The Daily Post
Daily Prompt for May 7, 2015: Forgive and Forget?
Share a story where it was very difficult for you to forgive the perpetrator for wronging you, but you did it — you forgave them.
* * * * *
I’m not a person who usually struggles with the whole “forgive and forget” thing. In fact, I’m most generally far harder on myself than I ever am on anyone else. But just reading this prompt brought back a distressing scene in a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona where my dad was dying of congestive heart failure.
Dad had struggled with congestive heart failure for awhile, but he’d finally gotten to the point where the medications he took to keep his heart pumping adequately were not able to stay ahead of the fluid that filled his body. He was 76, and for reasons I can’t remember now (this was February 1997), dialysis was not an option for him. By the time my sister, brother, and I had gotten there, the doctors had raised the possibility of peritoneal dialysis where the water was drained off by a tube through the wall of the stomach. They weren’t sure if it would do any good or not, and it was a fairly uncomfortable procedure.
Dad was all for it. He loved life and planned to hold on with both hands. But mom was having no part of it. She was so adamant about not trying it that we were all stunned. We ended up in quite a row in the waiting room, with both of us saying things we shouldn’t have. I accused her of not loving dad if she wasn’t willing to do absolutely everything we could to get him better and out of there. I was so angry. I felt horribly wronged, as did my brother and sister, while mom just stayed strangely quiet in the face of our confusion and accusations.
As it happened, two days later, before anything could really be decided, dad lapsed into a coma and died within several hours, his stereo earphones on listening to tapes of his band. He died quietly and peacefully. But there was a part of me that just grew angrier and angrier at my mom. I didn’t believe for one minute that she had loved my dad. I didn’t understand how she could just let him go like that without a fight. Though we had spent a lifetime, it seemed, being at odds, our relationship suffered more than usual after that.
I’ve shared on here before how my mom passed away 18 months later. She never did recover from my dad’s death. She didn’t answer the phone one particular morning, and when I got to the house to check on her I had to break a basement window to get in. All I could think about was had she fallen down the stairs in the night and been lying for hours in pain unable to get to the phone? And then this little thought intruded into my mind: Please let her be dead. She was. She had died peacefully in her sleep, thanks be to God.
But I couldn’t understand or deal with that tiny little thought that kept accusing me of wanting her gone. It felt for all the world like revenge. I ended up seeing a grief counselor, and it wasn’t until that counselor asked me where that idea had come from that I realized I couldn’t have stood the thought of her suffering there all alone.
And in the moment I articulated my feelings to her, I knew exactly why mom had been so dead-set against trying the dialysis with dad. He’d already suffered so much, and there was no guarantee that this painful procedure would be of any help at all. The truth was, she loved him so much that she was willing to let him go because she couldn’t stand to see him suffer any more.
I learned a lot about letting go in that one counseling session. I learned that you have to love someone a heck of a lot to be able to put their life in God’s hands and leave it there. And I learned if there was one thing mom did, it was love dad.
I forgave her that day for what I had thought was the worst betrayal ever, but it was too late for me to make amends. What I wouldn’t give for just five minutes with her again to be able to say, “I get it now, mom.” Unfortunately I managed to pick up that mantle of unforgiveness and put it on. It was another three years before I was finally able to understand and forgive myself for how I had wronged her.
It just this second occurred to me as I looked at the date on the computer that today would have been their 66th anniversary.
Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad!
We miss you!
Ahaa, its pleasant dialogue about this paragraph here at this blog, I have read all
that, so at this time me also commenting at this place.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow, just wow! Powerful. I hope you know how much you teach us when you share. xoxoxoxox
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, Laurie. And ditto! I’m getting an MP3 player for my BD. Yes, I’m actually coming into the 21st century finally. So maybe I’ll actually be able to listen to the podcasts without falling asleep halfway through and having to relisten! I’ll be able to get up off my arse and move!
LikeLike
Oh have fun with your new toy! I still use my old iPod quite a bit on the mountain, and my phone when I walk down to the park to listen. My new fav is BIG PROBLEMS an advice podcast with actor Stephen Tobolowsky. He is one of my fav character actors and gives surprisingly great life advice!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Forgivess seems not about doing or giving something but more simply understanding our own motives and weaknesses and just letting go. Seeing the real soul on the other side of our projections and desires. You continue to fill your pages with honest wisdom. Thank you.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes. I would have been helpful had mom been a communicator, but she was so private she never shared her feelings with us. To this day we know virtually nothing about her life before she met dad. None of us knew how to “know” her in the middle of all that. It breaks my heart some that we never will. Such a contrast to dad who took great joy in regaling us with stories of his life.
LikeLike
I have missed so many of your posts recently Calen, so I’m really glad to have caught this one. I love your openness and honesty, and your good, gentle spirit, and I feel honoured to have had the opportunity to know you. This is a wonderful post, and a great example of why you are so loved and respected by your followers.
We all have thoughts that play on the conscience. Forgiving ourselves is what matters, and it gives us the opportunity to share with others in a way that can help them through their feelings of grief and guilt.
Thank you so much for this post x
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve never written about that. Was a big step for me. Please tell me you are BACK???
LikeLiked by 1 person
It was a brave step. as I said, we all have thoughts of which we are ashamed, but it takes guts to talk about it.
I got back on Tuesday evening, butthings have been – and are – hectic, with my daughter selecting this time to bring another problem to the surface, and a few other issues arising around me’ and the results of our General Election have left me in a state of shock. I fear for the plight of the poor, weak and unemployed in this country, who are already marginalised and struggling.
So much needs to change, but now it will only change for the worse.
LikeLiked by 1 person
A couple other folks I follow from the UK blogged about the elections. I’m assuming they didn’t go the way you expected. I’ll be curious to see what they have to say. We’re in the same boat here. I think it’s time to throw all politicians everywhere out and start all over again — in non-paid positions.
Sorry to hear you came home to more “stuff.” But I’m so glad you’re back! {{{Jane}}}
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi C. I so appreciate the honesty in this post. My parents died eighteen months apart, too. Dad first, in the hospital (complications resulting from pancreatitis), then Mom, in assisted living (colon cancer). They had sold their farm some three years earlier and moved into an apartment. Nothing would ever be the same. Those were the five most gut-wrenching years of my life. I don’t think I have ever come to terms with being an orphan. That you were able to speak so frankly about your anger at your mother and your journey of forgiveness and healing is startling to me. I am unsure that I will ever sort through the residual emotional mess left in the wake of my having been my parents’ daughter.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I feel your pain, PP. That next three years were such a roller coaster for me. But then J.R.R. Tolkien stepped in to help me out. I wrote about what happened after that in another post. https://promptlings.wordpress.com/2015/02/09/forgive-me-i-did-not-see-it-i-have-failed-you-all/
Give me a holler if you ever feel like talking. {{{PP}}
LikeLike
thanks for being so candid.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thnaks. Glad you stopped by to have a read. Hope you’re having a good night.
LikeLiked by 1 person
A very good post to put up for your inner journey. Very brave. Well done.
LikeLiked by 1 person