...and forget?

If you were arrested at 18 for felony assault, misdemeanor trespass, disorderly conduct, and underage drinking...two weeks after getting your dream job and telling your father that you did not want him to be part of your life ever again...

and if at 23, you had, in another alcohol-fueled rage, beaten a high-school lacrosse player with a golf club...

and if, a month after that, you got drunked up and assaulted and berated a woman...

and then, three years after that, you finally reached the pinnacle, charged with two counts of DUI with property damage, one count of DUI with serious bodily injury, one count of leaving the scene of an accident with an injury, one count of driving with a suspended license, and 2 counts of leaving the scene of an accident with damage to property when you got shahfahzed and ran a truck over the motorcycle, and the head and body of the man who had been riding the motorcycle. 

With that fourth offense, you'd expect to be in jail for quite a while, and jail happened to the person who committed these acts. After his prison time, in fact, he was released with two GPS monitoring devices on his body, and allowed to be in but two places: his apartment, and the Golden Corral where he baked rolls and iced raisin bread for $8.05 an hour.

The motorcyclist, Tony Tufano, had just about every bone in his body broken when he was run over, and that includes every vertebra.  He is in constant pain to this day, lives in seclusion, and is less than a shadow of the vital man he once was, by the way.

But back to the man who did these deeds to the world.  If you were that person, you would still be working at Golden Corral, wouldn't you?

And this man would be doing the same, except for one fact, that being that he is capable of throwing a baseball with accuracy at a speed of 97 miles per hour.

So it is that Matthew Brian "Matt" Bush has a job this season, throwing baseballs for the Texas Rangers of Major League Baseball. For this last last absolutely final last chance, he is not allowed to drink alcohol or drive a motor vehicle, and is to be accompanied at all times by his father.  You know, the man he banished from his life at 18 is now back keeping an eye on that life, driving it around at 31.

Tony Tufano, the man whose life was ruined by Bush's recklessness, is now 77 and had to spent the $200,000 he garnered in a settlement from Bush's insurance on medical treatments for his dozens of lingering ailments. He has found it in himself to forgive Bush, but told HBO that a letter he got from Bush was not quite the healing he needed. "It was like he was sorry, and how he’s a better person, and all that. It was more like about himself. I thought it was BS."

Bush

We're told that forgiveness is the path to Heaven, that we must forgive others their trespasses against us, and this is an example of what a great test that can be.

Of course, Bush gets this chance simply because he can play baseball, but he still deserves grace. Tufano deserves better than he wound up with, and I think I would feel better about Bush if he spent a good portion of the money he's about to roll in on improving Tufano's lot in life.