A Journal Entry on Forgiveness
What if it looks nothing like you’ve always imagined?
There’s a lot that’s been said about the importance of forgiveness, but for much of my life, I’ve been clueless about what it really looks like to forgive.
Someone I admire recently posted this quote:
“Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.” -Mark Twain
For a moment, I felt as though I could almost touch forgiveness- or smell it as the case may be- but like *that* it was gone; leaving me wondering what I was missing that makes pardoning so elusive in my world.
I freely admit I can be a terrible grudge holder. My children are grown and reside in another state, but there are currently young adults who live in my tiny town that avoid me if we make eye contact in public because of the shitty situations that went down between them and my kids. I think in their cases, I could just let it go, my kids definitely have, but as a mother, there’s that certain mama-bear instinct that makes us ready to take down anyone and anything who has harmed our young. In this type of situation, I do think I’m closest to what I always thought forgiveness was; likely because the perpetrators were all children themselves when the betrayals had happened.
The place where I’ve struggled and wondered if I will ever find it in my heart to forgive is mostly with my father, and somewhat with my ex husband. My ex abandoned our kids, so it does harken back to that primal instinct of wanting to rip him apart. He now lives very far away and, having no contact with him, I’m mostly free of thoughts of the terrible things he’s done. This brings us back to my dad.
My father shouldn’t have had children. As his daughter, that may sound crazy to say, especially since there are three of us siblings and we all survived as productive members of society. But no one who thinks it’s fun to be cruel to children should procreate — there’s no changing my mind on that. What’s done is done and we are still here. Even though we were raised under his fury, being called atrocious names, hearing animal noises as we ate, always under stress from the near constant yelling and occasional beatings, we made it. We had times we were left to our own devices (let’s call it benign neglect), but those were probably the best times of all- even though looking back at the things that could’ve happened to us still makes me shudder. So here I am, in my very late 40’s still working on this. I’ve spent years on and off not speaking to him and sometimes not speaking to my mother either, because she allowed what happened to go on and then, even worse, would often defend our father.
How do I forgive?
I hate that I’m still angry over things he did or said to me when I was so small. I hate that it took my breaking his finger when I was 18 and feared he was about to strangle me to finally feel I could be in charge of our relationship and have nothing to do with him if that’s what I needed. I hate that I still sense his constant judging of everything about me; even though he knows it’s best to hold his tongue now. And admittedly, I often hate that I feel like I should forgive him.
I hear forgiving him is a gift for ME and not for him, but it’s a gift I have not figured out how to conjure up and present to myself. I try to envision it, but it’s a hologram and even when I can see it clearly, when I try to touch it, there’s just air.
Around five years ago I went to help my parents get their home ready to be put on the market. I assumed it would be a stressful situation for me, but I’m at my best when helping, so I jumped at the chance when my mother asked me if I could assist. After several days of being yelled at and listening to my parents argue it was finally time to go home, yet when I arrived at my gate, I found my flight was cancelled. The soonest flight available wasn’t for two more days and my dad balked at coming to rescue me from the airport. When he finally did, he berated me the entire way back to their house, insisting carting me to and from the airport was a waste, then he refused to stop at a store so I could purchase toiletries, underwear and pajamas to replace the ones packed away in my luggage I had checked in with the airline. He stormed into the house, angry with me for wasting his time and money. I went directly to my mother in hopes for compassion, but was met with her usual response, “That’s just how your father is Honey.”
When I finally got home two days later, I was seething. I decided I was done with them, but I knew in my heart I needed forgive. I went to therapy and after just a few sessions my therapist told me she was happy to continue seeing me, but she didn’t think she could help me any further. She probably thought she was being encouraging by telling me she believed I knew what I needed to forgive them, but here I am years later saying I’m still not sure how to find it.
I recently posted a lot of my story about Father’s Day, my father, our relationship and my confusion when it comes to forgiveness; I was given some wonderfully thought-out responses. I read them all and gave each of them my consideration and acknowledgment. It was here that I realized I’m bewildered about what forgiveness is, because of what I’ve always imagined it to look like. I’m just now recognizing it doesn’t have to look like Sunday phone calls, birthday cards, or happy thoughts. What I have come to understand for me is: forgiveness for my father looks like immersing myself in gratitude. As I typed out my remarks to the responses I received, I found myself saying over and again, “I’m grateful for my hardships, as awful as they were, because they made me who I am, bumps and all.”
I’m incredibly grateful of the gifts my abusive father gave me:
- Although it was through harshness, I’m keenly aware of the power of words and how to use them to soothe rather than harm,
- The daily tear-down repeatedly built me back stronger,
- I was always able to hear my own voice cheering me on, reminding me what he said wasn’t based in truth,
- I’m incredibly sensitive to others’ emotions because of my experiences,
- Being raised by someone consistently cruel and punitive, formed me into an intuitively compassionate human,
- I absolutely love my life and I’m far more successful than he ever imagined I would be.
I still anticipate I will stop longing for the moment where thinking about him doesn’t fill me with dread. The moment where I don’t hold my breath out of fear of him. Where the assumed judgment stops and I don’t hear the words he said to me on playback in my mind. I hope my gratitude for the experiences that created who I am will someday overshadow the anger and resentment that lingers. I guess for me, that’s what forgiveness will look like and I believe I’m moving closer to it.
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