2013: A Year of Forgiveness

Posted by Molly

As many of you know, one of my greatest challenges in life is forgiveness.  My family is a family of terrible grudge holders.  As a child, if I wanted to forgive someone I was told it was fine to do so as long as I never forgot what they did and I never let them back in as close.  This advice contradicted what true forgiveness is about.  When you never forget, you can't fully forgive.

The real problem with holding a grudge is not that it hurts the other person, although it often does.  It is that is prevents you from being truly close to God.  Holding a grudge is exhausting.  And it's a lot of work.  In the past, I have held grudges against people long after I could remember what they did to offend me.  When you are holding onto that kind of hate, how can you possibly feel love? 


When I was growing up, my mother's brother, my Uncle Fred, was the black sheep of our family.  Fred was a brilliant child who went away to college and immediately had to drop out because he got his girlfriend pregnant.  This was highly embarrassing to my grandparents.  Fred also had a problem with drugs and alcohol that led to the end of the his first marriage.  He went on to marry again but that marriage was also unstable.  They separated and reunited several times before finally divorcing.  In the meantime, Fred would disappear for long absences and then show up drunk at funerals.  He had five children by two different wives who we rarely saw because Fred was so often out of the picture.  When my mom was really mad at me as a child she would say "you're just like your Uncle Fred" which was about the worst thing you could call someone in my house.  Fred was known to be unreliable and selfish.  Fred was always letting my mom and her parents down.  Fred did not take care of his own children and because of Fred I never saw my cousins.  If there was one person my family really held a grudge against it was Fred.

Several years ago, I reconnected with my cousins who I had not seen in many years via facebook.  Fred's oldest daughter, Jennifer, had been my closest cousin as a small child before she moved with her mother to Florida.  When we connected on facebook it was like time had stood still.  We emailed each other about our families and our parents and our memories and then Jenn told me that her dad, Uncle Fred, now also lived in Florida, had remarried and had been forgiven by all his children but one.  I was shocked.  How could Jennifer forgive this man who had abandoned her?  It seemed to me that James, the one child who still held a grudge against Fred, was the only one with any sense.  In my mind, Fred never cared about anyone so how could anyone forgive him?

Over Christmas this year, another one of my cousins came into town and I met her and her sister out for lunch.  They are Fred's children but his second wife and much younger than me so we don't have the memories that I have with Jennifer but we all have the desire to be a family so we try to get together when they are in town.  The lunch was the day before Christmas Eve.  I asked them what they were doing and Guin told me that she would be making crab cakes for dinner to celebrate our grandfather's birthday just as he always did.  My grandfather's birthday was indeed on Christmas Eve and every year until he died in November of 1980, we went to his house for crab cakes after mass on Christmas Eve.  I was ten when he died so I remember this well but Guin was only three that year and her sister wasn't even born yet.  "How did you know about that?" I asked when she told me about the crab cakes.  "Our Dad told us"  they said together.  And then they went on to tell me about all the stories Uncle Fred told them about my grandparents and how important it was for him that they keep up this tradition.  And in that moment, I forgave my Uncle Fred.  

When I got home from the lunch, I sent Uncle Fred who now resides in Georgia, an email telling him about my lunch and how touched I was that he had shared so much about my grandparents with his youngest children who barely knew them.  It's been almost two weeks since then and I have not heard anything from Uncle Fred.  I probably never will.  But that's okay.  My forgiveness does not have conditions.  It does not mean I expect my uncle to be the person I have always wanted him to be.  It just means that I finally get that his imperfections don't mean he doesn't care at all.  Inside, somewhere that I will probably never see, my uncle is a man who loves his family.  And that's awesome.

The hard thing about forgiveness is that we have to give it regardless of whether the person is going to change or be sorry or ever talk to us again.  We have to give it unconditionally like God gives it to us.  I'm great at telling my kids when someone is mean that we should pray for that person because their behavior is a sign of their own pain.  This year, I am going to start taking my own advice.  And perhaps I'm doing this selfishly, because I have to say forgiving Uncle Fred felt way better than judging him all these years has.  Imagine how happy 2013 will be if I can give any grudges to God and free myself from those bad feelings.  If you have grudges, please join me in this resolution to make 2013 our year of forgiveness.  I think the more of us who let go of the darkness, the more of us there will be to spread the light.

Happy New Year!