Forgiveness did not make the pain of grief go away, said Carmen Tenney, Tom King’s granddaughter. She had just seen him the day before the accident, when he visited for her birthday, bringing a card and praying with her.
“He was going to be the one who walked me down the aisle,” Tenney said. “He is not going to be there. I was angry.”
She said she believed King, whom she called “papa,” would want her to forgive Wellert, but it was not easy.
But as the day of Wellert’s sentencing approached, Tenney said her mind began to change.
“I know even in my anger that my papa forgave him,” she said. “He would have said, don’t let his life be ruined over an accident.”
On the day of the sentencing, she had a simple message for Wellert — that her grandfather had already forgiven him.
“I told Brandon that I hope that someday soon you could forgive yourself,” she said. “And that’s basically all I could get out without breaking down.”
Wellert pleaded guilty, and King’s relatives asked he be assigned to do community service for the Salvation Army as a way of carrying on King’s legacy. The judge gave Wellert 80 hours of service at the Salvation Army and suspended his license. He received no jail time.
“I saw God today,” Boulton later wrote on Facebook, recounting the story.
Though she never met him, she’s grateful for King’s legacy. “Tom King has blessed my life,” she said.
The night of the accident remains difficult for Wellert, who began seeing a counselor to help work through how to live with what happened.
“I’m hanging in there,” Wellert said. “It’s still tough to think about. No matter how many times you keep replaying it in your head, it’s never going to make sense.”
He said there was a sense of relief when he heard King’s family speak in the courtroom. He said he was moved by how much they cared for him.
“They said that when they got to the hospital after Mr. King had passed, they prayed for me,” he said. “They were worried about how I was doing.”
Family members say King’s legacy continues to inspire them. The last time she saw her papa, Tenney said that he told her about his work with the Salvation Army and how it was going and asked how she and the kids were doing. He played with the kids for a while, “just being goofy,” she said.
Then he gave her the same advice he always did— “You’ve got to just keep going.”
This article originally appeared here.
