On Forgiveness

I originally wrote this late at night/early this morning, but fell asleep in my hotel bed. I didn’t realize how exhausted I was. As I await my flight back to Atlanta I contemplated editing my words from the night before, but I am loath to change any meaning my mind wished to convey by supplanting with thoughts derived in the light of this new day. God bless all my family, friends, and acquaintances.

The past week and a half has been an emotional rollercoaster ride.  Those family, friends, and followers who read me regularly may have been keeping up with the happenings over the past 12 days.  My younger brother remains hospitalized following an actual cardiac arrest. He is recovering in Philadelphia and celebrated his 19th birthday yesterday.  I was blessed to have been able to be there for his day.  I am blessed to be here in Philly tonight as I type these words.  I am blessed for a great many reasons, but the biggest blessing I am reminded of is that of forgiveness.

Forgiveness in its purest form, the wiping clean of a debt, is without a doubt the most wonderful thing a person owing said debt can be given when it is not within their power to repay it.  But what of the owner of the debt?  What can that person possibly ever gain from forgiving the one who owes him?

I will leave behind metaphors and the like for this writing; I will give plain words and directness their day in my words (for as long as my mind allows anyway).  For me, forgiveness has opened my life to the rich tapestry that had prior only been my father’s family but has become ever more my family this day.  I no longer have to be even a remnant of the angry child who so desperately wanted to hate someone else for so much internalized pain. Instead, I am overwhelmed by the love of a brother and sister, new aunts, uncles (cousins), and cousins.  I am inundated with tales from long ago and from just around the temporal corner of yesterday.

It is an overwhelming sensation I am encumbered with tonight, but it is a most joyous sensation as well.  I am overcome with joy and high expectation.  My brother, Robert, has a long road to recovery, but he also has a wonderful mother (Sheila)  I have come to love and appreciate for the strength and calm and peace she exhibits in the face of a storm I am not so sure I could withstand with half as much grace.  And he has our father, a man I am so very different from while being so very much alike.  He loves so deeply and feels so strongly about so many differing things, but his love of family is great and strong and deep.

If I had not ever learned to forgive and had not taken those lessons to heart, I would not be here typing these words, I would not know my father, I would not know my little sister (Esther), I would not know Robert, and I would not know Sheila.  I would not have met BeBe, Carl, Sydney, Lindsey, Ashley, heard tales of Big Leon and Leon and so many others in just the few days I have been here. (I do not know if I am spelling these names correctly, so family members please forgive me should you read this and my spelling be off.)

I would not have spent hours upon hours sitting with my courageous little brother the two of us talking shit about family, music, and (most importantly) women.  I would not have been able to see him smile at the sound of my voice as I greeted him upon first walking into his hospital room.  I would not have felt the love from family I have only just met but who have known of me for years and have patiently waited for me to become a part of the fold.

Forgiveness does wonders for the heart that wallows in the steep chasms of a debt owed it.  Whether the debt be purposely ignored by the debtor or totally unknown and without merit, that debt eats away at the owner of it.  It addles his mind and consumes his thoughts even when he does not think so.  It is a negative line on the balance sheet of his life.  Forgiveness wipes that red from his ledger, and in my case it makes for a new start in an area of life that can be more than just good.  It can be wonderful.

Forgiveness is no friend to pride though the doorway to joy be not far behind.