Nicole Avant explains why she forgave man who murdered her 81-year-old mom

Tune in to Season Four, Episode Five of “Making Space” to hear TODAY co-anchor Hoda Kotb’s full conversation with Nicole Avant.

Nicole Avant has forgiven the man responsible for her mother's death to "protect" her "happy heart."

Avant, the U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas from 2009 to 2011, is the latest guest on "Making Space with Hoda Kotb," in an episode that premiered Dec. 6. During the conversation, Avant tells host Hoda Kotb about the 2021 home invasion that resulted in the murder of her mother, philanthropist Jacqueline Avant, at age 81 and why she chose to forgive the assailant for her own peace.

A California man, Aariel Maynor, pleaded guilty in 2022 to murder and other charges in connection with Jacqueline Avant's death and the burglary. He was sentenced to 190 years in prison without the possibility of early parole.

Avant's dad, Clarence Avant, known as the "Black Godfather" of entertainment, died in August at 92.

Avant, who wrote the recent book "Think You'll Be Happy: Moving Through Grief with Grit, Grace, and Gratitude," which delves into her mother's death, tells Hoda that the assailant was on a "spree" and her parents' house "was on his list." It happened during the wee hours of the night.

"My mom happened to be up," she explains, later adding police told her, "She just happened to be in the crossfire, and she encountered him. She fled. And then he (shot)."

One of the bullets landed in her mother's back and she was transported to the hospital, Avant says. Avant learned of the shooting from her husband, after awaking to several missed calls from her brother.

"I stood frozen for a minute and I felt my knees buckle," she recalls. "My heart was racing. I thought, 'Wait a minute, what?' And then I just — I took a deep breath. I went, 'OK.' Then, your brain holds on to anything: 'Oh, she’s at the hospital, so how bad can it —' I don’t know."

Avant says she drove her car to the hospital and while making a turn, she saw a flickering green light and "took it as a sign."

"'OK, Mom, I don't know what's happened to you. I don’t even know if you can hear me, but I just need to say this,'" she recalls saying in that moment. "'I love you and I’m praying for you, but you don’t have to come back. I can take care' — I just went into this 'I got it. I’ll just take care of Dad.'"

After she entered the hospital, an officer eventually came to speak to her and her family.

"The police officer, thank God, who was at the hospital — he was the one who said to me, 'I was in the ambulance with your mom and I want you to know how strong (she was). Your mom is so strong because she was alive and she was fighting,'" Avant recalls.

"It was a gift that he gave me of telling me how my mom was fighting," she says, adding, "It was a really good gift that he gave me that I've carried."

After the doctor told Avant and her family that her mother had died, they returned to her home and began to rebuild their lives without Jacqueline Avant.

Since then, Avant says she has forgiven the assailant, but does not absolve him from his actions that night.

“When I forgive him, it’s really forgiving for myself," she explains.

"So, I don’t know his name. I don’t know anything about him. I don’t want to know anything about him. I don’t care about him. I don’t condone what he did. I do not make an excuse for what he did. I’m not a person like, ‘Oh, he had a bad childhood.’ I don’t care. A lot of people have bad childhoods and they don’t do terrible things," she says.

Still, Avant forgave him to bring herself peace, she says.

"But I forgave for myself because I have a heart," she says. "I have a good heart. And I have a happy heart. And I wanted to protect my happy heart. And I could not hate him and be at peace at the same time. I tried. It doesn’t work."

She sees forgiveness as releasing the loose ends connected to her mom's death.

"So the forgiveness was more for me of giving up the anger and giving up the questioning and the why, because I started doing that, Hoda, and I thought, 'None of this is bringing her back anyway,'" Avant says.

What Avant does do, however, is honor her parents' memories. She invited the police officer who was with her mom in the ambulance, and the police chief, to a recent memorial.

"They showed up for her," she says, adding, "I said, 'Thank you for not leaving her alone in the ambulance."

This article was originally published on TODAY.com