Elizabeth Jiménez was waiting at a hospital to see her daughter’s body when she thought about the young man who had been behind the wheel.
It was March 2017, and María, 24, a linguistics student at the University of Brighton, had just died in a traffic accident. Nicholas Tay, also 24, was driving the car and was the guy she was dating. That same night, Elizabeth asked to see him. They met two days later, at a gathering organized by her church leader.
From then on, she says, she accompanied him to every meeting with the police and lawyers, and every court hearing. She researched the law until she found a provision that allowed the judge to consider the victim’s plea for mercy. Together with her husband, Fernando, and her son, Josué, she made her position of forgiveness public.
It wasn’t enough. In November 2017, the judge ordered Nick to prison. She sent him letters and books while he was incarcerated and visited him. He was released almost two years later, in late 2019, and Elizabeth says they now talk every day.
In her place, would you have been able to forgive?