace, healing, and strength. Forgiveness became more than a single act; it became what our family came to call a “Spirit of Forgiveness.”
That distinction matters.
Forgiveness is not saying that what happened was acceptable.
It is choosing not to allow bitterness to control what happens next.
Kevin’s experience eventually inspired the vision for Founded on Forgiveness, an organization intended to help victims of violent crime find resources, support, healing, and a path forward.
Forgiveness became part of Kevin’s legacy because he discovered something many of us struggle to understand:
Sometimes forgiveness doesn’t change the person who hurt you. It changes the person carrying the hurt.
