Connie Shin

And I walked because I had no idea how to write a victim impact statement.

Like, what do you say about someone that you don't even know?

And in the lead up to the hearing and in writing this statement, it was really important for me to be able to answer two questions.

Do I hate this person who killed my dad?

Can I forgive the person who killed my dad?

Is it possible within one's own soul to hate and forgive at the same time?

And during this year, I had begun to learn just a little bit about transformative justice, and I realized that the answer to my dad's violent death is not more violence.

That there's this collective responsibility that we all have to practice the things that we want to see change in this world.

And this framework of transformative justice kind of aligned with a personal motto of mine, which is to ask myself, what is a life well lived?

Like, what did it mean for me as I was turning 32 to live a life well lived?

What did it mean for my dad who died at 32 to have lived a life well lived?

And now I couldn't help but wonder, what does it mean for this person who killed my dad to also have a life well lived?

The end of the walk, it got very cold.

It was very dark.

The people who were still walking with me, we were all kind of falling apart.

One person sprained their ankle.

We had moleskin for blisters.

We're all hobbling towards that last mile.

I'm so tired, I'm not even thinking about my dad.

And in the end, we actually walked 33.5 miles because of construction.