Mother’s day, 2018
To my siblings,
Dear loved ones,
A week before Dad died, he called me into his room. He was having a hard time getting words out, but I could tell there was something he needed to say to me. I knelt down on the shag carpet in that little yellow room, next to his narrow bed and held his hand. He was crying.
With a lot of false starts and repeated words, he told me that when I was very little he had done some very bad things to me. “Messed with you” were his words. He was sorry. So sorry. Would I forgive him?
Yes Dad, I said. I forgive you. there was little more conversation after that. I kissed his forehead, he patted my hand and went to sleep for a while, exhausted from this difficult work that not many have the strength to undertake. He died just days later. Years later I’m still processing that conversation.
Here are the lessons I’ve taken so far. I’m sure I’ll be learning from it for the rest of my life.
1. Forgiveness is a mysterious process and this moment really seared it into my consciousness. He asked for my forgiveness. I gave it. It took two of us. He wasn’t asking for absolution of sin (that belongs to God alone) but for the bond between the two of us to remain strong even in the face of hurt.
2. I didn’t remember the incident. I actually remember (have always remembered) a conversation with Mom about it—I had to have been 3-4 years old because I remember where I was and how small I was. Even so, there are things in my adult life that are probably a result of that incident, up to and possibly including my divorce. Pebbles in the water creating ripples and all that.
3. It’s crucial that I forgive when asked. Now, when I have hurt someone’s feelings, or have done something in an unfeeling/unthinking way I always specifically ask for forgiveness. I don’t say “Sorry” anymore. I want the process to be a two-way street. Not that they have to grant forgiveness—but I always have to ask for it.
4. There is never a time when my being “right” trumps someone else’s heart. When I’m dead and thrown into my hole in the ground, my being “right” won’t amount to a hill of beans. I would have been “right” to march out of the house and never gone back when Dad told me his story. Sometimes we hurt hearts and justify it by saying, “We were right.” It is never right to hurt a heart. We make mistakes, we admit our mistakes, we live with the consequences. We are human. Asking for forgiveness says, “I hurt you. Are we still connected?” Forgiveness says, “You hurt me AND our hearts are always connected with love.”
That’s my story to this point. As we do, I learn more with reflection and hope to grow wiser with each passing day. I am bound to each one of you with indissoluble bonds that the changes and chances of the world cannot break.
loving you a bushel and a peck and more.
