The Forgiveness Episode: Philomena Lee absolves the nuns who kept her from her son, a father forgives his son's assassin, and more

Philomena Lee had a lot to forgive. When she was an unwed teenager in Ireland in the 1950s, she got pregnant. Her family disowned her and sent her to a convent. There, the nuns shamed her and forced her to work. Then, when her son Anthony was a toddler, the nuns gave him away to an American couple. She never saw him again.

If her story sounds familiar, that's because the movie based on her life, Philomena, was nominated for an Oscar for best picture.

I used to see that little face looking out the back of the car. So sad. You know I still shed a few tears over it all- Philomena Lee

 

As Ms. Lee told Carol in February, the moment that would haunt her for the rest of her life came on Christmas Day, 1955, when Anthony was three-and-a-half. An American woman who had come to the convent to adopt a little girl decided at the last minute to take Anthony as well.
 

"This nice nun, she ran me up the stairs and all I could see was his little face peering out the back of the window and that was the last I ever saw of him," she said.
 

"I have never forgotten that moment in my whole life and I don't suppose I ever will. In all my life, I used to see that little face looking out the back of the car. So sad. You know I still shed a few tears over it all."

After that, she left the convent and the nuns found her a job. She later married and had a family. Ms. Lee kept Anthony a secret for decades, until she told her grown daughter, Jane. Then, with the help of a journalist named Martin Sixsmith, she finally discovered what happened to Anthony.
 

"They told him that I abandoned him at two weeks old," explained Ms. Lee. "Now I raised him for three and half years and worked in the laundry day and night, so I did not abandon him."

But by the time Ms. Lee started getting answers about Anthony, it was too late. A nun finally told her that he had died. 
 

"I tell you, it was like losing him twice over," she said.
 

Anthony still found a way to let her know he had been looking for her. He had his partner bury his ashes at the convent where he was born with a plaque that read: "Michael Anthony Hess. A man of two nations and many talents. Born July 5, 1952. Died in Washington August 15, 1995."
 

He was 43. He had died of AIDS.
 

"The actual day he died, thinking that I had abandoned him at two weeks old, that was the awful, painful part of it," said Ms. Lee.
 

Still, she said she doesn't blame the nuns for keeping her from her son.
 

"I was so hurt and angry when I left [the convent]. But I gradually grew up and knew what life was all about and I was able to let go. Gradually, gradually let go," she said. 
 

"Even now, I don't blame anybody. They were the times and you can't expect the times then to be like the times they are today. So I have forgiven. I couldn't keep up a grudge for 62 years. He'd be 62 this year. How could you keep a grudge up for 62 years?"
 

And there's much more about forgiveness from our archives in this episode of As It Happened: