Do you think you could do this? I bet you can’t; I know I couldn’t. What looks like a normal hug might Do you think you could hug your child’s killer? I know I couldn’t. What looks like a normal hug is anything but.

Rukiye Abdul-Mutakallim is the lady in blue, but who is she embracing?

Javon Coulter, a seventeen-year-old boy who murdered her son – a navy veteran affectionately known as Sam – for sixty dollars.

Here is what she said.

“Those young men – although they took my son’s life in the manner they did – we need to fight for them. Because they are going to come back out. And they will be older. But if they have no light, then this same disease is going to repeat itself, and they are going to take another person’s child’s life and eventually their own, and every mother’s heart must feel this.”

“We have to fight for them to see that there is a better life, and then they have to fight to get to where that better life is.” ^[1]

What’s the most underrated single trait a person can have?

Unconditional love.

We attach a price to everything. We expect certain reactions from people when offering a gift. We love romantically but demand that the other person should never let us go. We praise our friends, children and those around us so long as they meet our unspoken expectations.

Unconditional love is both easy and yet unimaginably difficult. All it takes is love, just without the conditions.

Justice brings order to chaos. Justice is easy; justice is human. Unconditional love and mercy, now that’s the real challenge.

Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.

Confucius

Rukiye Abdul-Mutakallim loved unconditionally, and because of that courage, she and Javon can live.