Derksen - The way of letting go: one womans walk toward forgiveness

With this book Wilma Derksen has found a way to redeem the seemingly irredeemable. After living through a parents worst nightmare, she devoted herself to the hard work of forgiveness, dissecting each stage with a surgeons skill. The practical wisdom that has emerged could only come from someone who strained to forgive the unforgivableand somehow succeeded. What she learned along the way brings hope to all of us who struggle with this most difficult, yet most necessary task.

PHILIP YANCEY, editor-at-large, Christianity Today

I have followed Wilmas journey for years. It has been incredibly difficult, incredibly moving, and her insights incredibly profound. She has much to teach us all.

HOWARD ZEHR, Distinguished Professor of
Restorative Justice, codirector, Zehr Institute for
Restorative Justice, Eastern Mennonite University

In The Way of Letting Go Wilma Derksen demonstrates how the healing process is to pass from the narrative of trauma as overwhelming grief into the narrative of trauma as an experience of deep and meaningful significance. Bringing together all her experience and learning following the agony of her daughters murder, here over thirty years later Derksen is able to give voice to a humanity born out of suffering. There are few who have given as much thought to the transformative power of forgivenessshe has defined, refined, probed, and reevaluated one of the most difficult, complex, but never more relevant forces in the world today.

MARINA CANTACUZINO, founder,
The Forgiveness Project

Wilma Derksens powerful book highlights a profound paradoxto achieve some degree of control over ones life and emotions in the face of grief and trauma, one has to do the oppositelet go of control.

TED WACHTEL, editor, BuildingANewReality.com

The answer is love and compassion for all of humanity. When the Nazarene said that we should forgive seventy times seven, he was telling us that forgiveness should be a habit, a way of life. Forgiveness is not for the person who has wronged us; it is for usit sets us free. Wilmas story is proof of this.

BILL PELKE, author, Journey of Hope... from Violence to Healing

For my father

Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a

constant attitude.

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

CONTENTS

I n the same way that it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to help us forgive. I want to acknowledge all those along the way who have helped our family walk the journey.

I am still thankful for the immediate response to our cry for help the day that Candace disappeared, November 30, 1984. People we had never met just pitched in: walking the street, searching the neighborhood, plastering the city with posters, and praying. Our church community, Candaces school, and the search committee from Cliffs work built a supportive community around us that held us together with their ongoing support and prayers.

I am thankful for the citys generous sympathy when her body was found seven weeks later in a shed not far from our house, her hands and feet tied. She had been abandoned to die in the freezing temperatures of a Winnipeg winter. They attended the memorial service and sent cards, food, and prayers.

I am thankful for the members of the Winnipeg police force who helped us look for Candace, exhausting all the leads, and who were able to contain the crime scene with such vigilance that the evidence they collected could stand the test of time. I am thankful for those in the force who rekindled her cold-case file and brought fresh thinking, new eyes, and amazing dedication to it twenty-three years later, and uncovered the narrative that led to an arrest.

I am extremely grateful for the trial that took place twenty-six years after the fact. I am grateful for the work of everyone who took part in it: the judge, the Crown, the defense, and the witnesses who worked vigilantly to uncover the story for us so that we could finally know the truth of what happened. Even a justice process that remains unfinished is still better than no attempt at justice at all. We continue to appreciate those who wont let it die. Their fight for justice is admirable.

I am grateful to all those who listened to my story over the years, asked important questions, and offered their support and wisdom along the way. Each presentation I made was a tremendous opportunity for learning.

I am grateful to the pioneers in restorative justice who included me in their discussions as they explored what forgiveness means between victims and offenders of serious crime. Their devotion to creating peace and reconciliation was a constant encouragement to keep me working at my own agenda of forgiveness.

I am grateful to my close friends who stood beside me, always offering a listening ear, support, encouragement, patience, and wisdom. They were my coaches, psychologists, and counselors. Without them I could not have made it.

I am grateful for my contenders, those who challenged me all along the way. They made me stronger.

I am grateful to my incredible family. I admire my husband, who is blossoming into the artist he has always wanted to be. Even though most of his life was lived against the wind of innuendo and suspicion, he never tired. He continued to live his life faithfully in service to his family and others. It is satisfying to see him finally able to devote himself to his passion for sculpting and teaching art to his students.

I am grateful to my two remaining children. Odia is an artist like her father and has proven to be amazingly creative in all areas of her life. She could have succumbed to fear, but didnt. She is the most courageous woman I know. She will travel through any blizzard with a smile on her face.

She married a special man, Larry, a true minister to the needy. The two of them now have a miraculous little girl, Georgia Wynne. Georgia, who was under two pounds when she was born, is proving to be a very determined and delightful spirit.

Syras, our son, is wise beyond his years. He constantly astounds us and others with his principled and gentle life. As a psychologist, he continues to help those around him grow as he himself grows. He married a lovely woman, Natasha, who is also a creative person and devoted to mothering. Simeon, their son, is articulate beyond his years, and Anna, their daughter, is showing herself to be a very warm and relational person. These two are also miracles.

Our family dinner discussions are always invigorating, stimulating, encouraging, and so fun. Fun is important to me.

I am still grateful for Candace and the opportunity to love hereven after all these years.

I am grateful to all the people who had a vision for this book when I didnt have the confidence to even think of writing it. The encouragement to write this book was astounding.

I am especially grateful to my God who fashioned this Tree of Forgiveness for usright outside the Garden of Edena tree that gives us the opportunity to transform everything negative that we experience into something life-giving.

WD

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

ROBERT FROST

S ome years ago, I met a man named Mike Reynolds. I went to his home in Fresno, California, and sat in his study as he told me the story of what had happened to his eighteen-year-old daughter, Kimber, twenty years before. She had been out to dinner with a friend in downtown Fresno when she was set upon by two young menboth convicted felons. They shot her in the head. She died a day later.