If I want free, I must forgive

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It is hard to need someone who is gone. Need someone who was never there. Either by reason of their own or a power greater, couldn’t be there as you needed them to be. Being angry, releasing the guilt, and freeing myself from my mother includes reconizing how much I needed her. I needed her. And she was taken from me. By what it matters little. I can blame my father; I do slightly. But hate won’t give me what wasn’t. Won’t undo what I lost. Maybe some would blame me for my inaction; I did for a time. But I know it wouldn’t have changed anything. That day was the first time my father and his violence became clear to me. That in that house, my mother and I had a role to play, and he orchestrated our existence. Scholarships saved me for a time, but he held the power to pull me back. It wasn’t until my mother died that he lost that power. He returned to the weak man he once was. No longer able to gain power from our subjugation.

My thoughts swim with if only’s, but that’s not productive. I have been puppeteered by one bad actor after another. Sometimes by my guilt alone. I can no longer hate my mother. I can no longer hate my father. I can no loner hate myself. If I want free, I must forgive. Not just them, but myself.