What About Wednesday: Forgive

[[Once a week I ask the same bleary-eyed question: “What about Wednesday?” It’s my day to post whatever the hell I feel like, with no regard to fashion, eco-consciousness or, occasionally, even coherent thoughts.]]

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Today, a man told me a story.

He told me that, as a young adult, he didn’t get along with his father.  They had a falling out – he didn’t say why  – and from that moment on, their relationship was strained, broken.  It never recovered.

He told me that even though he and his father spent time together, even though they talked and took trips and eventually things were “okay” again, they never truly reconciled the differences that had fragmented their relationship.

He told me that after his father died, years later, he realized that never confronting that demon – the thing that hovered between them all this time – would haunt him for the rest of his life.

That no matter what his father had done, no matter whose fault that falling out was or where the blame should be laid, he should have made amends.

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If you learn one thing in this life, let it be this: forgive.  Even if you never get the chance to hear an apology – even if the person doesn’t think you deserve one – forgive them anyway.  Forgive them for wronging you; for thinking they didn’t wrong you.  Forgive them for making you feel pain, or taking away your power, or using you, or controlling you.

Forgive them, and forgive yourself.

Because no matter what they did, you’re still responsible for you.  So forgive yourself for letting this person affect you all these years; for letting them control your relationships, your habits, your missed opportunities.  Forgive yourself, so you can move on, too.

So you can live your own life, and not the life of the things that haunt you.

Tags: anecdotes, forgiveness, stories, What About Wednesday?

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