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Family Forgiveness You can experience the greatest joys in family interactions but you can also have severe pain. Sometimes the pain is accidental and sometimes it is intentional. Dealing with it when it happens is the best way to avoid buildup that fosters poor relationships. We all recognize it’s not always possible. Sometimes there are awful family disasters. Often it takes years to dig out of a family earthquake. However, sometimes the opportunity to do the digging is one that you can design and sometimes just happens. Family situations often present the need and opportunity to forgive. Get over it. Move on. Here’s how I got over one and moved on. Dad and I never had one of those enviable dad-and-daughter relationships. Oh, my dad was proud of me and loved me all right. He just didn’t ever show it or tell me. I sometimes found myself even resentful of other. But now that I was grown up, wasn’t it time to put that all away? Wasn’t it time to forgive him? I’d thought about that considerably, and with each passing day I'd decided to have a heart-to-heart talk with Dad " sometime”. Still I put it off. It was a bitter cold holiday season and Dad didn’t seem like himself. We carted him from one doctor to another, for one test or another, trying to determine what was wrong. After a week of the medical shuttling, I took him to a new specialist - just the two of us. Then we started on our way home. On the short five-minute drive home, the little voice inside me talked loudly. "Tell him NOW". It kept nagging me. I didn’t give it much thinking time and quickly decided it was time to talk. After all, we were finally alone together and the inner voice was speaking " loudly and firmly”. So we pulled into the parking lot and parked the car. I turned to Dad in the passenger seat of my cramped two seater and put my arm around him. "Dad, (big pause) I have something to tell you and two things to ask you. I forgive you for all that might have gone on between us over my lifetime.? His immediate reaction was "What did I do"? I said, "It doesn’t matter, but I want you to know that I forgive you." Looking a little puzzled he nodded. Continuing, I added, "and I'd like you to forgive me too. Can you do that?" He said "sure" and still looking a little perplexed he forgave as well. Bravely forging ahead I quietly asked, "Dad, can you tell me you love me?" He turned to me and said, "Of course I love you" and gave me a gentle hug. Well, after we both wept, we got it together to get him upstairs to his apartment. I gave him a big hug and kiss and told him I'd see him the next morning. By the time I arrived next morning, Dad had already passed away. We’d said our forgiveness and goodbyes already to one another. No regrets. No looking back thinking about any of those "I should haves". Often forgiveness takes time but it also takes a willingness to move ahead. You can forgive your parents for what they have struggled with in bringing you up and maybe for what they have missed along the way. They're not perfect. Sometimes mutual forgiveness just inset possible. If you have no other way, then forgive them in your mind and your soul. They may have not been able to give you what you thought you needed, or maybe they just could not give you what you needed. Struggling with forgiveness means that you are on the path to unresolved differences. That will ultimately harm you. It’s destructive. Get on the right path. Forgiveness is the ability to release the mind and the heart from all past hurts and failures as well as all sense of guilt and loss. When you do that, you begin to turn your energies back into building the family relationships and into opening your heart. About the Author |
