October 29, 2019 • 32 mins
We are taught from an early age the importance of saying you’re sorry, and forgiving those who have wronged you. But is there such thing as an unforgiveable act? And who does that impact more – the perpetrator, or the one wronged? In the final episode of the season, Stephanie speaks with Nicole Hockley, who lost her son at Sandy Hook and has since founded Sandy Hook Promise, and Alice Johnson, who served 20 years of a life sentence for a non-violent drug offense before Kim Kardashian worked to get her released. They talk about forgiveness, and whether it is a choice everyone can or should make.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Modern Rules, a production of MSNBC and
I heart Radio. I don't understand how his mother could
have allowed him to have all that access to firearms,
and I don't understand how his mother didn't get him help.
I don't think I hate them, but um I have
not forgiven them. In order for me to move forward.
(00:22):
I could not allow bitterness and unforgiveness to pause on me,
because if I did, that meant that I was giving
someone else control over my life. When I was younger, definitely,
when it came to my career, I had very sharp elbows.
Time and experience have changed that they've smoothed them out.
(00:43):
I like to think, and today I do not hold
the grudges that I used to. So maybe it is
true that a little bit of age, experience, some pain
have given me some perspective on how other people think
and what other people do. And today, somehow that experience
has made it easier for me to understand why people
(01:05):
do the things they do, even hurtful things. And I
try to put myself in their shoes and cut them
some slack. But the things I have to forgive in
other people, or even forgiven myself, are small if I
compare them to the entirety of what people experience in
their whole lives. So the question I want to answer,
(01:26):
are there things are their acts that are simply too
terrible to forgive? Or is forgiving the truly terrible thing
the way you liberate yourself from the power that other
person is holding over you. I'm Stephanie Rule, MSNBC anchor
and NBC News correspondent, and this is Modern Rules. In
(01:57):
this season of Modern Rules, I'm going to be spending
time on packing the harriest conversations from privilege to political
correctness to try and figure out how we can navigate
this changing world and break through to actually talk with
and learn from the people who disagree with us, and
maybe just maybe learn something along the way. Today on
(02:20):
Modern Rules, we're talking about forgiveness. Are people's worst actions
truly fueled by hate? Do they do something terrible because
they're a terrible person? Or do people do bad things
because they're hopeless? If we all had everything we needed,
is it possible that we wouldn't do anything terrible, anything
(02:41):
that required forgiveness? Is it possible that there really are
no bad people, There's just bad mindsets and bad situations
that drive us into desperate things. That's coming up on
Modern Rules with guests Nicole Hockley and Alice Johnson. Nicole
Hockley law us her son Dylan in the Sandy Hook massacre.
(03:02):
To say it was devastating for her and for so
many others really doesn't capture the depth of their loss.
But Nicole's reaction almost immediately was to focus on making
a difference herself, doing what she could do to keep
other parents from having that same awful experience. So she
channeled her grief and her anger into creating a positive
(03:24):
impact through a remarkable organization, the Sandy Hook Promise. You know,
it's interesting to talk to Nicole about forgiveness because she
doesn't sugarcoat things. She has got powerful feelings. Forgiveness is
not something that comes easily. What's amazing to me really
is your message and your work and your programs. In
(03:47):
all of our interactions, you're not angry. Every time I'm
with you, I can feel your open heart. Can you
help me understand your journey and how you got here? Well,
I do want to say I do actually have a
lot of anger in me, just um maybe control it
better because I don't think it's productive, and I think
(04:08):
it can get in the way of progress, and that's
really what's most important to me. My anger isn't going
to produce results talking to people, listening to people, trying
to find that common ground. You know, I'm absolutely obsessed
with impact and trying to make a difference in saving
a life, and that means my personal feelings, thoughts or
agendas come second place. So you can be angry or
(04:32):
you can be unable to forgive, and at the same
time you can progress. I have to, Yeah, I have to,
because that is that's our mission. It's not about me, um,
it's not about my family. It's about what's the greater good,
and that means putting yourself aside and focused. You know,
we have a saying in our office mission before me,
(04:53):
and that's what we live every single day. You don't
come there for yourself. You don't work at Sandy Hook
Promise for your self. You don't support it for yourself.
You support it for the mission to keep kids safe
and to stop gun violence. Can you tell me about
your path since oh golly, completely surreal, none of this
bears any resemblance to my life beforehand. That's for sure.
(05:16):
I'm still figuring out who I am and who I'm
evolving into. What was your life before? I was a
marketing and communications director for a healthcare company, so I
know a lot about financial services. I could borrow your
ears off of annuities and investments that I certainly didn't
know anything about social activism. I had never even been
to d C before I started lobbying Congress. I was
(05:39):
also just a mom trying to make ends meet and
look after my two boys. They were my priorities, and
it was a simple life and a very happy life.
I was one of those people that it sounds so
stupid to say, but it's true. I used to think
I would just like burst sometimes because I was I
just had so much joy in me, and I think
I'm a lot more. I don't know grounded or solid
(05:59):
or lenced now. How and when did you become productive?
Did you go from devastation, grief, paralysis? How does the
process work? Well? I think the process is totally different
for each person. So I'm I'm in no way a
typical person. Um. I started talking about change at Dylan's funeral,
(06:19):
which was a week after the shooting, and and I
was very honest at his memorial service that I had
no idea what changes were going to come, but that
I intended to be part of it, uh for Dylan
and for whoever else wanted to be part of that
as well, um that something had to be done so
(06:39):
that other parents wouldn't be standing in my shoes. The
first year, we did what what everyone does after emaciating,
we focused on policy. We spent a lot of time
in d C, met some amazing people, met some not
so amazing people who who I don't name as well,
but spent a lot of time just trying to lobby
for the simple things, the low hanging fruit, crown checks.
(07:01):
And after that failed in April, that's when we took
a hard look at each other and said, if we've
done all that we can around the simple things and
that hasn't passed them, we're doing this the wrong way.
So we then went dark for about twelve eighteen months
while we studied hard. I spent time with mental health experts,
gun safety experts, academic social change experts, law enforcement, absorbing books,
(07:27):
still trying to process grief at the same time, and
then after doing all of this study for a year
year and a half, and that's when we started to
formulate a new way to try to find the common
ground because we know that, you know, we do have
a lot of divisive issues in this country, but we
have managed to find the way forward on so many
of them. So you know, what are those levers that
you can pull to create social change? And that's when
(07:48):
we started focusing on things other than just policy. But
how do you get people engaged in an issue, how
do you make it personal to them? How do you
change them and train them on how to be an
act until it just becomes normal. And that's how you
get real behavioral change, which leads to social change, and
then policy and politics are a lot easier to follow.
(08:09):
Gun control seems to be one of the most divided
divisive issues, but you actually go to towns, go to schools,
go to people's homes, are we that divided? Not? Really?
It depends on how you frame a conversation. Because I
think parents or anyone who with children in their lives,
they will do anything to protect that child. For some
(08:32):
people that means owning firearms. For some people that means
ensuring that there are no firearms around. But there's also
this vast swathe in the middle that are like, I
really don't care about guns or you know, whether you
have guns or don't have guns. I just want to
keep my kids safe. Give me the right tools to
be able to do that. And when you start the
conversation from that perspective and and actually don't even take
(08:55):
the word gun into it, you can make a lot
more progress and build relationships and try and then have
a conversation about where guns and firearms fit into this equation.
If they do at all, how do you keep pop
What else would I do? There is hope anyway. These
shootings are still happening every day, and they all bring
(09:17):
me to my knees. Um. I think you've seen me
very soon after some shootings, and you've seen me lose
control completely, um, which is not something I do in public.
But it also just renews my my commitment to making
this happen. Why I continue to be hopeful is because
(09:38):
although we hear so much about the shootings that do occur,
I'm also hearing about the shootings that don't occur. I'm
hearing about the towns that you're never going to profile
on any news show because the school shooting didn't happen
the suicide didn't happen, And that's that's where I'm hopeful,
because I know it's happening, and I know it's changing.
(09:58):
Are there are times though, in you lose hope. When
you and I sit across from each other, it's always
after another shooting. How do you find the will to
say things are getting better? How do you find how
are you able to be optimistic through this? How come
anger doesn't overcome you? Well, if anger overcomes me, then
(10:20):
then the Sandy Hook shooter one. And I can't let
that happen because there's a greater duty here to protect
my surviving son and builds a good, safe future for
him as well as for others. I don't know whether
I'm just the eternal optimist or not, but I do
believe that, you know, when when I go around the
country and talking to schools, talking to parents, talking to politicians,
(10:43):
even there is a will to deliver a safer future.
It's the how that sometimes gets in the way. It's
the how that people have struggle to find the ways forward.
And if we can find the right ways to engage
people and give them the tools, I know we're making
a difference. So why wouldn't I be hopeful and optimistic.
(11:04):
The change is coming. It's it's it's getting through the
how and then deciding the win. Hold on a second,
because we have so much more to talk about. We'll
be right back after a quick break. Welcome back to
modern rules. I asked you not long ago if the
(11:26):
gun manufacturer, if anyone from the company ever reached out
to you to apologize. Yeah, no, Yah, How could that be?
I don't know, I would guess because they would feel
if they apologize, that they've been admitting some form of
guilt and they can't do that if there's a difference
between compassion though, and I think that was what's lacking there.
(11:51):
On the other side, can you speak about the last
few years and the support that has built around you
from people that you didn't know, or the strength of
Sandy hook promise? Has it has? Has? Has the power
of your reach surprised you? Yes? And no. On the
yes side, I mean my house was filled with letters
(12:15):
and items from people around the around the world who
just wanted to outreach and let me and my husband
know that they were sorry for our loss. And that's
amazing and that's something that I've cataloged for Jake because
I want him to always remember that there's a lot
of good in the world and that people really do
care and help each other. My personal circle of friends
(12:40):
um grew massively and then shrunk massively. It was too
hard for people. I definitely make some people uncomfortable. I
am not your I am not the dinner party guests
that you want to invite me. People don't know where
to look sometimes, Uh, there there are some people that
you know. For some people, I'm I'm a parent's worst
(13:02):
nightmare because I've lost my child in a way that
they cannot wrap their heads around and don't want to
face that even idea, that possibility that it could have
been them, And I get it, and that can be
awkward because people don't know what to say, they don't
know how to act. Um. They want to hug me,
which I always left them, But then it's like where
do you go from there? Even meeting people for the
(13:24):
first time now in social occasions, it's like normally, if
you're going out with someone, yeah, they'll be like, oh,
and what do you do for a living? They know
who I am beforehand, so there's no normal conversation and
they either want to talk about Dylan, or you could
go hours and there's no even ask about So, do
you have children? It was that hard for you to
parent another child because your identity is so tied to
(13:47):
Dylan and Sandy Hook it is. But what I make
sure with Jake is that my identity, my identity publicly
might be very focused on Dylan, but privately it is
absolutely balanced between Dylan and Jake. When I'm with Jake,
it's I'm a present for him and his needs. And
(14:07):
you know, the house doesn't have tons of just photos
of Dylan. And I've spoken to other parents who have
lost children in gun violence and seen the same things,
the paintings and the pictures all over the house, and
I have to remind them don't forget about your surviving
child as well, because if you make your life solely
about the one who died, what what message are you
inadvertently giving to the one who survived? Are you ever
(14:29):
just pissed? Are you ever angry at other mothers, at
other families, at random events because this didn't happen to them. Never,
never angry because it didn't happen to them. No, never, ever, ever.
I get angry sometimes and you know, I work to
control it. If sometimes if it's just really awkward, I
(14:49):
get angry that I'm in this situation in the first place.
I get angry that I don't have a normal life anymore.
I get angry that, you know, even if I'm grocery shopping,
I don't look around at the people around me because
sometimes I just, you know, I don't want to be known.
I just want to be me. I got angry when,
you know, after my divorce, trying to then start dating
(15:12):
again and it's even like, you know, do you tell
someone who you are or do you not? And it's
that awkward conversation. I mean, try dating when you're a
Sandy hook parent. It's not exactly you're it's not great
to do it. Went on a lot, a lot, a
lot of first dates that never became second dates. Um,
(15:35):
and then one guy stuck and he's like, why on
earth are you with me? And I'm because you're You're
the normal in my life. And he sees a sweetheart,
did you want to leave Newtown because you do drive
by the same school, you do go to the same
grocery store. Yeah, so Ian and I Dylan's dad, Dylan
and Jake's dad. Right after the shooting, we had thought
(15:56):
about going back to England where we've been living, and
all of our friends and family there were like, just
come back. What are you doing in this crazy place
that this could happen? And it was tempting. But at
the same time, even then, early on, we knew we
had chosen new Town for a reason. And you can't escape,
you can't run away because it's still it's still with
(16:17):
you wherever you go. And um, I knew I had
a job to do and the job is here in America,
that it's here in Newtown. How much time do you
devote to being angry at the person who did this?
Not as much anymore. I won't lie. I still have
anger hate him. Hate is a really strong word. Um
(16:39):
he's dead, so there's nothing I can do about that.
Do you hate his mother? I don't understand how his
mother could have allowed him to have all that access
to firearms. And I don't understand how his mother didn't
get him help. Um I I don't think I hate them,
(17:00):
but um I have not forgiven them. But you don't
need to forgive them to move on. I don't think so.
I know some people do and I respect you know,
different forms of faith, UM, that are allowed. You know
that that they have that within them to do that.
I'm still angry at God, and UM, I'm not in
(17:21):
a space of forgiveness because I think what was done,
what is unforgivable? Um, how can how? I don't know
how I can forgive someone who made a choice, UM,
to take firearms to a school and kill innocence in
that way, We're going to be right back after a
(17:42):
quick break, welcome back to modern rules. Alice Johnson was
serving a life sentence in prison. One none other than
Kim Kardashian took her story to the President and convinced
him to grant Alice a pardon. She had already been
in pray and for over twenty years. Alice's outlook on life,
(18:03):
shaped by her experience behind bars, is surprising and I
think it's inspiring. As she tells it, forgiveness is a
kind of freedom, at least for her. I had a
chance to read your book. I think lots of people
know what's happened to you, but they don't know what
lad you here. So if you wouldn't mind, can you
(18:24):
give us your story? Yes, there was there was a
sequence of events that really lay it to me making
the terrible mistake to get involved in criminal activities. I'd
lost my job of ten years with FedEx, I was
taking care of five children as a single mother, totally
(18:45):
without any help, and bills were piling up. I was
not making really good decisions. Sometimes when you're desperate, you
do things that if you were to think about it
later on, you wouldn't do them. If I could go
back in time and talk to myself, I would definitely
tell myself run, don't walk with Run from anything that
(19:08):
looks illegal. An offer was made to me to become
involved in a drug conspiracy. My role would be to
pass along telephone messages. I was the go between, and
I did that. I made that terrible, terrible decision to
do that. I was arrested in what became a drug
(19:31):
sting and I made the decision to go to trial.
I was offered three to five years, but decided from
the advice of my attorney. My family scraped together the
money to pay who we thought was a very uh
season attorney, and he told me that I had a
(19:51):
very good case because they had not gotten me with
any drugs or any money. And plus my financial condition
did not show a person who could fit the description
of a drug queen pin or king pin. I was eventually,
after the six week trial, convicted of um drug conspiracy
(20:15):
about an eleven person jury, and as a first time
non violent offender, I was sentenced to life without parole
without the possibility of parole because there is no parole
in the federal system. After being incarcerated, I've just made
some decisions that I'm not going to allow this to
(20:38):
literally take my life. I was told the only way
that I would leave prison would be as a corpse,
but despite that, I still was not going to allow
prison to define who I am as a person. As
an individual, I did a lot of things Stephanie in prison,
I set with people who were in hospice care. I
(20:59):
worked with the this first ever Special Olympics. In prison,
I continued to fight for my freedom through various motions,
but everything was denied. I applied for clemency three times,
and each time I was denied. But this very last
time that I applied for clemency in two thousand and eighteen, well,
(21:25):
let me back up just a little bit. After fighting
so hard, my family also was involved in fighting for
my freedom that did vigils outside the White House. My
daughter started a petition on change dot org that garnered
over two hundred and seventy thousand signatures of people that
were signing when they heard about my story. Who was
(21:48):
we're signing petitions for my freedom? My warden wrote a
letter from my Freedom talking about the type of person
that I was in prison. My captain at the prison
case man, nit, you're my employer. I had a lot
of support from the political side. Also, three members of
Congress wrote letters on my behalf. I had religious leaders
(22:11):
in double A c P president of our chapter in
Dissola County, Mississippi, wrote a great letter acting for my release.
But somehow I was one that seemed to have just
slipped through the cracks when you were sentenced to prison,
When you were convicted, do you think the eyes of
(22:32):
the law consider those who have privileged and those who don't.
The situation that you were in, right, My lawyer told
me that I had a really good chance and that
he would recommend that I go to trial. Even when
the jury was hung and another offer was sent to me,
he told me, I basically don't take it. I think
(22:55):
we've got a really good chance of winning this. But
the thing, Stephanie, is that I know ignorance is no excuse,
but I never knew that a life sentence was even possible.
You know what, Ignorance might not be an excuse, but
that's why, because you didn't understand the situation, you hired
a lawyer, and so you trusted that lawyer. Well, he
(23:20):
still told me that, um, he was going to fight
my case and he felt that I had a good
chance to win at appeal. He said that you probably
won't spend more than thirteen months family. When he came
to visit me and Stephanie, this was this was a
really strange thing about all of the things that took
(23:40):
place with me and my attorney. It was almost like
he was apologizing to me. I thought he was coming
to visit to give me more hope, that he was
going to continue to fight because we had lost the appeal,
and said he came to give me an apology to
let me know that he would be that he would
not represent me, and he would do nothing else to
help me and to do whatever I needed to do
(24:03):
to him. Do you think he was sorry. I think
he was sorry for I don't know. You know, I've
I've pondered this so many times, uh doing my incarceration.
What was the meaning of what he said to me?
But it was a look also that he gave me, Stephanie,
(24:24):
an apologetic look of more than just doing a terrible job.
Oh yes, I have forgiven him a long time ago,
not to forgive him. I don't know what was going
on in his life, but I can tell you from
my life. In order for me to move forward, I
(24:45):
could not allow bitterness and unforgiveness to pause in me,
because if I did, that meant that I was giving
someone else control over my life. So I made the
choice to forgive. You know, forgiveness, Stephanie's not out of feeling.
It's a choice. I could make the choice to forgive
and to forgive and forgive again until I felt like it,
(25:09):
until the feeling came. But if the feeling didn't come,
I still made the choice that I'm going to let
this go and I'm going to live life as well
as I can, even in prison. Did you make that choice?
How did you make that choice? Was it natural or
did it take a struggle? Did it take time? You
must have been in shock. I was in shock, and
(25:31):
I was angry. I was very angry because I felt betrayed.
This is a person who I've entrusted with my very life,
and I felt very much betrayed. But then I realized
what it was doing. I couldn't sleep. It was making
me sick. It was literally making me sick to have
those terrible those thoughts of of of how bad he
(25:55):
had done it, how bad he had treated me as
a client, and what this had cost not only myself
but my family too. But then you have to realize
that person that you don't forgive, they're They've gone on
about their lives, and it's not them who's in bondage
to unforgiveness, is you. So I let that go. I
(26:18):
forgave the people who testified against me, but I was
not going to give the people who testified against me.
I was not going to give them that power over
my life, because I was giving them my life. By
not forgiving them, I was giving them power control over
whether I was happy, whether I could continue on, whether
(26:39):
I could make the next step, whether I could put
one ft in front of the other, to even just
to to go on with life. And so that would
have been a life sentence that bitterness, and I've called
it a rottenness of the soul, And that is exactly
what it is when you walk around with hate in
your heart and unforgiveness it the effect upon you is
(27:03):
is what you have to deal with. You've given someone
moments of your life where you could maybe have joy
in your life, but instead you can't even find anything
good about life because you're eating up with bitterness and unforgiveness.
And I refused, I'm already sentenced to life that would
have been sentenced to death. Tell me what it's like
(27:27):
in prison, because in theory, I would think all that
bitterness and anger and rage that would fill a prison.
There are quite a few people that had that rage
and that bitterness and that anger. But as much as
I could, I think people probably got tired of me
talking to them about forgiveness because that is a message
(27:49):
that I spread that I that I was able to
spread in prison too. And I've seen people life's renewed.
I've seen smiles back on faces that had a perpetual
frown on them. And I believe that unforgiveness also accounts
for even sickness that we have in our bodies. Um
(28:09):
when you hold onto that. So what I did, Stephanie,
for my little bit, my little piece that I could do.
I tried to to bring a different atmosphere wherever I
went in prison. I tried to get women involved in
things to take their minds off and to even use
place that I did to spread that message of forgiveness
(28:33):
and pick up your life. You're not dead. As long
as you have breath in your body, you can live.
You have value, you can make a difference. And just
being able to communicate that to to other women to
give them hope because I had a lot of hope
and I still have a lot of hope, and hope
(28:56):
is contagious. Smiles and laughter is contagious, and so is hatred,
unforgiveness and bitterness. It can be contagious. There is a
weight of shame, and that shame comes I think, well,
you don't forgive yourself for the things that you've done.
If I felt that I had disappointed so many people,
(29:20):
I disappointed myself too, So even even forgiving others, the
last big obstacle was forgiving myself and shaking that shame
off and holding my head up again and knowing that
I can't change the past, but I sure can do
(29:41):
something about the present, and I can do something going
forward into my future. So this is what I'm hearing about. Forgiveness.
It does not come naturally. It is not an automatic.
It is a choice. And in the case of Alice Johnson,
the choice to forgive others is really about giving herself
(30:01):
a better life, freeing herself. To not forgive would have
been a life sentence of a different kind for her,
possibly even worse than prison. This choice was about freedom
for her, and Alice was able to get there. But
for Nicole Hockley, forgiveness that is not something she's ready
for now. She's not consumed by bitterness. She's devoted to
(30:23):
making real change. So it happened to her son, to
her family, hopefully never happens to someone else. That is
Nicole's mission. But forgiveness, forgiveness for the man who pulled
the trigger, forgiveness for his mother who allowed him to
have those guns. She is not ready for that, not now.
(30:48):
It is a choice. It's a deeply personal choice. That
is what I learned from these two exceptional women. This
has been our conversation on forgiveness. Thanks for listening, bringing
an open mind and helping me create Modern Rules. Want
more of this conversation, go deeper and read this week's
Modern Rules feature only on NBC news dot Com Slash Better. Ye.
(31:23):
That's it for today's episode, I'm your host, Stephanie Rule.
A very very special thanks to the extraordinary people who
made this happen. My producers Julie Brown, Samantha Ullen and
Anne Bark, Audio, Michael Biett for booking and wrangling, the
amazing guests who joined us, Julian Weller for editing and
bill plaques, Michael Azar and Jacobo Penzo for their recording expertise.
(31:44):
Special thanks to see Blick Tige, Barbara Rab, Jonathan Wald,
Marie Dugo, Holly traz Nikki Etre and Christina Everett are
Executive producers are Conald Byrne and Mangesh Hatiga Door and
of course, the men who brought us all together, Chairman
and CEO of I Heart Media Bob Pittman and Chairman
of NBC News Andy Lack. For more podcasts for My
(32:06):
Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
You're listening to Modern Rules, a production of MSNBC and
I heart Radio. I don't understand how his mother could
have allowed him to have all that access to firearms,
and I don't understand how his mother didn't get him help.
I don't think I hate them, but um I have
not forgiven them. In order for me to move forward.
(00:22):
I could not allow bitterness and unforgiveness to pause on me,
because if I did, that meant that I was giving
someone else control over my life. When I was younger, definitely,
when it came to my career, I had very sharp elbows.
Time and experience have changed that they've smoothed them out.
(00:43):
I like to think, and today I do not hold
the grudges that I used to. So maybe it is
true that a little bit of age, experience, some pain
have given me some perspective on how other people think
and what other people do. And today, somehow that experience
has made it easier for me to understand why people
(01:05):
do the things they do, even hurtful things. And I
try to put myself in their shoes and cut them
some slack. But the things I have to forgive in
other people, or even forgiven myself, are small if I
compare them to the entirety of what people experience in
their whole lives. So the question I want to answer,
(01:26):
are there things are their acts that are simply too
terrible to forgive? Or is forgiving the truly terrible thing
the way you liberate yourself from the power that other
person is holding over you. I'm Stephanie Rule, MSNBC anchor
and NBC News correspondent, and this is Modern Rules. In
(01:57):
this season of Modern Rules, I'm going to be spending
time on packing the harriest conversations from privilege to political
correctness to try and figure out how we can navigate
this changing world and break through to actually talk with
and learn from the people who disagree with us, and
maybe just maybe learn something along the way. Today on
(02:20):
Modern Rules, we're talking about forgiveness. Are people's worst actions
truly fueled by hate? Do they do something terrible because
they're a terrible person? Or do people do bad things
because they're hopeless? If we all had everything we needed,
is it possible that we wouldn't do anything terrible, anything
(02:41):
that required forgiveness? Is it possible that there really are
no bad people, There's just bad mindsets and bad situations
that drive us into desperate things. That's coming up on
Modern Rules with guests Nicole Hockley and Alice Johnson. Nicole
Hockley law us her son Dylan in the Sandy Hook massacre.
(03:02):
To say it was devastating for her and for so
many others really doesn't capture the depth of their loss.
But Nicole's reaction almost immediately was to focus on making
a difference herself, doing what she could do to keep
other parents from having that same awful experience. So she
channeled her grief and her anger into creating a positive
(03:24):
impact through a remarkable organization, the Sandy Hook Promise. You know,
it's interesting to talk to Nicole about forgiveness because she
doesn't sugarcoat things. She has got powerful feelings. Forgiveness is
not something that comes easily. What's amazing to me really
is your message and your work and your programs. In
(03:47):
all of our interactions, you're not angry. Every time I'm
with you, I can feel your open heart. Can you
help me understand your journey and how you got here? Well,
I do want to say I do actually have a
lot of anger in me, just um maybe control it
better because I don't think it's productive, and I think
(04:08):
it can get in the way of progress, and that's
really what's most important to me. My anger isn't going
to produce results talking to people, listening to people, trying
to find that common ground. You know, I'm absolutely obsessed
with impact and trying to make a difference in saving
a life, and that means my personal feelings, thoughts or
agendas come second place. So you can be angry or
(04:32):
you can be unable to forgive, and at the same
time you can progress. I have to, Yeah, I have to,
because that is that's our mission. It's not about me, um,
it's not about my family. It's about what's the greater good,
and that means putting yourself aside and focused. You know,
we have a saying in our office mission before me,
(04:53):
and that's what we live every single day. You don't
come there for yourself. You don't work at Sandy Hook
Promise for your self. You don't support it for yourself.
You support it for the mission to keep kids safe
and to stop gun violence. Can you tell me about
your path since oh golly, completely surreal, none of this
bears any resemblance to my life beforehand. That's for sure.
(05:16):
I'm still figuring out who I am and who I'm
evolving into. What was your life before? I was a
marketing and communications director for a healthcare company, so I
know a lot about financial services. I could borrow your
ears off of annuities and investments that I certainly didn't
know anything about social activism. I had never even been
to d C before I started lobbying Congress. I was
(05:39):
also just a mom trying to make ends meet and
look after my two boys. They were my priorities, and
it was a simple life and a very happy life.
I was one of those people that it sounds so
stupid to say, but it's true. I used to think
I would just like burst sometimes because I was I
just had so much joy in me, and I think
I'm a lot more. I don't know grounded or solid
(05:59):
or lenced now. How and when did you become productive?
Did you go from devastation, grief, paralysis? How does the
process work? Well? I think the process is totally different
for each person. So I'm I'm in no way a
typical person. Um. I started talking about change at Dylan's funeral,
(06:19):
which was a week after the shooting, and and I
was very honest at his memorial service that I had
no idea what changes were going to come, but that
I intended to be part of it, uh for Dylan
and for whoever else wanted to be part of that
as well, um that something had to be done so
(06:39):
that other parents wouldn't be standing in my shoes. The
first year, we did what what everyone does after emaciating,
we focused on policy. We spent a lot of time
in d C, met some amazing people, met some not
so amazing people who who I don't name as well,
but spent a lot of time just trying to lobby
for the simple things, the low hanging fruit, crown checks.
(07:01):
And after that failed in April, that's when we took
a hard look at each other and said, if we've
done all that we can around the simple things and
that hasn't passed them, we're doing this the wrong way.
So we then went dark for about twelve eighteen months
while we studied hard. I spent time with mental health experts,
gun safety experts, academic social change experts, law enforcement, absorbing books,
(07:27):
still trying to process grief at the same time, and
then after doing all of this study for a year
year and a half, and that's when we started to
formulate a new way to try to find the common
ground because we know that, you know, we do have
a lot of divisive issues in this country, but we
have managed to find the way forward on so many
of them. So you know, what are those levers that
you can pull to create social change? And that's when
(07:48):
we started focusing on things other than just policy. But
how do you get people engaged in an issue, how
do you make it personal to them? How do you
change them and train them on how to be an
act until it just becomes normal. And that's how you
get real behavioral change, which leads to social change, and
then policy and politics are a lot easier to follow.
(08:09):
Gun control seems to be one of the most divided
divisive issues, but you actually go to towns, go to schools,
go to people's homes, are we that divided? Not? Really?
It depends on how you frame a conversation. Because I
think parents or anyone who with children in their lives,
they will do anything to protect that child. For some
(08:32):
people that means owning firearms. For some people that means
ensuring that there are no firearms around. But there's also
this vast swathe in the middle that are like, I
really don't care about guns or you know, whether you
have guns or don't have guns. I just want to
keep my kids safe. Give me the right tools to
be able to do that. And when you start the
conversation from that perspective and and actually don't even take
(08:55):
the word gun into it, you can make a lot
more progress and build relationships and try and then have
a conversation about where guns and firearms fit into this equation.
If they do at all, how do you keep pop
What else would I do? There is hope anyway. These
shootings are still happening every day, and they all bring
(09:17):
me to my knees. Um. I think you've seen me
very soon after some shootings, and you've seen me lose
control completely, um, which is not something I do in public.
But it also just renews my my commitment to making
this happen. Why I continue to be hopeful is because
(09:38):
although we hear so much about the shootings that do occur,
I'm also hearing about the shootings that don't occur. I'm
hearing about the towns that you're never going to profile
on any news show because the school shooting didn't happen
the suicide didn't happen, And that's that's where I'm hopeful,
because I know it's happening, and I know it's changing.
(09:58):
Are there are times though, in you lose hope. When
you and I sit across from each other, it's always
after another shooting. How do you find the will to
say things are getting better? How do you find how
are you able to be optimistic through this? How come
anger doesn't overcome you? Well, if anger overcomes me, then
(10:20):
then the Sandy Hook shooter one. And I can't let
that happen because there's a greater duty here to protect
my surviving son and builds a good, safe future for
him as well as for others. I don't know whether
I'm just the eternal optimist or not, but I do
believe that, you know, when when I go around the
country and talking to schools, talking to parents, talking to politicians,
(10:43):
even there is a will to deliver a safer future.
It's the how that sometimes gets in the way. It's
the how that people have struggle to find the ways forward.
And if we can find the right ways to engage
people and give them the tools, I know we're making
a difference. So why wouldn't I be hopeful and optimistic.
(11:04):
The change is coming. It's it's it's getting through the
how and then deciding the win. Hold on a second,
because we have so much more to talk about. We'll
be right back after a quick break. Welcome back to
modern rules. I asked you not long ago if the
(11:26):
gun manufacturer, if anyone from the company ever reached out
to you to apologize. Yeah, no, Yah, How could that be?
I don't know, I would guess because they would feel
if they apologize, that they've been admitting some form of
guilt and they can't do that if there's a difference
between compassion though, and I think that was what's lacking there.
(11:51):
On the other side, can you speak about the last
few years and the support that has built around you
from people that you didn't know, or the strength of
Sandy hook promise? Has it has? Has? Has the power
of your reach surprised you? Yes? And no. On the
yes side, I mean my house was filled with letters
(12:15):
and items from people around the around the world who
just wanted to outreach and let me and my husband
know that they were sorry for our loss. And that's
amazing and that's something that I've cataloged for Jake because
I want him to always remember that there's a lot
of good in the world and that people really do
care and help each other. My personal circle of friends
(12:40):
um grew massively and then shrunk massively. It was too
hard for people. I definitely make some people uncomfortable. I
am not your I am not the dinner party guests
that you want to invite me. People don't know where
to look sometimes, Uh, there there are some people that
you know. For some people, I'm I'm a parent's worst
(13:02):
nightmare because I've lost my child in a way that
they cannot wrap their heads around and don't want to
face that even idea, that possibility that it could have
been them, And I get it, and that can be
awkward because people don't know what to say, they don't
know how to act. Um. They want to hug me,
which I always left them, But then it's like where
do you go from there? Even meeting people for the
(13:24):
first time now in social occasions, it's like normally, if
you're going out with someone, yeah, they'll be like, oh,
and what do you do for a living? They know
who I am beforehand, so there's no normal conversation and
they either want to talk about Dylan, or you could
go hours and there's no even ask about So, do
you have children? It was that hard for you to
parent another child because your identity is so tied to
(13:47):
Dylan and Sandy Hook it is. But what I make
sure with Jake is that my identity, my identity publicly
might be very focused on Dylan, but privately it is
absolutely balanced between Dylan and Jake. When I'm with Jake,
it's I'm a present for him and his needs. And
(14:07):
you know, the house doesn't have tons of just photos
of Dylan. And I've spoken to other parents who have
lost children in gun violence and seen the same things,
the paintings and the pictures all over the house, and
I have to remind them don't forget about your surviving
child as well, because if you make your life solely
about the one who died, what what message are you
inadvertently giving to the one who survived? Are you ever
(14:29):
just pissed? Are you ever angry at other mothers, at
other families, at random events because this didn't happen to them. Never,
never angry because it didn't happen to them. No, never, ever, ever.
I get angry sometimes and you know, I work to
control it. If sometimes if it's just really awkward, I
(14:49):
get angry that I'm in this situation in the first place.
I get angry that I don't have a normal life anymore.
I get angry that, you know, even if I'm grocery shopping,
I don't look around at the people around me because
sometimes I just, you know, I don't want to be known.
I just want to be me. I got angry when,
you know, after my divorce, trying to then start dating
(15:12):
again and it's even like, you know, do you tell
someone who you are or do you not? And it's
that awkward conversation. I mean, try dating when you're a
Sandy hook parent. It's not exactly you're it's not great
to do it. Went on a lot, a lot, a
lot of first dates that never became second dates. Um,
(15:35):
and then one guy stuck and he's like, why on
earth are you with me? And I'm because you're You're
the normal in my life. And he sees a sweetheart,
did you want to leave Newtown because you do drive
by the same school, you do go to the same
grocery store. Yeah, so Ian and I Dylan's dad, Dylan
and Jake's dad. Right after the shooting, we had thought
(15:56):
about going back to England where we've been living, and
all of our friends and family there were like, just
come back. What are you doing in this crazy place
that this could happen? And it was tempting. But at
the same time, even then, early on, we knew we
had chosen new Town for a reason. And you can't escape,
you can't run away because it's still it's still with
(16:17):
you wherever you go. And um, I knew I had
a job to do and the job is here in America,
that it's here in Newtown. How much time do you
devote to being angry at the person who did this?
Not as much anymore. I won't lie. I still have
anger hate him. Hate is a really strong word. Um
(16:39):
he's dead, so there's nothing I can do about that.
Do you hate his mother? I don't understand how his
mother could have allowed him to have all that access
to firearms. And I don't understand how his mother didn't
get him help. Um I I don't think I hate them,
(17:00):
but um I have not forgiven them. But you don't
need to forgive them to move on. I don't think so.
I know some people do and I respect you know,
different forms of faith, UM, that are allowed. You know
that that they have that within them to do that.
I'm still angry at God, and UM, I'm not in
(17:21):
a space of forgiveness because I think what was done,
what is unforgivable? Um, how can how? I don't know
how I can forgive someone who made a choice, UM,
to take firearms to a school and kill innocence in
that way, We're going to be right back after a
(17:42):
quick break, welcome back to modern rules. Alice Johnson was
serving a life sentence in prison. One none other than
Kim Kardashian took her story to the President and convinced
him to grant Alice a pardon. She had already been
in pray and for over twenty years. Alice's outlook on life,
(18:03):
shaped by her experience behind bars, is surprising and I
think it's inspiring. As she tells it, forgiveness is a
kind of freedom, at least for her. I had a
chance to read your book. I think lots of people
know what's happened to you, but they don't know what
lad you here. So if you wouldn't mind, can you
(18:24):
give us your story? Yes, there was there was a
sequence of events that really lay it to me making
the terrible mistake to get involved in criminal activities. I'd
lost my job of ten years with FedEx, I was
taking care of five children as a single mother, totally
(18:45):
without any help, and bills were piling up. I was
not making really good decisions. Sometimes when you're desperate, you
do things that if you were to think about it
later on, you wouldn't do them. If I could go
back in time and talk to myself, I would definitely
tell myself run, don't walk with Run from anything that
(19:08):
looks illegal. An offer was made to me to become
involved in a drug conspiracy. My role would be to
pass along telephone messages. I was the go between, and
I did that. I made that terrible, terrible decision to
do that. I was arrested in what became a drug
(19:31):
sting and I made the decision to go to trial.
I was offered three to five years, but decided from
the advice of my attorney. My family scraped together the
money to pay who we thought was a very uh
season attorney, and he told me that I had a
(19:51):
very good case because they had not gotten me with
any drugs or any money. And plus my financial condition
did not show a person who could fit the description
of a drug queen pin or king pin. I was eventually,
after the six week trial, convicted of um drug conspiracy
(20:15):
about an eleven person jury, and as a first time
non violent offender, I was sentenced to life without parole
without the possibility of parole because there is no parole
in the federal system. After being incarcerated, I've just made
some decisions that I'm not going to allow this to
(20:38):
literally take my life. I was told the only way
that I would leave prison would be as a corpse,
but despite that, I still was not going to allow
prison to define who I am as a person. As
an individual, I did a lot of things Stephanie in prison,
I set with people who were in hospice care. I
(20:59):
worked with the this first ever Special Olympics. In prison,
I continued to fight for my freedom through various motions,
but everything was denied. I applied for clemency three times,
and each time I was denied. But this very last
time that I applied for clemency in two thousand and eighteen, well,
(21:25):
let me back up just a little bit. After fighting
so hard, my family also was involved in fighting for
my freedom that did vigils outside the White House. My
daughter started a petition on change dot org that garnered
over two hundred and seventy thousand signatures of people that
were signing when they heard about my story. Who was
(21:48):
we're signing petitions for my freedom? My warden wrote a
letter from my Freedom talking about the type of person
that I was in prison. My captain at the prison
case man, nit, you're my employer. I had a lot
of support from the political side. Also, three members of
Congress wrote letters on my behalf. I had religious leaders
(22:11):
in double A c P president of our chapter in
Dissola County, Mississippi, wrote a great letter acting for my release.
But somehow I was one that seemed to have just
slipped through the cracks when you were sentenced to prison,
When you were convicted, do you think the eyes of
(22:32):
the law consider those who have privileged and those who don't.
The situation that you were in, right, My lawyer told
me that I had a really good chance and that
he would recommend that I go to trial. Even when
the jury was hung and another offer was sent to me,
he told me, I basically don't take it. I think
(22:55):
we've got a really good chance of winning this. But
the thing, Stephanie, is that I know ignorance is no excuse,
but I never knew that a life sentence was even possible.
You know what, Ignorance might not be an excuse, but
that's why, because you didn't understand the situation, you hired
a lawyer, and so you trusted that lawyer. Well, he
(23:20):
still told me that, um, he was going to fight
my case and he felt that I had a good
chance to win at appeal. He said that you probably
won't spend more than thirteen months family. When he came
to visit me and Stephanie, this was this was a
really strange thing about all of the things that took
(23:40):
place with me and my attorney. It was almost like
he was apologizing to me. I thought he was coming
to visit to give me more hope, that he was
going to continue to fight because we had lost the appeal,
and said he came to give me an apology to
let me know that he would be that he would
not represent me, and he would do nothing else to
help me and to do whatever I needed to do
(24:03):
to him. Do you think he was sorry. I think
he was sorry for I don't know. You know, I've
I've pondered this so many times, uh doing my incarceration.
What was the meaning of what he said to me?
But it was a look also that he gave me, Stephanie,
(24:24):
an apologetic look of more than just doing a terrible job.
Oh yes, I have forgiven him a long time ago,
not to forgive him. I don't know what was going
on in his life, but I can tell you from
my life. In order for me to move forward, I
(24:45):
could not allow bitterness and unforgiveness to pause in me,
because if I did, that meant that I was giving
someone else control over my life. So I made the
choice to forgive. You know, forgiveness, Stephanie's not out of feeling.
It's a choice. I could make the choice to forgive
and to forgive and forgive again until I felt like it,
(25:09):
until the feeling came. But if the feeling didn't come,
I still made the choice that I'm going to let
this go and I'm going to live life as well
as I can, even in prison. Did you make that choice?
How did you make that choice? Was it natural or
did it take a struggle? Did it take time? You
must have been in shock. I was in shock, and
(25:31):
I was angry. I was very angry because I felt betrayed.
This is a person who I've entrusted with my very life,
and I felt very much betrayed. But then I realized
what it was doing. I couldn't sleep. It was making
me sick. It was literally making me sick to have
those terrible those thoughts of of of how bad he
(25:55):
had done it, how bad he had treated me as
a client, and what this had cost not only myself
but my family too. But then you have to realize
that person that you don't forgive, they're They've gone on
about their lives, and it's not them who's in bondage
to unforgiveness, is you. So I let that go. I
(26:18):
forgave the people who testified against me, but I was
not going to give the people who testified against me.
I was not going to give them that power over
my life, because I was giving them my life. By
not forgiving them, I was giving them power control over
whether I was happy, whether I could continue on, whether
(26:39):
I could make the next step, whether I could put
one ft in front of the other, to even just
to to go on with life. And so that would
have been a life sentence that bitterness, and I've called
it a rottenness of the soul, And that is exactly
what it is when you walk around with hate in
your heart and unforgiveness it the effect upon you is
(27:03):
is what you have to deal with. You've given someone
moments of your life where you could maybe have joy
in your life, but instead you can't even find anything
good about life because you're eating up with bitterness and unforgiveness.
And I refused, I'm already sentenced to life that would
have been sentenced to death. Tell me what it's like
(27:27):
in prison, because in theory, I would think all that
bitterness and anger and rage that would fill a prison.
There are quite a few people that had that rage
and that bitterness and that anger. But as much as
I could, I think people probably got tired of me
talking to them about forgiveness because that is a message
(27:49):
that I spread that I that I was able to
spread in prison too. And I've seen people life's renewed.
I've seen smiles back on faces that had a perpetual
frown on them. And I believe that unforgiveness also accounts
for even sickness that we have in our bodies. Um
(28:09):
when you hold onto that. So what I did, Stephanie,
for my little bit, my little piece that I could do.
I tried to to bring a different atmosphere wherever I
went in prison. I tried to get women involved in
things to take their minds off and to even use
place that I did to spread that message of forgiveness
(28:33):
and pick up your life. You're not dead. As long
as you have breath in your body, you can live.
You have value, you can make a difference. And just
being able to communicate that to to other women to
give them hope because I had a lot of hope
and I still have a lot of hope, and hope
(28:56):
is contagious. Smiles and laughter is contagious, and so is hatred,
unforgiveness and bitterness. It can be contagious. There is a
weight of shame, and that shame comes I think, well,
you don't forgive yourself for the things that you've done.
If I felt that I had disappointed so many people,
(29:20):
I disappointed myself too, So even even forgiving others, the
last big obstacle was forgiving myself and shaking that shame
off and holding my head up again and knowing that
I can't change the past, but I sure can do
(29:41):
something about the present, and I can do something going
forward into my future. So this is what I'm hearing about. Forgiveness.
It does not come naturally. It is not an automatic.
It is a choice. And in the case of Alice Johnson,
the choice to forgive others is really about giving herself
(30:01):
a better life, freeing herself. To not forgive would have
been a life sentence of a different kind for her,
possibly even worse than prison. This choice was about freedom
for her, and Alice was able to get there. But
for Nicole Hockley, forgiveness that is not something she's ready
for now. She's not consumed by bitterness. She's devoted to
(30:23):
making real change. So it happened to her son, to
her family, hopefully never happens to someone else. That is
Nicole's mission. But forgiveness, forgiveness for the man who pulled
the trigger, forgiveness for his mother who allowed him to
have those guns. She is not ready for that, not now.
(30:48):
It is a choice. It's a deeply personal choice. That
is what I learned from these two exceptional women. This
has been our conversation on forgiveness. Thanks for listening, bringing
an open mind and helping me create Modern Rules. Want
more of this conversation, go deeper and read this week's
Modern Rules feature only on NBC news dot Com Slash Better. Ye.
(31:23):
That's it for today's episode, I'm your host, Stephanie Rule.
A very very special thanks to the extraordinary people who
made this happen. My producers Julie Brown, Samantha Ullen and
Anne Bark, Audio, Michael Biett for booking and wrangling, the
amazing guests who joined us, Julian Weller for editing and
bill plaques, Michael Azar and Jacobo Penzo for their recording expertise.
(31:44):
Special thanks to see Blick Tige, Barbara Rab, Jonathan Wald,
Marie Dugo, Holly traz Nikki Etre and Christina Everett are
Executive producers are Conald Byrne and Mangesh Hatiga Door and
of course, the men who brought us all together, Chairman
and CEO of I Heart Media Bob Pittman and Chairman
of NBC News Andy Lack. For more podcasts for My
(32:06):
Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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