Yoko Ono has called for the anniversary of John Lennon’s death to become a worldwide day of forgiveness but said she could not yet absolve her husband’s killer.
”Every year, let’s make December 8 the day to ask for forgiveness from those who suffered the insufferable,” she said in full-page newspaper advertisements.
”To the people who have also lost loved ones without cause: forgive us for having been unable to stop the tragedy.”
She thanked all those who wrote to her at this time every year to say they were thinking of her and her husband.
She said Lennon was ”shot and killed at the prime of his life, at age 40, when he had so much life ahead of him”.
”As the widow of one who was killed by an act of violence, I don’t know if I am ready yet to forgive the one who pulled the trigger.
”I am sure all victims of violent crimes feel as I do. But healing is what is urgently needed now in the world.”
Mark Chapman, the obsessed Beatles fan who gunned down Lennon in 1980 outside his New York apartment, remains in jail and was denied parole for a fourth time earlier this year. — Reuters