Grieving the Living
I come from a dysfunctional family. Extremely dysfunctional. There, I said it out loud. Put it in writing. Sent it into cyberspace for all to see, critique, condemn and criticize--to gasp at and gossip about...
Truth be told most everyone has at least a taste of dysfunction of sorts somewhere along the way in their life. In my case, dysfunction was the way we were brought up and lived. It was our non-stop steady diet.
My parents had 8 marriages between them which imprisoned my 3 siblings and I in a minefield of abuse, violence, alcoholism, anger, chaos and adult situations at a very young age. Each of us chose a different way to survive our ever-changing circumstances which did not encourage or allow closeness as a family.
As we got older we attempted to bond with the help of our spouses and children and it worked (at least on the surface) for a while. But after some time and once the false veneer had worn off on the edges we were still those kids our childhood had created struggling again to make it through each day.
For years we held onto Christmases together as a last semblance of family but even those were fraught with heated arguments before, during or after Christmas Dinner. Each year my husband and I spent hours on the road getting to our Christmas gatherings foolishly expecting The Walton's Christmas. Our Christmas reality included verbal machetes and bullets of unresolved anger. So we quit making the trip.
As is usually the case in families, we all did things that were wrong as we made our way through that minefield--we all stumbled, we all made bad choices, we all fell. But some never forgave and the healing words, "I'm sorry" were left unspoken too many times for too many years. And it became more important to be the one who was right than to be the ones who were together.
Ultimately the choices we made robbed future generations of joining in the lives of cousins, nephews, nieces, aunts and uncles.
Determined not to allow my past to affect my future any more I closed off that part of my heart that was marked "family" and went on without them. And as I was living this life without them for many years--a good life mind you--I did not do 2 things: grieve them and forgive them.
I knew it was normal to grieve for the dead but I never realized there was also a time and place to grieve the living and all that was and will be missed: weddings, babies, graduations, birthdays, holidays and just the commonalities shared by families.
Once I began to allow myself to grieve what I had never had and what likely will never be--a loving, healthy relationship with my family--I was able to let go of the past in a healing way. It was a process, not a one time OK this is over kind of event. There were times of sadness, frustration, anger, and other emotions that go along with the grief process. And every once in a while there's still a little tugging at my heart for what was lost and a wish for what could be if only...
The forgiveness part has been harder for me, I think that's true for most of us. Forgiveness too is not usually a one time OK this is over kind of event. We can all wax eloquently about how we were wronged and how we have the right to be angry--and we do for at least a short time. But anger is not a place to live and usually hurts no on but ourselves and the ones who live closest to us.
It also hurts our relationship with God. And as I recite The Lord's Prayer I cannot frivolously skip over the part that says, "and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors" (Matthew 6:12). When I speak those words I am literally telling God that He should forgive me to the same extent I have forgiven others. A straight to the heart sobering statement if ever there was one.
How does forgiveness happen? I suppose there are many ways to answer that question. What works for one may not work for another. But in my own simplistic way I just ask God to help me forgive--sometimes albeit grudgingly. Simply asking God to help has quite simply helped me to forgive.
And I also pray for the person I need to forgive. Sometimes it starts out as a "You know I really don't want to pray good things for them, Lord, help me to see them as You do" prayer but somewhere along the way--sometimes much, much later--it turns into a true prayer of concern and compassion from a forgiving heart.
Out of the ashes of my past life God, in His mercy, has allowed the restoration of my relationship with my brother and his family. These are relationships I cherish and am more than thankful for. They have given me a sense of family even if it's just in a long distance sort of way. I know they are there. I know they care. I know they understand the past.
I don't share this to gain pity but with the hope that it may help someone else in the midst of trying to grieve and forgive. Truth be told, sooner or later that would be all of us.
Shepherdess Blog
Copyright 2017
Jackie Deems
