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Henry Clay once told the US Senate, "There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured with what is right in America."

Elizabeth Hayden is what is right in America.

Elizabeth's husband, Jim, was on United flight 175 when it slammed into the south tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

9/11 truly did change everything for Elizabeth and her children.

In today's Boston Globe, Elizabeth writes about the unimaginable pain she has endured these last four and a half years, and her loss of hope, and even of her faith.

She also writes about Zacarious Moussaoui, who was supposed to be among the Al Qaeda terrorists who attacked America that September morning, killing her husband and thousands of others. After his arrest on unrelated charges three weeks before the attack, Moussaoui could have exposed the plot, saving Jim and all the others from a horrible death. He chose not to.

If anyone is entitled to revenge, it is Elizabeth Hayden. But here is her view of a Moussaoui death sentence:

Does Zacarious Moussaoui deserve the death penalty? Absolutely...Should Moussaoui receive the death penalty? Absolutely not.

...

It is a human response to be enraged against those who plotted to take the lives of so many innocent victims. To strike back is an instinctual human reaction toward such an outrageous violation against mankind. Yet to impose the death penalty diminishes our own humanity. Do we want to characterize ourselves as a nation committed to pure vengeance with nothing more to be gained? For we surely cannot think that imposing the death penalty will act as a deterrent against other terrorists. Cloaked in the rationalization of carrying forth the will of God, the terrorists let their fear and hatred consume their last ounce of humanity. Let us not follow in their footsteps.

Let us instead distance ourselves from the evil wrapped in their warped behavior. Let us maintain a strand of humanity that will bond us to the value of life. Let us define ourselves as principled people not acting out of fear and hatred, but a people who under the most challenging of circumstances can transcend evil and prevail with reason and justice. Let us strive to have love for one another.

Elizabeth Hayden may have temporarily lost her hope and faith, and nothing I or anyone can say will change that. But it will be Elizabeth Hayden, and people like her, who one day will cause our hope and faith in America to be restored.