New York (CNN) - The day Anthony Colon heard his older
brother had been gunned down in East Harlem, he began struggling with a rage
that would last for years.
The anger wore him down. He missed him desperately.
He hated the three men who had fired 13 bullets into his
brother who was unarmed.
“Oh, God, it just - it just put so much hate in my life. I
hated everybody. I hated everything. It made me to be a person, like a
monster,” said Colon, who considered his brother Wilfredo his only stable
family.
“I loved him because he always stood up for me from a little
kid. He would not even allow me to fight. He would stand up for me, whatever
happened, because he always saw that goodness in me.”
But as the years passed the fog of anger began to lift.
He married. Had two children. He welcomed religion into his
life.
And, he was overwhelmed by a desire to find reconciliation
with his brother’s killer.
“I just wanted it to be OK,” he said.
Then one summer day, a chance encounter while visiting a
friend at the Eastern Correctional Facility in Ulster County, New York, changed
his life.
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He looked across the room and saw Michael Rowe, one of the
men who had murdered his brother.
Rowe saw him too and tried to duck down.
“I was expecting that we would be you know, it would be a
fight, some type of physical violent altercation ,” said Rowe.
Rowe recalls feeling remorse and shame, unable to forgive
himself for murdering another young man – and afraid of retaliation.
Colon walked straight up to him and said: “Brother, I’ve
been praying for you. I forgave you. I’ve been praying I would see you again.”
The meeting would transform both men’s lives.
Rowe had married the same girl he was dating when he went to
prison. They were able to have three children together during his imprisonment,
and he wanted desperately to parent them even as he served a sentence of 20
years to life.
“I figured I would die in prison. Or at least leave there a
very old man with grey hair,” he said.
“I still don’t think that I’ll ever truly be able to forgive
myself because of the things that I’ve done. Because I take full responsibility
for what I did. And I completely, and as best as anyone could, understand the
pain that I have caused.
“I think for me, forgiveness will come in doing good works,
trying to help others. But as far as forgiving myself I don’t think I will ever
get to that place.”
In prison he was befriended by Julio Medina of Exodus
Transitional Community, which prepares inmates for their release.
Rowe studied and soon he got an associate’s degree, then a
bachelor’s. As he was studying for his master’s degree in Professional Studies,
Colon began visiting him regularly.
“To have that kind of support from the man whose brother he
killed, that is remarkable,” said Medina. “Not only does it lift that cloud of
shame that he walks with, but more importantly it allows him to have a second
chance with the blessings of the victim's brother.”
The day of his graduation, Colon surprised Rowe by coming to
put on his robe. He also came to his parole hearing, where Rowe said this to
the board deciding his fate:
“Anthony is my hero. I have two sons, and if my sons grow up
to be half the man that Anthony Colon is, I will be an incredibly proud father.
And I don’t know if I can sum it up or explain any better than that how I feel
about Anthony Colon. He has changed my life.”
Colon believes religion has propelled him to forgive Rowe.
“For some reason I felt that he was dealing with all that he
was dealing with. Like condemnation. Self-pity. Just like this hovering
darkness that was around. I felt that, when people think that’s strange, but
it’s just the part of the nature of a person that’s closely connected to God.
There’s a connection with God that can allow you to see past what’s in front of
you,” he said.
Rowe was released from prison this week after 20 years, a
man who has not seen the world since he was barely grown up.
He showed up at one of his children’s elementary schools
with cupcakes and gave her the surprise of her life. He saw the home where he
will be living with his wife and three children for the first time. And he went
to see Anthony Colon, who he will join at Exodus reaching out to young men at
risk.
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“God has a purpose for me. God has a purpose for us,” said
Rowe, sitting alongside Colon at the offices of Exodus. “Yes, us,” adds Colon
smiling.
Meanwhile, Rowe is adjusting to life on the outside.
He is mystified by cell phones and the gentrification of the
neighborhood where he fell into drugs and killed a man.
Exodus is helping him cope with routine life skills that
seem overwhelming to him like having the power to make daily decisions over
what to eat, when to talk, going outside.
Colon is helping him with that too, so he can see a life
beyond prison and they can both put an end to 20 years of pain.
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