Forgiveness is one of those things I never struggled with much when my mom was here I just went with the fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me method and moved on. Betrayal, lying, stealing and their associated ilks for me has always been a deal-breaker and one time is all it takes and I'm done with you and not just for now, but forever.
My mom was never like that and she didn't teach me to be that way either. Was how I learned to deal with things and people "out there in the streets," where I spent too much of my time growing up since I was 15. I should have stayed home- But almost immediately after my mom passed away I noticed an unusual (for me) softer tone coming from me. I drove slower, looked at the clock less and turned down the radio and listened more to lyrics than I had before. I wasn't letting myself get rattled too much anymore, and at some point, I turned towards thinking about forgiving those in my life that had caused me grief. I think I was suffering from shock and maybe PTSD at the time. Grief to me had one meaning when my mom was here to take care of and was an entirely different level of despair once she was called home and left this earth.
It's been 14 weeks and I've been a wreck at times and OK some. All over the map and from one day to another and there is no way to predict how I'm going to be in an hour because the things left for me to do are many and all have the opportunity to trigger intense emotions.
Today I was thinking about those who were there when I needed them through my mom's last few months and those who were not. There was only one who dropped her life in another state and came to help without any conditions or limits on time and even stayed with me after mom passed away and basically saved me from a complete and total mental breakdown. Only God could have sensed how important it was for her to come and help care for mom, then me.
Then there were the others-
There isn't a way for me to adequately describe the worst of some experiences I had to endure with a couple of others who are "close," that I expected to be able to count on in a desperate time like this without exposing a vile, callous, and inhumane side of them that would be impossible for some to even believe. What family means to me is clearly something different to others and when "family," is just a word used for people when it feels good to hear yourself say it, I just don't see the value. Those who are one person to some, and an entirely different person during a life-changing event like this has caused me to question whether or not I am even capable of forgiveness in this situation. Among the vast number of things I've had to think about the past near 4 months since I had to lay my sweet mom to rest is this forgiveness thing that keeps coming up in my mind uninvited.
Those "family," members who didn't come to see my mom before she passed away that she loved so very much, and those who didn't come to her funeral, I think it may take more years than I have left to forgive you. The ones who I asked for help who fought me over every single minute they were asked to be there, after praying about it and speaking to my mom in prayer many times, I really don't think I'm going to get to a place where forgiveness is possible for that level of abandonment in this lifetime. I'm saddened by it all but it is what it is.On a much happier note, my friends really did come through. I wasn't totally certain I actually had any friends at this level and I was reminded by their presence that I most assuredly do. Everyone's name, those who came through during the hardest time of my life, and those who selfishly and intentionally made it worse for me and my mom at the same time, and those who were too busy to acknowledge the magnitude of this loss both before it occurred and even at mom's funeral, your names and faces are forever etched in my mind.
I have put a lot of thought into forgiveness and like I said I have tapped on the shoulders of God to light the way to help me sort it out and I just don't think I'm ever going to get there for some.
The overriding thing that was going through my head today was that all of the things over my lifetime that I feared the most, that worried me and kept me awake in my worst of times, all of those things have now taken place. I have no more fear that one day I might lose the one person I ever let into my life. No longer will I have to worry that I'll be traveling somewhere and get a message that the only person in the world that never left my side and loved me unconditionally my entire life has fallen and broken a hip or worse, or gotten sick and is in the hospital and I can't get back here in the blink of an eye. The vile and unimaginable actions and inactions of some at the most vulnerable time of my life while my mom was dying, will never again hurt or cause me grief that is worse than I've experienced from you already. It's all been done. Never again will I suffer the realities of my worst fears of losing the only parent I ever knew, my foundation, my support system, my mom. She is now gone forever.
I will continue on some level to try to find a pathway to forgive but for now, I am completely bulletproof from any pain or suffering caused by or related to an outside force that could even remotely come close to what has already taken place.
I've read a lot about this topic and if anyone else is suffering from it there is a ton of opinions that can be read on the subject all over the place. Take it all in and let it work for you on your terms and don't let a society pressure you to feel like you are less than strong if you decide some forgiveness isn't in the cards for you right now. May you, we, all, find peace in whatever form that takes instead.
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