Incredible power of a mum’s forgiveness

Mother calls for drugs to be legalised and regulated after her teenage daughter died from an ecstasy overdose

No parent should have to bury their child. It isn’t the way things are supposed to be, and I have no idea how you ever come to terms with such profound loss.

This week I met Anne-Marie Cockburn, an astonishingly brave Ayrshire-born mother whose 15 year old daughter died after taking an ecstasy or MDMA tablet.

Martha took the pill while out with friends but because it was such a pure dose of the drug she suffered a reaction that killed her.

Single parent Anne-Marie has tried to ease her grief by writing a book about her devastation after Martha’s death. She also wants more education for teenagers about the dangers of taking drugs.

Her book, 5,742 Days, is a brutally honest account of loss, but there is also a story of forgiveness here.

Anne-Marie has chosen to forgive the drug dealer who sold the tablet to her only child and believes there was no point in sending him to jail.

Alex Williams could have received a prison sentence of 10 years, but thanks to Anne-Marie’s astonishing capacity to forgive he was given a three month curfew and an 18 month youth rehabilitation order.

Many parents would simply not understand such actions. They would understandably be consumed with rage and grief and want revenge on the person who was responsible for supplying the drug that killed their child.

Anne-Marie didn’t want to live her life eaten up with hatred, and forgiving Williams was her way of trying to make some sort of sense of what had happened.

Forgiveness is also a remarkably powerful route to take if it is right for you. I did a series for Radio Scotland a couple of years ago about this very subject and spoke to rape victims, bereaved parents and victims of serious crimes, who all discovered that forgiving the person who had inflicted such suffering upon them actually gave them back control over their own lives.

It was profoundly moving to hear Brian Aim from Orkney, whose daughter Karen was murdered in New Zealand, quietly declare his forgiveness and his compassion towards the person who had killed his beloved child.

Brian did not want to go down “a spiral of hatred” and many victims say the same, including Anne-Marie Cockburn.

No one really knows how they would react in the worst possible circumstances, but perhaps being able to forgive is a way of healing, and perhaps even ultimately the best possible revenge if it somehow enables you to cope with the grief.