South Africa honors mother of slain American

Hate mail as well as embraces
Many people don't understand her decision to transform grief into commitment to racial reconciliation, Biehl said. Even in South Africa, some are baffled or suspicious, she said, adding with a rueful laugh that she has the hate mail to prove it. But she also has been embraced.

Last June, officials at a Johannesburg high school asked her to speak at anniversary celebrations for the school, where crime and violence had touched many students and their families. Biehl said she found herself facing a mostly white audience. Afterward, a woman told her of her brother's murder during a robbery, and how she was now working for gun control.

South Africans are "trying to understand the forgiveness and reconciliation process," Biehl said. "If an example can be helpful to people, if a story can be helpful to people, I'm happy to share my story."

If South Africans have been inspired by her, Biehl said she has learned much and been comforted in return. Her work in the Cape Town township where her daughter died has meant learning first hand how AIDS and crime is devastating the lives of impoverished black South Africans.

"I don't go to that many funerals in America. Here, I could go to one every Saturday," she said. "Just listening to people and how they accept things has just been very therapeutic for me."

In South Africa, "you help each other, and there is a gathering of support."

She compares herself to parents galvanized to campaign against drinking after the death of a child at the hands of a drunk driver, or who raise funds to find a cure for cancer after losing a child to disease.

"People who lost their children, they want to do something about it," she said. "I don't think my story is that much different than that, really."

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