I recently received a letter from Sean Harrington, who at the time was sitting in a jail cell in North Carolina, charged with murdering my daughter, Elisif.

Elisif died on Feb. 11, 2014, at the age of 24. Her story is all too familiar these days: A promising, bright young woman dies of a heroin overdose. In her case, she had been off opiates for four months, and was just completing her third month at a healing community in North Carolina, where she was thriving and beloved. But as is the way with drug addiction, something triggered her cravings. Her way of securing drugs? Elisif contacted her friend Sean, living in Philadelphia, and one money order and one greeting-card-with-heroin-enclosed later, Elisif had her fix. She used once and died.

The day after our daughter's death, my wife and I were in North Carolina, sitting across from detective BJ Bayne. She filled us in on North Carolina laws. Whoever provided the drugs that killed Elisif could be charged for providing her with the lethal substance. The detective informed us they would pursue prosecution.

It did not take long for the authorities to track Sean down and arrest him. By the fall of 2014, he had been extradited to North Carolina and was facing up to 55 years in prison for second-degree murder. Only this month, with a plea bargain, did Sean receive his sentence: 16 to 29 months, with 22 months already served.

This story could have gone a different way.

My wife and I could have felt as so many parents who lose their children to addiction understandably feel: There must be someone to blame. Should we have felt that way, Sean would naturally be first in line to receive our animus and we no doubt would have done all we could to keep him behind bars for a long, long time. We would have been witnesses for the prosecution — the sympathetic parents whose lives are ruined by the devilish Sean Harrington.

But such was not our path. Prepared as we were to be witnesses for the defense, the prosecutors opted for a plea bargain, allowing Sean to plead guilty to manslaughter, and light sentence.

I understand that drug addiction is a disease, and nobody is more a victim of it than the person who has it. Not for one moment have I blamed Sean for my daughter's death, and I have said as much publicly in the media. Indeed, it was upon the Philadelphia Daily News printing an article about my position that Sean's parents contacted me. We have since become friends, and I have been in touch with Sean.

This is what Sean writes in his most recent letter to me:

“At times I want to write to you but I get nervous and begin to think that you probably might not want to hear from me. ... I know that every day, Elisif is in your heart, mind, and soul, just in the way she is in mine. Not a day goes by that I do not think of Elisif, and the tragic loss of such a beautiful, artistic, smart and talented individual.”

And:

“I hated being an addict, but I couldn't help myself.”

And:

“For every life addiction takes there's a mother, father, son, daughter, boyfriend, girlfriend, brother, sister who are devastated, and it's such a pointless loss, when we live in the richest nation in the world, where if people just stopped putting people down, and helped each other out, if people weren't afraid of honesty and actually talked about this issue then we could save some lives, and save a lot of people a whole lot of pain and sorrow.”

And:

“I've been given a gift, which is a second chance at life. And with this second chance I've been put in a unique position. I've been on both sides of the wall now, and have been given a purpose. My purpose now is to do anything and everything I can to dramatically reduce the number of people that have to experience what you, I, and millions of families have experienced. … I think that Elisif and my story is powerful, and it's my place to share it and try to save as many lives as I can.”

Powerful indeed, and a lesson to us all in the power of compassion. Elisif would not have wanted it any other way.

Peter Bruun is an artist, curator, and founder of the New Day Campaign (www.newdaycampaign.org), a Baltimore initiative using art to challenge stigma and discrimination associated with mental illness and addiction, making the world a more healing place. His email is peter@newdaycampaign.org.