How do you forgive?

After working 50+ hours last week, you would’ve thought that on Friday night I would collapse into bed that night and sleep soundly, but I didn’t sleep well and I think it was because I had this post rolling around in my head.

A few weeks ago my husband got a call from his brother in Washington to inform us that his wife Sharon’s oldest sister had passed away quite suddenly. Sharon is one of 12 kids and Rosemary, the oldest, was 77 and in very good health.  He told Denny when the funeral was going to be and let him know that the whole family would be in Missoula including all 5 of their kids, most of whom Denny hadn’t seen since Andrew’s funeral in 2005 and we agreed of course that we should go and be there to support Sharon and her family. Friday was the funeral and Denny got a chance to catch up with family not seen very often.

As we sat through the funeral I fully expected to cry as I’m a very sympathetic crier, but what I didn’t expect was to feel the sadness of not having known Rosemary. After listening to her children speak of the great loss that they felt because this amazing woman who was their mother was gone, I could feel the pain of their loss. They described her as a woman of deep faith, capable of great love for her children and siblings, but also of the deep love she felt for those in need of help and a hand up. She was a woman who prayed daily for others and kept journals of her thoughts and prayers. Her children talked of her unwavering support of them, her humor and willingness to be a part of a joke. They talked of the strength of a woman who raised 5 children on her own after her divorce. They talked about the deep, elemental loss they feel knowing she is no longer there to answer the phone and chat,  to laugh with them, cry with them or watch their families grow. They talked about her belief in the power of forgiveness. That seemed to be a very important thing to Rosemary, the gift of forgiveness. Because that is what I feel forgiveness is. It’s a gift given to the person you’re forgiving but also to yourself. Her children told stories of how she taught them to forgive themselves but also how to practice forgiveness with each other for the small and big hurts that can come between siblings. They talked about her amazing ability to let both the little and the big hurts go, to give them to God and trust that if she forgave than her life would be happier and filled with more room for love. To me it seems she was incredibly successful in the practice of that ability. Every picture I saw of her and every story I heard told about her was that she was happy, she was full of laughter and always there for anyone who needed her.  I wish I would have known her, so that I could have asked her to teach me to be better at forgiveness.

I know I could do better at letting things go, just forgiving and making more room in my life for joy and happiness if I tried harder. I tell myself all I have to do is give my feelings over, just forgive and let it go. It seems so easy in theory but I have such trouble sometimes just letting go or forgetting. I wish I could have talked with her and asked her what her secret was? How did she forgive someone who had hurt her so terribly? Because listening to the stories it was obvious she had been through hurts. She went through a divorce that left her to pick up the pieces and take care of her kids while working full time. Not an easy feat in the early 80’s or anytime. So how did she do it? How did she forgive and yet make sure her kids still had a relationship with their father while she would have been feeling such pain? How did she forgive and move on? Did she just decide you’re forgiven and move on? Did she struggle in the middle of the night with the need to cause hurt because she was hurt? Or is it just me that feels that way? I want to think that I can forgive and let go, but deep in my heart I know that’s not always true. I know I have a lot of work to do to in order for me to be better at forgiveness and I know it’s my choice to do it. After that funeral though I know I want to be able to be a more forgiving person. I want to be able to move on fully and to let go. I want be the kind of person that someday my son, family and friends talk about my joy for life, the love they know I had for them and how happy I was because I learned to forgive.

It’s a big task that I hope it will get smaller everyday if I practice, though sitting here in the light of today I’m not sure how to make the first step towards being a more forgiving person. I think that first step has to be to forgive myself. Without that I don’t think I can move on. Because I was unsure of what to do or how to start, I did like anyone does these days and I turned to the internet. I read quotes about forgiveness. I read articles and short essays. I’m still not sure where to start except to maybe just start simple and think hardest about what I feel I need to forgive myself for, what deep down is the hardest to let go of and then do something I haven’t done very much in my life and maybe turn to faith, to pray and ask for guidance. I’m not sure how that is going to look and I’ll admit I feel a little funny doing it, but I’m going to try and keep trying because I don’t want to be stuck feeling the way I feel sometimes, drowning in what ifs, doubts and guilt for the rest of my life. I want to feel lighter and stronger.♥

Quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.