The accident happened on a crisp, clear December afternoon in 2004. The Mathisons were returning home from a family birthday party, their 10-week-old daughter safely belted into her backseat carrier. Angela, a nurse, was on maternity leave.
"It was the perfect life," she says. "Brent was the best person I ever met."
The Mathisons were about a mile from their Elk River, MN, home when Sari's Chevrolet Cavalier skidded across the highway median, broadsiding their pickup truck. The teen had been going 78 miles per hour in a 65-mile-per-hour zone, and she lost control of the car.
At the wheel, Brent died instantly from massive internal injuries. Angela's left leg was crushed and her face burned by chemicals from the deployed airbag, while Annika suffered severe head trauma. Sari, then 17, also sustained serious injuries. "I must have blacked out after the crash," she says, "because all I remember is the median, a truck, and then some lady" — a Good Samaritan — "in the backseat of my car, holding my head still." Sari was taken to the nearest hospital; Angela and Annika were rushed to Hennepin County Medical Center, where Angela is on staff. It would be seven months before she was able to return to work.
Angela could easily have been consumed by bitterness or a desire for revenge. But even in the early, disorienting weeks after the crash, she felt differently. "I didn't want anger to be the primary focus of my life," she says. "I needed to raise my daughter in a happy atmosphere — and that couldn't happen if her dad's name dredged up bad feelings."
Angela learned that the other driver was a high school senior, a good student who held down two part-time jobs. The police found no evidence that she had been impaired by alcohol or drugs, or distracted by a cell phone. "If any of those had been the case," Angela tells her young audiences, "I wouldn't be here."
Three months after the crash, Sari returned to school for half days. "I was so broken," she recalls. Stories ricocheted around the halls: Her car had been stuffed with passengers; she'd been stoned or drunk; she'd been clocked at 180 miles per hour. Home became a haven, where Sari's parents offered love and support.
In August 2005, Sari met with Angela and Annika for the first time, at a court hearing. Accompanied by her parents, but no lawyer, Sari pled guilty to careless driving as a minor.
Following the plea, Sari asked to speak with Angela alone. In a small conference room, she apologized to the woman whose suffering she'd caused. Impressed by Sari's demonstration of accountability in the courtroom, Angela told the teenager that while she was angry that her husband was gone, she was prepared to forgive. Then the two embraced, both of them in tears.
Prosecutors could have treated Sari as an adult and charged her with criminal vehicular manslaughter, which would have resulted in jail time. But the victim's wishes weigh heavily in this process, and Angela could not let Sari go to jail. "I'm all for punishment when punishment is due," says Angela. "But Sari owned up to her mistake — and that is what this was: a mistake." Not everyone in her family understood, Angela concedes. "But I just told them that there had been enough pain, and this was the way it had to be."
Sari was sentenced to 400 hours of community service, talking to teens about safe driving. Her penalty expired in 2006, but she still speaks at schools and safe-driving seminars. Between presentations, Angela and Sari stay in touch by phone and occasionally meet. Annika is doing well despite speech delays; she is also being monitored for possible developmental problems. Angela and Sari seem to share a special understanding. "It's so much easier to forgive someone else than to forgive yourself," Angela told the local newspaper. Says Sari: "Angela is amazing. I don't know if I could have done what she did."
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