Baggage Claim
Baggage Claim is a space for blended families, marriage, and friendship.
Here, we dive into real-life conversations about the ups and downs of relationships, from navigating second marriages to unpacking the baggage we all bring. Hosted by Greg and Jessica, who both have rich experiences with love, loss, and family, this community is about sharing stories, learning together, and growing stronger as couples and individuals. Grab a drink and join us as we unpack, laugh, and claim our baggage—one conversation at a time
Baggage Claim
Choosing Forgiveness: Jessica's story part 1
Forgiveness may be one of the most misunderstood yet transformative powers we possess as humans. What does it truly mean to forgive? Is it something we feel, or something we choose? And perhaps most importantly, who is forgiveness actually for?
Greg and Jess open this powerful episode with light-hearted banter about daily habits and modern tipping culture before skillfully transitioning to deeper waters. They share personal stories about physical scars—Greg's knife accident on his grandfather's farm and Jess's childhood playground injury—using these visible reminders as a metaphor for the emotional wounds we all carry.
The heart of this episode centers on Jess's extraordinary journey through unimaginable grief. She vulnerably recounts losing her first husband of eleven years in a tragic cycling accident, leaving her a widow with two young children. What makes her story particularly remarkable is her connection to the man responsible for the accident—she knew him personally. Despite pressure from the legal system to pursue serious charges, Jess made a decision that left even the judge in tears: she chose forgiveness.
"My kids lost their dad," she explains with raw emotion. "What right do I have to press charges against him and take him away from his kids?" This profound moment of empathy amidst devastating loss perfectly illustrates the episode's central message—that true forgiveness isn't about letting someone else off the hook, but freeing yourself from the weight of resentment.
Whether you're struggling with forgiving a minor slight or processing deep trauma, this episode offers a beautiful reminder that the decision to forgive is ultimately for your own healing. As Greg and Jess suggest, forgiveness doesn't erase what happened, but it can transform how those events continue to affect your life.
Ready to release some of the emotional baggage you've been carrying? Listen now, and join us for part two as we continue this important conversation about the journey toward forgiveness.
Hey guys, what's up? I'm Greg. I hope you guys are ready to unpack and get into some good conversations today.
Speaker 2:And I'm Jess, and this is our podcast Baggage Claim. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1:What's up everybody. Welcome to Baggage Claim. If this is your first time here, welcome time of year. Welcome If you're a regular attender or downloader, listener whatever you call those podcasting listener folks. Thanks for coming back. I was just about.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry I interrupted you. I was just about I was thinking, like you know, in my brain thank you, Greg, for doing this every single time, because I would never be able to say the same thing every time, like you say. And then you did all that, and then I just didn't do any of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you. So, wherever you're at, grab your coffee, grab a drink, pull up to our table If you're driving down the road, maybe a bit difficult, grab that coffee in hand. Just pretend like, and just pretend like you're pulling up to the table with us and just having some fun conversations and we're hoping to create some community and some conversation around relationships, life and all the stuff in between. Yeah, and just have a good time while we're doing it.
Speaker 2:Speaking of good time.
Speaker 1:Ooh go.
Speaker 3:Dawgs, go Dawgs.
Speaker 2:Well, that too. Question time.
Speaker 3:Question time. It's question time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there we go. Come on, now Go for it.
Speaker 2:Okay, when you're putting on your socks and shoes, is it sock, sock, shoe shoe, or is it sock shoe, sock shoe?
Speaker 1:I put on both my socks, then I put on my shoes, and I always put my right sock on first and my left, do you really? I always put my right foot in first.
Speaker 3:I'm just saying, if you do sock shoe, sock shoe, I've got some serious questions. Yeah, you're psychotic. Yes, that's like— Do you do that? No, oh.
Speaker 2:I'm not— that's like— Y'all both are looking at me with a cute eye.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was just like are you that person there?
Speaker 2:are people that do that. There are people.
Speaker 3:Because it's like borderline savagery.
Speaker 1:Like, put a sock on and a shoe, then your other foot is just out there, just raw dogging lines.
Speaker 3:You gotta have the standoff with the inch difference. Yeah well, it's just ball. It's like nothing to cover it.
Speaker 2:Just out there naked.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just nothing, it's just out there Like that just seems, that seems wrong.
Speaker 3:I mean that's the equivalent of like putting one leg in your underwear and then putting one leg of your pants on before putting the other leg of your underwear in. It is the equivalent.
Speaker 2:Yes, it is.
Speaker 3:It's just wrong.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying people do that. That's actually a good quote, that's so good.
Speaker 3:Yes, actually yes next week tune in to Greg's response on what it's like right.
Speaker 2:So you want to try sock shoe, sock shoe yeah, I'm putting my sock in my shoe.
Speaker 1:I'll try that tomorrow, please do report back to all of us. I will. It's going to feel so weird. It's just going to be weird. I can tell you already. It just feels weird thinking about it.
Speaker 2:I know I thought about it when I was putting on my socks and shoes to go to the gym earlier. I was like here I am again, sock, sock, shoe, shoe, and it is. I was just thinking like, yeah, I do my right. One first.
Speaker 3:Do you always do the right one first?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the right one first. Yeah, I'm right-handed. I feel like it's just like right side dominant.
Speaker 1:I think you're in a habit If you'll notice, you always will put on the same sock every time. Just out of habit, that's true, yeah, it is, it's the same way, like you brush your teeth with the same hand every time.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, that's dominance of your hand.
Speaker 2:It is, he will do it with his left hand. He had to try to remap my brain.
Speaker 3:I know, oh, so proud of you, yeah, but no, like literally last weekend I was literally thinking that because I don't put my shoes on one, like specific right or left at a time.
Speaker 2:You do not.
Speaker 3:No, it's just, whichever one I pick up first, I just put it on.
Speaker 2:I pick up or like in the mornings, like while you're fixing coffee, I will bring my socks and shoes into where we like the room In the kitchen, the bourbon room area, the keeping room or bourbon room or whatever and I sit and I but I carry my shoes correctly, like right and left, and so that's how I sit them down and I put them on.
Speaker 1:If I'm putting on flip flops, it's always the right one first.
Speaker 2:Me too the more.
Speaker 1:You know I have a question Now. You know the more you know. So do you tip at a restaurant where they have to, like you have to do all, like they don't really do anything, like you do all the work?
Speaker 3:Ooh, this is going to be a sensitive one.
Speaker 1:Like you do all the work for tipping and then they turn around so that you tip them and they didn't really do anything other than take your card, like they're not bringing you anything, they're not doing anything, they're just, you're just tipping.
Speaker 3:Hmm, does that make sense. It's kind of like the equivalent of tipping for a to-go order Right.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, okay, it's like.
Speaker 1:I order, like I do a pickup, and I go order like if I'm doing a pickup at Starbucks or something, and you do it through the app and it's there you go in. Do you tip? Because you've done everything? All they've done is made the coffee. They're getting paid to make the coffee.
Speaker 2:They literally did their job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so should I tip them.
Speaker 3:Oh, you're going to open up a can of worms even with listeners, on this one.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I'm just curious Do you so, if it's like a non-service thing, because tipping culture is insane. It's a little out of control though.
Speaker 2:You buy a water at the gas station.
Speaker 3:It's like oh, would you like a tip? I was like no, like I'm not going to tip for buying a water.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you could tip at the convenience store now, yes, do you really yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah everywhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't ever go inside. You go inside to buy your slushies, don't hate on my slushies.
Speaker 3:I'm coming here to get that, and it asked me if I wanted a tip. And I'm like I'm not. I went into a store, walked the aisles, got what I wanted.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was interesting Because in some of the places, like at the Braves game, if you tip they don't get the tip. The tips all go into something else and go somewhere else.
Speaker 1:The person that's working doesn't get the tip when you go to a Braves game and you get— Did you ask you walk down the thing? You get the hot dog, you get the stuff and then they literally go punch the button that you're standing there because you can't touch it and then they want you to tip them for that and I'm like why would I—.
Speaker 2:Did you ask them if they could get the tip? How do you know that?
Speaker 1:I was told by Thomas, which means it couldn't be true, but it could be false.
Speaker 2:Thomas is confidently wrong. Still, yeah, he is. Bless his heart at this phase of life, if I'm wrong, about that.
Speaker 1:Please correct me, but like you're tipping and they didn't really do it, they're just standing there. They didn't walk me through the process, they didn't put the condiments on my hot dog, they didn't do anything, they just punched some buttons on the thing and I'm like I should tip you for that, Like I don't.
Speaker 2:I'm confused. I can push the buttons.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just watch me do it, I can do it good too.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:Usually I try to always be a generous tipper, but if it's like out of control in some areas, like that, I don't. I don't know Now if I'm in a restaurant, I will tip. I'm a good tipper at a restaurant.
Speaker 1:Like if I'm sitting down like a service kind of like. I believe in tipping and I enjoy tipping. I actually like to tip more if I can at times, because it's just fun.
Speaker 2:Well, especially if we have a great time with the server too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's usually a lot of fun so well all right, good questions.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So let's jump into our topic today and this is going to be probably a heavy episode. So we're going to start a little light before we get in too heavy into all the stuff we're going to talk about. But man, I want us to start really quick with and you can tell me, I used to do this as an opener when I would do sometimes of group team building kind of things. It was like open with a scar story, Because every scar has a story. So tell me, like a physical scar, Like I'll tell you one, I'll start just to kind of open it up. So I have this scar. I mean, if you're listening, it's a scar on my knuckle.
Speaker 2:Even if you're looking on YouTube, you probably can't see no it's on my index finger and it comes down pretty far.
Speaker 1:It's pretty long it does. Yeah, it's probably about an inch inch and a half on my knuckle. But I remember this scar because I was, I grew up on a farm, kind of my grandfather, my grandmother had a big farm. We did cows, huge garden chickens, the whole nine yards Like not 10 chickens, like chicken houses, houses, yeah, yeah, like it was work, it was work but anyway. So we had picked corn and if you've ever done corn, when you're shucking corn you cut the top off the corn and you peel it back.
Speaker 1:Well, my grandfather had sharpened all the knives and I didn't know it, and so the knives are usually really dull. So I go to hold my hand and cut, and when I did it cut kind of the—when you bend your finger it creates, like a little knuckle, a little extra meat part. Well, I cut that off and it fell into the corn. So when you bend your finger it creates, like a little knuckle, a little extra meat part. Well, I cut that off and it fell into the corn. And the first thing my grandfather said is, well, get that blank piece of meat out of the corn. And that piece of meat was my knuckle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now are you? Okay?
Speaker 1:It had the little lines in it Like it took enough off. You could see the lines in my knuckle and the piece of meat that was laying in the corn and now there's really a scar. And now every time I think about it, I think of corn, eating corn.
Speaker 3:So every time you see your finger, you think of corn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I rub that and I'm just thinking I hate corn Corn. I just lie, I don't like corn.
Speaker 2:Which is sad because I love corn on the cob. I love corn so much.
Speaker 1:But she loves garden. Like I don't Like. We talked about one time. You're like let's have a garden. I was like no.
Speaker 2:I'm not doing a garden, I just want to grow corn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was like I'll go to Jaymore and get you corn, which is a farmer's market on the street. I love corn, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I went to a festival over the weekend. It had fresh roasted corn on the cob and the willpower it took for me not to just go there over and over. I didn't go there at all.
Speaker 1:Why did you not? You didn't get one.
Speaker 2:No, because it was an apple festival so I felt like I needed to get apple.
Speaker 1:You felt like you were betraying the apples. She was going to betray the apples if she ate the corn.
Speaker 2:So I got sliced apple, but with warm peanut butter. Ooh, wow, that sounds.
Speaker 1:Sliced apple, but with warm peanut butter. Ooh, wow, that sounds delicious. It was delightful, sounds delightful.
Speaker 2:But the fresh roasted corn on the cob, you could smell it. Oh my, yes, I don't like corn man.
Speaker 1:It gets in your teeth. It's a lot to eat. I love corn and you and your brother eat corn the weirdest of anybody. You want corn on the cob and then you cut it all off.
Speaker 2:I don't do it every time.
Speaker 3:Y'all spend like 30 minutes you eat corn on the cob and then you cut it off the cob, not every time.
Speaker 1:They cut it off the cob to eat it.
Speaker 2:They don't do it every time. I'm like what's the use of it? They just get the corn without the corn on the cob. It's corn. On what kind of mood it is, what kind of mood I'm in Feels like it.
Speaker 3:So scar stories. Sorry, what's your scar?
Speaker 2:I don't have very many scars. I have a surgery scar.
Speaker 1:That's not fun, but I have a scar under my chin and you can only see it.
Speaker 2:Yep, can I do that?
Speaker 1:You can't see it, I still couldn't see it.
Speaker 2:Whichever, well, because a plastic surgeon corrected it.
Speaker 1:Oh, excuse me.
Speaker 2:I was five and where you and I grew up, there was a Dairy Queen in town, up on the hill where there's a pharmacy there now there's a Walgreens there now Walgreens yeah, and you remember the big hamburger slide.
Speaker 1:The Hamburglar.
Speaker 2:No, that's McDonald's. But it was a hamburger slide and it had just rained. But I was five and I was the only child, so I was entertaining myself, and so I was going up the slide backwards thinking I could crawl up it, but it was wet and I busted my chin open and I had to go get like a million stitches on the inside A million or like two. Probably more like 20. 20? Inside and outside, like the plastic surgeon did a whole thing. 20? It was a lot.
Speaker 1:All right, I'm going to have to get some qualifications on that you can ask my mom?
Speaker 2:My dad was not—oh, it was just me and my dad and my grandmother.
Speaker 1:I'll check with your dad.
Speaker 2:We can ask some parents. Yeah, I'll verify, but it was a lot of stitches and I still have a scar, but you have to look for it really hard.
Speaker 1:I never noticed you had a scar there.
Speaker 2:It was a plastic surgeon did a great job.
Speaker 1:So the whole idea is is that trauma? Yeah, either on the slide or from your grandfather's sharp knives, you're cutting your finger off. Cut your finger off. Trauma leaves scars.
Speaker 2:It does.
Speaker 1:Sometimes physical scars, sometimes emotional scars, yeah, but trauma leaves scars, it does.
Speaker 2:The trauma on both of us. It doesn't hurt anymore, but we certainly remember how we got it. Yeah, I remember it.
Speaker 1:I remember it clearly. And so the idea is that all of our lives, no matter where you're at and how long you've been on this journey of life, you have scars. Yeah, some are emotional, some are, you know, small and easy, and some are deep and hurtful, and some are hard to talk about, some are hard to do. But the idea and the topic we want to get into today is forgiveness, yeah, forgiveness, and we're going to get. We're going to hit all spectrums of forgiveness, from the deep, deep stuff to the to the lighthearted stuff. We're going to try all spectrums of forgiveness, from the deep, deep stuff to the lighthearted stuff. We're going to try to hit it all. We'll get as much as we can in and if we have to do two parts, we do two parts. But we'll see how we go, yeah, and see how it unfolds.
Speaker 2:So, like you said earlier, this episode is going to be a little heavier and it may be a two-parter, and that's cool if we get there, that's all right yeah, we haven't done like a heavy episode like this since probably our very first one where we shared like kind of how we got here.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But this is a big topic that's really important.
Speaker 1:So we're talking about forgiveness, yeah, and about what does forgiveness look like? What does that mean? Who's that for? What's the purpose of it? Do we even need it, or why is it? I mean, what's the purpose of it.
Speaker 2:Forgiveness means different things to different people, though.
Speaker 1:Does it or should it?
Speaker 2:So you know like people throw around the phrase forgive and forget. You know, blah, blah, blah. That's a pretty common phrase.
Speaker 3:Or I forgive and don't forget.
Speaker 2:Well, that's really more like what people actually do, yeah, honestly.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't think those two are synonymous together.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:I don't think. I think we it's time for us to go okay, let's kind of break that and say let's don't put like I'm not saying let's forgive so we can forget. I say we forgive so we can be healthy and we can move on.
Speaker 2:Well, that goes back. That kind of boils down to the basic question is what does forgive mean?
Speaker 3:to you.
Speaker 2:Not you personally, but in general. What does forgive mean to you when you think about that? So we looked up the definition earlier. Yeah, and I don't have my phone where the definition was.
Speaker 1:Like. For me, forgiveness is releasing guilt or weight of something that someone has done to me in some manner, whether that be. Whatever that looks like, I had to go through a part where I forgave my dad, and that was a huge process for me and it took a long time. Did I ever forget? No, I still haven't forgotten it. But at the same time, I forgave him and tried to move forward in that relationship.
Speaker 2:Right. So it's like forgiveness can look a little—. Michael, can you look up what forgive in the dictionary?
Speaker 1:the definition is what the goog says about it.
Speaker 2:The googs Because, like yeah, to choose not to hold resentment is a big piece of it.
Speaker 1:Michael doesn't have reception now. He's standing on the chair with his arm stuck to the ceiling. We gotta get some Wafa up in this place.
Speaker 2:We need to get that imaginary net thing, they told us about. Yeah, but I do remember it was to choose not to be resentful and not to hold on to anger.
Speaker 3:To cease to feel resentment against an offender.
Speaker 2:Offender.
Speaker 3:Okay so someone who has offended you, you cease to feel resentment towards them because of the offense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, gotcha. So sometimes even like forgiveness, is this weird thing? Like someone may have offended you and they don't even know they offended you and you're like I can't believe. They still just walk around here like everything's OK.
Speaker 2:Well, they may have no idea, everything is OK yeah.
Speaker 1:And so you're toting around, like when you don't forgive someone, it's almost like this huge weight that you put on your shoulders, yeah, and you carry around with you through life and that so forgiveness isn't for that other person, the forgiveness is for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, would you agree that forgiveness is feelings based?
Speaker 1:Oh, a thousand percent.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:One hundred percent.
Speaker 2:So, then, that means that forgiveness is a choice.
Speaker 1:Yes, do you agree?
Speaker 2:100%. I want to see where you are at with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think— you have to choose to forgive. Yeah, I think that's probably the hardest thing for us as humans is like we don't want to forgive people because we want to hold on. We have this idea of justice and what's right and what's wrong, and we're like, no, no, no, they wronged me, so I'm not forgiving them, and I'm like that just hurts you it doesn't, it does.
Speaker 2:And you know you said as humans, I mean honestly God is the only one that can truly forgive.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And to literally forget it? Yeah, because that's what he promises. So as humans, we get to choose if we want to extend that to somebody else, and it may not even be. I'm extending forgiveness to you because, like you said, some people don't even know that they've offended you.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Because the forgiveness is for you as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, have you ever had that where you went to someone and say I forgive you for this, and they're like oh, I didn't even know. Have you ever had that happen? I had. It was really, really awkward. Not that I can think of.
Speaker 2:I feel like that'd be something I would remember it was really awkward.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was weird, you know, because sometimes you it's really interesting when you look at forgiveness, because you can take the stance when you've been traumatized by something and there's different levels of that. Like someone said something that hurt your feelings, Okay, well, forgive them, but there was something where there was actual trauma towards you. It may have been physical, mentally, emotionally towards you. That's a whole different ballgame. It sure is. I mean, that's a different level of forgiveness, that's a different—it's something completely opposite of just like, well, they hurt my feelings, so I'm going to forgive them. I didn't get invited to this.
Speaker 2:Right and so— you and I both have experienced trauma, different kinds of trauma.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Where we got to choose whether or not we were going to forgive.
Speaker 1:Yes, so I we'll get into yours first and then we can dive into my trauma next. So kind of tell the story of what happened to you, how you know, just kind of lay out the story of that, and then we'll walk through the part of the forgiveness part of that for you.
Speaker 2:So, like we said, this is going to be a heavier episode, more emotional. So if you don't know us personally and if you haven't listened to previous episodes, especially our first episode of how Did we Get here, that we mentioned a little bit ago, so we both experienced trauma in a different way. So long I don't even know if I can do a long story, short situation.
Speaker 1:No, just tell the story.
Speaker 2:Okay, I don't even know if I can do a long story short situation. No, just tell the story, okay. So it's interesting that we're talking about this this week because in a couple of days it'll be 15 years ago. My first husband was killed in an accident. He rode bicycles. It started off mountain biking and then several months later he got into road biking and he had gotten this fancy new road bike he was so excited about. And he had only been on one other short ride and this was his first like long road ride with a friend, our friend named Chad, and on the road ride he was actually hit by a car and killed, and I mean as the person that was responsible.
Speaker 1:And so, yeah, I guess, walking forward through the point of this discussion for the forgiveness part of so, at this point though in your life, just to help give some more context to the story, Thank you. You and TJ had been married for how long? Up until?
Speaker 2:this point 11 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how long did you date before you like?
Speaker 2:High school yeah like high school sweethearts.
Speaker 1:And so you guys, you're likehow long did you say—how many?
Speaker 2:years Together all the— how long were you married? We were married for 11, but we probably—I guess 14, 15 years all together.
Speaker 1:Okay, so 14, 15 years you guys had two kids. You had Aaron and Thomas. How old were Thomas?
Speaker 2:They were six and nine Okay.
Speaker 1:And so you guys are going to a Georgia game later that day.
Speaker 2:We were.
Speaker 1:With Chad and his wife.
Speaker 2:Lisa, but you guys were all friends, we were. So thank you, because it's like for me, it was like there's a lot of that story, so I want to make sure that we just I'm sticking to where we're going. So thank you to where we're going. So, thank you. So, yes, so Chad and TJ were going to ride their bikes from Chad and Lisa's house to my grandmother's house, which was towards Athens. That's why we were meeting there, and me and Lisa and all the kids we were going to ride to Nanny's house and meet there. So, yes, so in the midst of that is when he was killed.
Speaker 1:Okay. So yeah, he leaves in the morning going for a bike ride with Chad. You guys are getting the kids ready, you're going to go meet them, going to the Georgia game. And then you get a phone call.
Speaker 2:I got a phone call and then, as my phone was ringing, my doorbell was ringing and banging on the door and that was Lisa, and she was the one to tell me that there was an accident and that we need to go to the hospital. And so there's a lot of that that I don't really remember has to be yes, yeah, and so I'm pretty sure not 100% I'm pretty sure that Lisa is the one that took me to the hospital. Again, I'm not sure because I don't remember where my kids were and I don't remember where her kids were, but I just remember her waking me up, and then we were at the hospital and all I knew was that Chad kept saying that quote unquote they were working on him and that we just need to get to the hospital.
Speaker 1:Which he died on the scene.
Speaker 2:Immediately. Yeah, okay, immediately. Yes, he passed away immediately, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so sorry not to be disrespectful at all, and I don't want. If people listen to this new TJ and new you are people who are and have heard this there's a lot of people who have gotten a phone call in their life and everything changed, yes, or have got a knock at their door and everything changed, yes, and so I don't want to. I want to respect the heaviness of that at the same time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but also I appreciate you walking me through telling the story, because you know it as well as I do at this point, because, again, where we're going with this is the forgiveness aspect of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so I might could get lost in the details, and I might could even get lost in my fuzzy recollection, just because I'm a Christian, we're Christians and I know that there's pieces of that that, literally, the Lord has protected in my heart and my head, because it probably would be too painful if I could remember it. And so you leading me through telling the story is is a very good thing for me.
Speaker 1:I don't want people to think you're prying it out of me, um, but yeah yeah, well, that's a it's not a fun thing to no, to walk through and relive. Yeah, um, so okay, so you get to the hospital. You realize he's not made it his best friend, chad, which was friends with you guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was injured, there was a lot going on with him and again the fuzzy, I don't know. They were already in the ER. There was this kind of like a private family area where we all got to go. Several of my family members were already there and I don't know how they knew and the wife of the man who hit TJ, who was my friend from work, was there, and so at that point is when I didn't know for sure what had happened or who was involved, but she was there, and so the wife of the man who actually hit him.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what actually happened? Can you share that with us?
Speaker 2:yeah, um, well it, I waited um. I waited months for the state patrol report. Um because I wanted to make sure that he, the man that hit tj um, was not impaired in any way.
Speaker 1:Um, like you know, outside of that, like besides being impaired, like what actually happened.
Speaker 2:So the road that it happened on there's a hill, and at the crest of the hill you really truly can't see the road past that point. And so the man who had left work literally at dawn I mean, it was barely daylight he was just going to work, okay.
Speaker 1:So he was on his way to work, he was From home. Work Okay.
Speaker 2:So he was on his way to work, he was From home okay, he was from home on his way to work and he just literally didn't see him. He just literally didn't see TJ and Chad.
Speaker 1:Gotcha.
Speaker 2:Just simply because the way the road, the hill crested and the way the road went, Right, and so he just he struck him with a car. He struck him With his truck. It was pulled over and stopped. Yes, okay, and he's the one that called 911 and stayed and the whole thing Gotcha yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you waited to get the police report for— I did?
Speaker 2:I wanted to make sure that he was not impaired in any way, wasn't distracted or there was not some kind of a situation that would have—not intentionally caused the accident, but a reason why?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so he wasn't drunk driving.
Speaker 2:Right those things. So I mean it was literally six or eight months. It was a long time, and the state patrol report was, I mean, two or three inches thick of information and reconstructing the whole thing.
Speaker 1:So in those six months feelings toward this guy I mean changed everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's a family that I had known for a handful of years.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so I tried to. I mean, of course I was angry, obviously Right, but I tried to refrain my judgment is awful word, but I try to refrain my like decision making till I knew the facts, because Well, the decision being in that situation.
Speaker 2:This whole time I had the county DA, I had judges, I had attorneys from the insurance companies, I had a lot of folks trying to see if I wanted to press charges and what kind of charges I wanted to press, ranging from you know whatever and I don't know what the terminology might be but like an involuntary manslaughter or this or that or the other. But I didn't have the information that I knew I needed to be able to make that call and I was the person that was going to make the call of what happened to this man's life for a certain amount of years. Yeah, and so I knew I needed the rest of the information before I could do that. Wow.
Speaker 1:That's a heavy, huge decision, because you're weighing anger, frustration, hurt.
Speaker 2:Against facts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, against the facts of what really happened. Yes, and that whole idea welling up inside of you as human is is this, is this real or is this not real? Is this? Like what do I do here? Yeah, so were you feeling pressured in any way to make a certain decision, like, were you feeling pressured by those guys, the courts or the?
Speaker 2:legal system where we live. Yes, I was feeling pressure to make the call to press charges that were very aggressive, but I just knew I needed more facts. I needed some more literally, some more evidence.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you get these facts I do From them. I did. What helps you make the decision to say I'm not going to seek anything, or did you? Okay, so what did you decide?
Speaker 2:So I got the evidence and my cousin Britton bless his heart, he's a financial advisor and has a lot more knowledge in a lot of areas that I didn't have, so he was my right-hand man for all of that. And so we poured through the, the literally poured through the evidence and read it and read it, and read it, and read it and finally got to the place of like this was literally an accident. And so I I remember sitting in the judge's chambers with the judge that was appointed to the case, to the DA, to like prosecutors and insurance folks and like this room full of people, and they were like, okay, so we all read through it all together and there was all these like, like reconstructed, like drawings and things, and it was basically came down to okay, jessica, what do you want to do? And I was like I'm not doing anything, and so all of them it was just like a kind of like one of those moments of like complete, like you could literally hear a pin drop.
Speaker 2:And so the judge asked, or the DA asked me again. She was like no, really like, what do you want to do? So I mean she like you're 32, your kids are six and nine, and this and that and the other and there was not a will and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like we can really go after this guy and I'm like, no, we can't, we cannot, because his children are also the same ages of my children, because they all go to school together, and I know this person and I know his wife, because we work together, and I'm going to choose to not do anything.
Speaker 1:Wow, I got to say when you said that it's weird, Like I got emotional.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's a, yeah, that's a—because that's a true like—man. That's huge, and most people don't make that decision. I can imagine like they're probably like what do you mean nothing?
Speaker 2:And they did say that, and so I said—I was just like. You know, my kids lost their dad. I'm going to get it's emotional to talk about Okay, because he, it was an accident, and so what right do I have to press charges against him and take him away from his kids? And he didn't mean to. He truly didn't mean to. I don't have the right to do that. And so, literally, sitting in that office with all of those people who were in tears at this point, including the judge were in tears, that's, I chose forgiveness, wow.
Speaker 1:Wow, wow, yeah, okay, I got more questions. I don't really know how to ask them, I guess why.
Speaker 2:Why? Yeah, I know, I mean it's. Why, yeah, I know.
Speaker 3:I mean my.
Speaker 2:Christianity came into play, but it had never been tested yet up until that point of my life and I, just at that, I had only been in counseling for a week or two at that point, I mean because it was still, I say a week or two At that point, when I was in that meeting. It had been a couple of months of weekly counseling and I was still so mad. I was so mad at God, so mad I wasn't even mad at the man who did it anymore, I was just mad at God who, at that point, in my opinion, allowed it to happen.
Speaker 1:So you had two really good men.
Speaker 2:I did.
Speaker 1:Involved in a really bad thing.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and so I just had to keep on with what I believed was true and with what I believe was true.
Speaker 1:I want to dig in more to like, as you give him forgiveness, like how do other people see that it's like you letting him off the hook? Or you letting him like you're disrespecting TJ by not pressing charges. I want to get into all that, but we're already 35 minutes in. Yeah, so I want to. I want to respect that and just say I want us to dig into those. But we're going to dig into that as we jump into our next episode and finish this up on forgiveness. But just something to think about, man, after listening to that. Like that's a.
Speaker 2:And that's not even the end of that portion.
Speaker 1:No, we'll get into that, yeah, but I want—that's a beautiful picture of what real forgiveness looks like on a really, really deep level. So, wherever you're at, if you're struggling and you may find yourself in the situation Jess was in and you need somebody to talk to, you want somebody to reach out, maybe we can help, maybe we can just I will 100% talk to you, yeah. And so if you're there and you need some help, you feel stuck and you're carrying that weight around. You haven't let that forgiveness go.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Reach out to us. We'll catch up and make sure to catch us on the second episode as we talk about forgiveness. Thanks, guys.
