Forgiveness

By Wendy Lee

January 18, 2015

Forgiveness is the sunrise, bathed in crimson, orange, purple, pink and yellow.  It is the promise of light, a new day, a chance for peace. Forgiveness is for you, and not necessarily the other person.  If you are lucky, it is for both you.

I sit here across the table from Brian, a bit surreal, yet comforting.  I felt compelled to contact him just as I feel compelled to get out of bed each day, to feel the sunshine warm my skin, to nurture my garden.  He was receptive, gracious actually, so we sit.

I can’t find the right words, so I say the only thing that will come out.  It takes a little liquid courage.  I look into his eyes and manage to offer, “It’s fine.  I’m fine.  We’re fine.  It’s done.”  It comes out a little flatter than I wanted, but the meaning is still there.  I make him shake my hand in agreement.

What he is feeling, I don’t know.  I’ve known him forever, yet I don’t know him at all.

Still, it was important to me to say it, more for my benefit than his.  I can’t leave it alone though.   I reach back across the table, hold his hand, and tell him that all is okay.

“Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”  —Mark Twain

Forgiveness hasn’t come easy to me over my lifetime.  While I have continued on with marriage and friendships and family relationships, I have neither honored my pain nor have I completely forgiven.  Like most of my feelings, I have buried hurt in a deep, impenetrable container later manifesting itself in nothing but anger.

I didn’t learn how to forgive overnight or easily.  That lesson has been slow in coming.  Like all of my life lessons, I chose the path of most resistance.  It has taken an enormous amount of introspection and therapy and spiritual studies and hiking and sunshine and writing to find a new path.

Actually, the hardest and most liberating part of forgiveness has been letting go of blame, letting go of feeling victimized, and letting go of feeling I have no voice.  I am in charge of my own life.  If I am going to let someone else’s actions impact how I feel about myself, that is completely on me.  How I react is a choice.  As Deepak Chopra puts it, “If you see yourself as healed in advance, there is nothing to forgive in the first place.”

The most profound way I learned to forgive was through reframing whatever the hurt has been  inflicted upon me by understanding that everyone has their own reality, their own coping skills, their own pain, their own momentum at the time.  Everyone acts according to their own consciousness at the time.  With that frame of reference,  I started to forgive and let go of all of the hurts I have quite studiously collected over the years.

This reframing applies to all of the hurt I, myself, have inflicted on others.  Through this, I have been able to forgive myself.  Not all at once, of course, but a little at the time.  All I can do is take what I know now and endeavor to be a better person as I go forward.  Some days I am better than others.

As for Brian, he long ago offered a sincere and heartfelt apology, one I somewhat dismissively accepted.  It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate the apology.  I did.  But, I wasn’t expecting it, and I had buried quite deeply what the apology was all about.  I simply never processed it because I had no ability to do so.

So I sit here, anxious and relieved to have said my peace to Brian. It has actually been a fun evening, despite this serious conversation.  We’ve had plenty to talk and laugh about.  I don’t want the evening to end, truthfully.

I care deeply about Brian, more deeply than I probably should, and more deeply than makes any sense.  I always have.  He has had his own struggles, struggles he has been completely open about.  His vulnerability in sharing his story is remarkable.  I admire that.  I want to take away his pain, but know I can’t do it for him.  All I have to offer in that regard is to be a good friend.

I feel courageous and blessed today.  It is the morning of a new relationship, a friendship, bathed in the rich colors of a desert sunrise.