We have to find a way to speak about our pain - and to listen

April 28 2015, one day after South Africa's Freedom Day, was the 25th anniversary of my bombing.

The bomb was hidden inside two religious magazines sent through the mail to my private post office box in Harare. Using religious magazines to kill a priest was especially cynical for a regime that claimed to be Christian. In the explosion I lost both my hands and an eye and my eardrums were shattered, among other injuries.

In the midst of excruciating pain I had a sense that God was with me ... a God who accompanies us on our journeys, not one who steps in and says: "It's a bomb, don't open it."

I knew immediately that the apartheid regime had got me, after several years on a hit list. I also realised that because I was still alive that they had failed: I was alive. Victory was already mine.

Today I recall what I lost ... hands that I will always grieve for and ... and ...

Losing limbs is like losing a loved one. Grief became a permanent dimension of my life.

block_quotes_start My thoughts turn to the one who made the bomb ... the one who gave the orders and the chain of command. Do they remember this day? block_quotes_end

I remember with thanksgiving what I still have ... the ability to love and be loved above all.

In the months that followed, it was the occupational therapists who taught me anew the ordinary needs of human existence, like how to wash myself.

I learnt how to use a computer and to drive, as well as to celebrate the Mass once more. The occupational therapists were concerned not just with my functionality but also the quality of my life. I told them I liked to take photos, so they added a gadget to my camera to make that possible.

As I came to terms with permanent major physical disability, I came to the conclusion that, while not always visible, incompleteness, brokenness and disability, not perfection, is the norm of the human family. I stopped striving for total independence and focused on a healthy level of interdependence, which I understand to be at the heart of the African world view.

I remember what I have gained with deep joy, especially the privilege of accompanying so many in the human family on their journey towards healing.

After reflecting on what helped me to heal, and on the South Africa I encountered on my return from exile, I founded the Institute for Healing of Memories in 1998.

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People all over the world had accompanied me on my journey of healing. It was time for me to return the compliment.

My thoughts turn to the one who made the bomb. The one who typed my name on an envelope ... the one who gave the orders and the chain of command. Do they remember this day?

On April 28 1990, my bombing was covered by media across the world. What did they feel and think when they heard the news? Satisfaction that they got me, or frustration that, unlike Ruth First and Jenny [Jeanette] and Katryn Schoon, I was still alive? To this day, do the loved ones of those who made letter bombs know what they did for a living? Or is it still a guilty secret?

Do they regret what they did ... or regret that they failed? I wonder how their lives have been these past 25 years.

When I gave evidence to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, I made three requests: please find out who did it, why they did it, and the chain of command. So far there are no answers. I still need the answers.

However, although these are abiding issues, they do not consume me. If I was consumed by the need to know, I would have missed out on a joyous and meaningful life.

I say again as I have said many times before: if they are imprisoned in their own hearts and souls because of what they did, I have a key and I am happy to turn it.

Sometimes I imagine an encounter with the bombers. It goes something like this: a knock on the door. A man standing there who says: "I am the one who sent you the bomb, will you forgive me?" I respond: "Do you still make letter bombs?" He says: "Oh no, I work at the Red Cross Children's Hospital. Will you forgive me?" I say: "Yes, I forgive you and I would prefer that you spend the next 50 years working at that hospital rather than being locked up in prison. Personally I believe a thousand times more in the justice of restoration than the justice of punishment."

Then maybe we sit and drink tea together. "My friend, I have forgiven you, but I still have no hands and only one eye. I will always need someone to assist me, for the rest of my life. Of course you will help pay for that person, not as a condition of forgiveness, but as part of reparation and restitution in the ways that are possible."

I speculate and discuss with friends: Why does no one come forward and accept responsibility? To avoid jail? Are they content with their golden handshakes, blocking out those parts of our inner being that make us fully human? Do they sleep well at night? Or do they wake up in a cold sweat?

Seventy years after the end of World War 2, trauma centres in Europe began to see an influx of old soldiers. The demons would no longer be silent.

In the US, I work with war veterans, especially those who have become homeless, on healing of memories.

One man said: "I have waited 42 years to tell this story." For 42 years he had not felt that there was permission or space to share what had haunted him for most of his life.

I often ask myself: Why did I survive a bomb that was supposed to kill me? So many others who equally deserved to live, did not.

I think it was important that some of us did survive as living witnesses to the horrors of what we did to each other.

Yes, the physical injuries, but, much more importantly, the spiritual and moral injuries that are still in need of healing.

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When human beings act contrary to their consciences, to what they know to be right and wrong, they damage themselves. Even more when we cause physical harm and even death to others.

That combatants in war get post-traumatic stress disorders is good. It is a sign that we are fully human and that we are not hard-wired to kill each other. When we do, it makes us sick.

Those who sent me the letter bomb damaged themselves much more than they damaged me.

How much more violence will we carry out upon ourselves and the citizens of other lands before we face the fact that 21 years into democracy we are still a traumatised nation characterised by moral and spiritual injuries? Indeed, the soul of this nation needs healing.

I believe that we need a new national conversation with a new language in which we can speak and listen to one another's pain. We can become healers of one another.

Perhaps the man will be standing at my door sooner than I expected. I am waiting, with the key to his liberation and my own.

• Lapsley is the director of the Institute for Healing of Memories and vice-president of the South African Council of Churches