The Perils of Sympathy

Dr. Grimes was sitting on an old campus bench one cold, windy day. The sky above him was overcast and low; the first snow of the season was predicted to fall that afternoon. Students hurrying to their classes were wrapped up in thick coats, but Dr. Grimes seemed oblivious to the subzero temperatures; he was sitting on a bench, wearing green slacks and a thick woolen sweater, reading the morning paper. Many people asked him why he was sitting outside on such a bitter day, but his only reply was that he would not let a thing as puny as the weather drive him inside.

As he sat there, quietly reading the local news, a student that was walking by stopped and spoke to him. “Terrible tragedy, isn’t it, Dr. Grimes?”

The elderly professor laid down his paper and eyed the student that had interrupted him. He recognized him as one of his students; he was enrolled in the professor’s ancient civilizations class. Sam was a fairly quiet person; the thin young man sat in the back row and caused no trouble. The only quality that stood out about him was his ability to stay awake through Dr. Grimes’ lectures – an ability for which Dr. Grimes was grateful.

“What’s that, Sam? I don’t follow you. What’s a tragedy?”

“Oh, you know – the murder. Mary whats-her-name and her children. It just really tears your heart, you know?”

The professor thought a moment. “Oh – I remember now. You’re talking about Mary Byers, aren’t you? Isn’t she the divorced woman that went through her house and shot all of her children before running off with her boyfriend? Yes, yes, that is quite a tragedy. I think they arrested her a couple weeks ago – they found her and her boyfriend on some island somewhere.”

“They did,” Sam said, nodding in agreement. “It’s just such a sad situation. Your heart really goes out for her, you know?”

“For her?” Dr. Grimes asked, puzzled. “You mean Mary?”

“Oh yeah. I read in the paper this morning that she really loved her children, and she just really misses them. This has got to be so hard for her.”

“This is hard for her?” Dr. Grimes repeated. “Do you expect me to believe that she loved her four children as she hunted them down and murdered them?”

“Yeah. I hear she’s having to undergo grief counseling, to help her through this rough time in her life. I’m glad the prosecuting attorney is so understanding. This is a hard thing for her to go through.”

“I certainly do see some tragic elements,” the professor said. “I take it the prosecutor is not pursuing the death penalty.”

“Oh no, professor. That just wouldn’t be right. She just couldn’t take the stress of having kids anymore, so she made the best decision she could. What she really needs is our help and understanding.”

“What she really needs,” Dr. Grimes said crisply, “is to be hung by the neck from that tree over there until she is dead.”

“What?” the student said, shocked. “That’s terrible!”

“I’ll tell you what is terrible,” the professor said angrily, as he stood up and tossed his newspaper into a nearby trash can. “What’s terrible is a society with so much love for evil that instead of punishing crime they offer counseling to help murderers overcome any guilt or remorse they might feel for brutally taking someone else’s life. What’s terrible is a society filled with ‘understanding’ toward a mother who murdered all of her children so she could run off with her boyfriend, but yet feels no compassion for the children that were actually killed.”

Sam looked at him, open-mouthed. “Man, Grimes, are you ever out of it. Where’s the love in that?”

Dr. Grimes looked his student directly in the eye. “Love, Sam, does not involve chasing your own children through your home and murdering them so that you can go have an affair with someone. Love is not telling that woman she made the right decision and just she needs to move on with her life. I feel great compassion toward the children that she brutally shot and left to die – compassion and a yearning for justice. That mother richly deserves to have done to her what she did to her children.”

“That’s terrible,” Sam said. “I don’t know how you can even think that way.”

“Maybe I want to see the victims of crimes avenged instead of ignored. Or maybe I want to see crime punished instead of patronized.” With that, Dr. Grimes walked off, leaving a shocked student behind him.