Before we can forgive one another, we have to understand one

Host: The evening light was nearly gone, spilling its last threads of gold across a quiet bridge where the river beneath mirrored a sky half-dark, half-remembered.
A soft wind carried the city’s murmurs — footsteps, laughter, sirens, fragments of conversations that rose and disappeared like half-formed prayers.

Jack leaned against the iron railing, hands buried deep in his coat pockets, eyes fixed on the moving water. His reflection shifted each time the current broke — a man split by memory and remorse.
Jeeny stood beside him, her face calm but watchful, the kind of composure that comes from weathering many storms without expecting fair skies anymore.

Between them, taped to the railing, a small scrap of paper fluttered faintly in the breeze — someone had left it there like a message for strangers:
“Before we can forgive one another, we have to understand one another.” — Emma Goldman.

Jeeny: (reading it aloud, softly) “Before we can forgive one another, we have to understand one another.”
(She pauses, then smiles faintly.) “She was right, you know. Forgiveness without understanding is just pretending to forget.”

Jack: (quietly) “Or pretending not to hurt.”

Jeeny: “You think you can forgive without understanding?”

Jack: (watching the river) “People do it all the time. They call it moving on. But I think that’s just another word for running away.”

Jeeny: “And yet… sometimes running away is survival.”

Jack: “True. But it’s not peace.”

Host: The light shifted, the lamplights flickering to life along the bridge, casting thin halos around them.
The river below glowed faintly, a long ribbon of quiet motion — the perfect metaphor for understanding: deep, elusive, and always moving.

Jeeny: “You know, Goldman wasn’t talking about personal forgiveness. She meant it politically — socially. Revolution through empathy.”

Jack: (nodding) “Yeah, but it fits both. The world and the heart — they both break for the same reason: misunderstanding.”

Jeeny: “And pride.”

Jack: “And fear.”

Jeeny: “Fear’s the biggest one. We don’t listen because listening means letting go of being right.”

Jack: (sighing) “It’s funny. We spend so much energy defending what we think we know — when half the time, we don’t even understand what we’re defending.”

Jeeny: (quietly) “Maybe that’s why she said ‘before.’ Because forgiveness isn’t the first act — it’s the consequence of comprehension.”

Host: A train roared in the distance, the sound echoing through the steel skeleton of the bridge, then fading into the night. For a moment, neither spoke. The silence felt earned — honest.

Jack: (softly) “Do you think understanding always leads to forgiveness?”

Jeeny: (after a long pause) “No. But I think without it, forgiveness is hollow.”

Jack: “So understanding’s the foundation.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Even if you don’t like what you find.”

Jack: “And what if what you find makes forgiveness impossible?”

Jeeny: (turning to face him) “Then at least you’ve replaced bitterness with clarity. That’s still healing.”

Jack: “Clarity hurts.”

Jeeny: “Only because it asks you to look where you’ve refused to.”

Host: The wind picked up, scattering a few fallen leaves across the bridge. One of them caught on the railing, trembling like a word unsaid.

Jack: (quietly) “You know what I’ve realized? Most people don’t want to understand — they want to be understood.”

Jeeny: “Because understanding means surrendering the illusion of being the victim.”

Jack: “And we cling to that like armor.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. It’s easier to wear pain than to unpack it.”

Jack: (after a pause) “I used to think forgiveness was weakness.”

Jeeny: “And now?”

Jack: “Now I think refusing to understand is cowardice.”

Jeeny: (smiling softly) “You’re learning.”

Host: The city lights reflected in the river, each ripple bending their glow into strange, broken shapes — just like memories refracted through regret.

Jeeny: “You ever forgive someone who never said sorry?”

Jack: (after a pause) “Yeah. Took years. I realized they couldn’t give me the apology I wanted because they didn’t even understand what they’d done.”

Jeeny: “So you forgave their ignorance.”

Jack: “Exactly. Because sometimes people don’t mean to hurt you — they just never learned how not to.”

Jeeny: (quietly) “That’s the hardest truth of all — that harm can come without hatred.”

Jack: (nodding) “And that’s why understanding matters more than apology.”

Host: The wind softened, the night folding gently around them. A couple passed, laughing, their voices trailing behind like echoes of another life — a reminder that forgiveness, too, is a kind of continuation.

Jeeny: “You know what I think Goldman meant most of all?”

Jack: “What?”

Jeeny: “That understanding is rebellion. It goes against instinct. When someone wrongs you, your first impulse is anger — not curiosity. But the moment you ask ‘why,’ you’ve already refused to let hate make your choices.”

Jack: “So compassion is a form of defiance.”

Jeeny: “The purest kind.”

Jack: (smiling faintly) “You make forgiveness sound like revolution.”

Jeeny: “It is. Every act of forgiveness is a small revolution against pain.”

Host: The river shimmered, catching the reflection of the moon now visible between clouds. The paper with Goldman’s quote fluttered again, its edges damp but its ink unblurred — as if truth, once written, refused to fade.

Jack: (quietly) “You think people can ever really understand each other?”

Jeeny: “Completely? No. But we can keep trying — and that effort alone changes everything.”

Jack: (softly) “Then maybe that’s the real forgiveness — not absolving someone, but continuing to listen anyway.”

Jeeny: (smiling) “Exactly. Understanding isn’t about agreeing. It’s about seeing.”

Jack: “And forgiveness is about letting go of needing them to see you back.”

Jeeny: (whispering) “Yes. It’s freedom — for both.”

Host: The camera pulled back, capturing the two figures silhouetted against the river’s luminous surface, the city pulsing faintly behind them, alive with unseen stories.

The scrap of paper fluttered once more, then stilled — as if listening.

And in its steady presence, Emma Goldman’s words seemed to breathe through the quiet:

“Before we can forgive one another, we have to understand one another.”

Host: And beneath that wide, forgiving sky,
Jack and Jeeny stood in the only place where forgiveness truly begins —
not in forgetting,
not in surrender,
but in the sacred, difficult act of seeing the other clearly.

For understanding is the root,
and forgiveness the flower —
and both must grow
in the same soil of courage,
where the heart learns,
again and again,
to listen before it heals.