A Sense of Forgiveness, Part 1

In the early morning hours of June 21, Jason Padgett, the likable Tacoma futon salesman who became a math savant and synesthete from a brain injury suffered in a mugging, got a message on Facebook:

Pablo Picasso, "Dove," 1949.

Source: Public Domain

"Hello Jason, I'm not sure if you know who I am. My name is Brady Simmons. I am one of the men who assaulted you years ago. I want to open up the possibility for us to connect. I have tremendous remorse for the actions that took place that night. If there are any questions I can answer for you, I would be happy to."

Padgett and I wrote Struck by Genius (HMH, 2014) about the resulting Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and how it led to astonishing new abilities in mathematics. He tells me he was stunned by the attacker's outreach. It brought back the memories of that horrible night in September 2002. The relevant excerpt from our book follows:

I was just ten steps out the front door when a blow struck my head just behind my right ear. There was a flash of white light and I heard a deep low sound, lower than the lowest key on a piano. I went down on one knee and lost consciousness briefly as the blinding white light went to black. When I came to shortly after that I was still on one knee and I thought someone had tried to put me in a playful headlock and missed...

Source: Courtesy of Jason Padgett by Scientific American's Michael Clinard.

...A different guy then kicked me in the back of the head...I felt punches raining down on me from all directions. It felt like my head was on fire.

Source: Courtesy of Jason Padgett by Scientific American's Michael Clinard.

Jason's assailants–Simmons and Andrew Schrinek–were finally arrested, but released. Things would never be the same. Jason became obsessed with math and physics and seemed to have a mastery of complex concepts for the first time in his life. He was compelled to draw the intricate geometric patterns he now saw through synesthesia everywhere. But there were trade-offs. In addition to lingering pain and physical injuries, he developed a dramatic case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and grew so afraid of germs that he washed his hands until they bled. He even sprayed paper money with Lysol and microwaved it to avoid contamination. He spent the next three years isolated in his house with blankets nailed over the windows.

But Jason is a survivor. He went back to work and school. He ultimately married and had two beautiful little girls with his wife, Elena. He gave a TED Talk and continues to lecture around the country.

So how does Jason feel about speaking with a man who caused him so much pain, even while opening new doors of perception? "I'm ready for it. I forgave them long ago," he told me.

Though I know Jason to be a caring and philosophical fellow, this is still amazing to me. Jason and I talk frequently about his ongoing pain and challenges, including an upcoming surgery related to the old injury. The tragic effects of Simmons' actions are still very present in his life.

"It's strange, for as much as I hated them, I almost feel the opposite now. I can't wait to talk with him and find out if it changed his life as much as mine. I want to know what was going through his mind that night. It will be good to hear a more unfiltered version of events than I probably would have gotten right after it happened."

Jason literally says, "I wouldn't change a thing. If all this didn't happen I wouldn't have met my wife and had my two youngest daughters."

Even in the conclusion of our book in 2014, Jason said he was open to reconciliation with his attackers:

Having so much to be grateful for has brought me to a place of acceptance and even forgiveness. If my attackers stood before me today, I would offer them an olive branch and express the hope that they’ve changed their lives for the better since that terrible night. I’ve come to the realization that if I carry around that hurt and anger forever it will eat me alive, so I’m letting it go. You might say I’ve come full circle—and I’ve certainly felt every bump along the jaggy edge of the straight lines that I know comprise one. I wonder if my assailants still carry the guilt and shame of what they did to me?

The first phone call is now being arranged in a soaring third act for Jason's–and Brady's–story.

In the next post, I will share my interview with Brady Simmons, whose own life is quite a journey.