Peace and Forgiveness

Peace and Forgiveness.

Have you ever just wanted to have an answer to something? When my father killed my mother, I was too depressed and going through my own issues at the time. What I remember most is wanting to ask him why? Why kill or hurt her when he could have just left her alone? It took me almost twenty years to ask him why and to forgive him for what he did. It wasn’t that knowing was going to change anything.

I knew that I could not bring my mother back or change the fact that I almost had a nervous breakdown. The why for me was because I felt owed an answer. I thought that my father owed me an answer as her child. I also needed him to understand what he took from me, someone I needed so much. Our past does show up in the present and our future. The tragedy that took my mother's life nearly destroyed me.

Her death left me colder than I have ever been, and I resented the world. For a time; I think I set out to destroy myself. I know that I did. One day when I was feeling really sorry for myself and my life. I felt her! Yep, I thought that she was beside me, standing and looking across the yard. That’s when I remembered how I left her. You see the night before she died, we stood on the edge of her property, and she talked to me. That changed it all for me. I remembered why she called me to her and what she said. So I pulled myself together and looked at my daughters and realized that life was not over and that it would be a new beginning.

Over the years, I focused on my children and myself. But always in my mind was the why of what my father did and did he know how much he took from me with that one act. One day out of the blue, he called me. The call terrified me, and I hung up. A few days later, I called him back and made plans to visit him. This visit would be the first time in years that I had seen or had even spoken to my father.

I sat across from him and just cried. I cried that day for him, my daughters, who lost their grandmother too soon, and myself. I watched him cry, and that shook me to my core. This man had always been larger than life to me. For him to cry and share that with me…I have no words.

I was broken and didn’t even know that I was still broken until that moment. We talked, my father said things that made me angry because I thought they were too small. Excuses; was what I heard and felt at that time. That day was one of the hardest days of my life. Long, story short, I forgave my father. I forgave him for me, my peace and faith dictated all of this. If I had not come to terms with what he had done, I would be less of the woman I am now. That I do know. I also came to realize that His and my mom's story was not mine.

That conversation no matter how hard helped me to heal a part of my past that needed healing. Finding my peace and learning to forgive made me a better mom to my daughters. They deserved the very best from me. In the end, my daughters got a chance to know their grandfather. Sometimes I just drove up to sit and talk to him. We talked about me finishing college and a lot about life, how proud of me he was and of the woman I had become. I realize that I miss that now. I know that there was stuff he didn’t tell me and I am glad that he didn’t. That day we talked, something said to me that there were things I didn’t need to know and that those things should rest between my parents.

I made my peace with what he did tell me, and I made my peace with him. Going back into ones past can hurt. For me, that was not my intention. I wanted answers, and I also wanted to place another missing piece on that puzzle called my life. I truly wanted to know what would drive him to kill the woman he claimed to love. I never saw them fight. Sure, I saw them argue, but never fight.

Peace and Forgiveness are in all of us. Time does not matter when wrongs are being righted.

Note: I made it my mission to say I Love You to my children everyday. When they went out my door, I needed them to know that mommy's love was there period. My past taught me that and the importance of family!