In the photo, Clifford Helm holds tight to the hand of Carolyn Schrock. His own hand is in a sling and covered with gauze strips. He holds onto her hand as if he might never let go. He holds her hand across a chasm of pain.

Helm drove the vehicle that crossed a median strip and hit head-on the pickup in which all five of Schrock’s children were riding. The children, all younger than 13, were killed. This accident happened a week ago Tuesday on U.S. Highway 395 north of Spokane.

On Friday and Saturday, Schrock visited Helm at Sacred Heart Medical Center. She forgave the man. Her forgiveness is rooted deep in her Mennonite faith tradition. But usually these gestures, so foreign in our angry and litigious culture, are the stuff of saints.

Mother Teresa, for instance, wrote about it, saying “To young people from violent homes, I say: pray and forgive.”

A world away from the Schrock family tragedy, a young Palestinian boy raised in a violent land died in violence. Ahmed Khatib, 12, was shot by Israeli soldiers on the West Bank last Thursday; the toy rifle he carried was mistaken for real.

Ahmed died of his wounds Saturday, the same day Schrock visited Helm in the hospital here. Ahmed’s parents donated their son’s kidney, liver, lungs and heart to critically ill people. The organs were transplanted into both Arabs and Jews.

The father said, “I feel that my son has entered the heart of every Israeli.”

These radical gestures – forgiveness by Schrock and donation of organs to the “enemy” – are both humbling and instructive in a society where the desire for revenge is the usual reaction to horrific and preventable tragedies.

Yet revenge rarely satisfies. As the Chinese proverb instructs: “The man who opts for revenge should dig two graves.”

In the photo taken at Sacred Heart, Schrock and Helm are looking at one another. There is weariness in both their faces. Their sad eyes speak to the journey ahead for both. Forgiveness is not a magic balm that soothes away all pain.

Schrock will experience the grief natural to such a tragedy. Forgiveness did not bring her children home to her.

And, after the investigation of the accident is complete, the accident might result in criminal charges. Forgiveness does not negate the need for social order enforced through our justice system.

The Schrock children are buried now. Ahmed has been laid to rest. But extraordinary actions by their parents remain as legacy of these young lives. Their actions reminded us that just as humans are capable of inexplicable evil, they are also capable of inexplicable good.

Forgive and give, even when both seem impossible. How fortunate to have two clear examples, in the same week, of how the impossible can and does happen.