Compassion
* Re “Killer of Gay Student Is Spared Death Penalty,” Nov. 5: In a vengeful, bloodthirsty society of little understanding and less compassion, I am moved beyond measure by the parents of Matthew Shepard, who refused to take the life of their son’s murderer. Their deeply human and loving act honors their son.
What they have done is a too rare reminder of Rainer Maria Rilke’s observation that “perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.”
RONALD RUBIN
Topanga
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