The Myth Of Forgiveness Chapter 28

The Myth of Forgiveness traces how the past continues to live in the present through silence, loyalty, and unfinished grief. It’s an invitation to rest inside the truth, one chapter at a time, as Lauren begins to loosen the hold of what she has been carrying.

Transcript

Lauren decided she'd really like some answers.

Not her mom's version of the truth,

But her dad's side of things.

She felt ready to try to find him.

Not to search for his love anymore,

But to simply find out how his life turned out.

She had so many questions,

But what she found was harder than anything she'd rehearsed to say.

An obituary from three years back.

There would be no reunion,

No heartfelt conversation,

No chance to say,

You hurt me,

But I made it.

I want to share with you about my life now.

She wept for days.

Not because she wanted him to come back,

But because the door was now closed forever.

A week later,

She opened up her laptop and wrote a message to a cousin she hadn't seen since she was six years old.

I guess social media was good for something,

She thought to herself.

She was genuinely surprised that her cousin responded within minutes,

Including a few pictures of her children,

Along with an update on how life was going for her now.

She took down her address and told her she'd mailed this letter she'd been holding on to,

And she wasn't sure how to get a hold of her.

A few days later,

The letter arrived.

With shaky hands,

She opened the envelope.

My dear Lauren,

If you're reading this,

It means I never found the courage to put these words into your hands myself.

I've carried them inside of me for so long.

Leaving was the worst mistake of my life.

The truth is,

I didn't know how to stay.

The tension between your mother and me became unbearable,

And instead of finding a way through it,

I ran.

At first,

I told myself I was sparing you the arguments,

The embarrassment.

But the day I walked away,

I lost more than my marriage.

I lost my place in your life.

There were so many times I wanted to reach out.

Birthdays came and went.

I would picture the kind of young woman you were becoming,

But I just couldn't ever find a way to reach out.

Each year that passed,

The shame grew heavier.

I told myself I'd hurt you if I came back into your life,

That I had no right to interrupt the life you were building.

I want you to know I thought of you every day.

Not a morning went by that you weren't somewhere in my mind.

If I could give you anything,

It would be the knowing that my silence was never about you.

It was about the avoidance I couldn't overcome.

I didn't know how to climb back from the hole that I dug,

So I stayed away.

I don't ask for your forgiveness,

Because honestly,

Lauren,

I don't deserve it.

What I hope is that you know I loved you,

Even in my absence,

Even through all the ways I failed you.

I hope you can let that into your heart,

And that you never doubt you were always my daughter,

My greatest pride,

Even if I never got the chance to tell you so.

All my love,

Dad.

" She set the letter down and released decades of tears that hadn't had the chance to be felt.

Now it could be truly acknowledged.

She felt her dad's love like a growing flower in the center of her chest.

Her full body expression of the spectrum of emotions was exhausting,

And she decided to tuck herself into bed early.

The next day,

She placed her dad's letter right beside his picture.

She found a candle in the back of the closet.

She loved lighting a brand-new beeswax candle.

She set it close to his photo and had a sort of memorial to say the important things out loud,

A place outside her heart so that it could be felt in the light of day,

Instead of carried around within her body.

After lighting the candle,

She began with the simplest,

Most brutal sentence she had ever said out loud to a photograph.

I've been looking for you,

Dad,

In every man I have ever loved.

It was the powerful sentence from the Family Constellation Workshop,

And it found its way to be practiced here,

In the privacy of her own living room.

The words didn't free her.

Instead,

They broke her open.

She had been understanding more about herself in the last few months than she had in her entire lifetime.

She had started talking to his picture more often.

It felt strange at first,

When she started speaking to his photograph,

Carrying on a one-sided conversation.

It was a conversation that felt long overdue,

And it felt good to say certain things out loud.

She told him about the empty chair at birthdays,

The way she had stitched men together,

Trying to gather up the care and the protection she'd missed from him,

The way his absence had hollowed her into someone always searching for approval,

For love,

For acceptance,

Somewhere outside of herself.

She started to let in his love.

She re-read his letter many more times,

Feeling soothed by the words,

Feeling grief for their lost time.

An insight dropped in when she realized the things she wanted to share with him.

She could now speak them to herself,

To his picture,

To her baby.

It all still counted.

It took a little over a week before she was ready to visit her mom.

She sat across from her mom.

She couldn't help but notice how tight her mouth was.

She listened with folded arms and a closed heart.

It was a strange mix of topics,

Sharing what she had discovered about her dad,

His letter,

Along with the news that she was pregnant.

Her mother's silence was the same silence she'd grown up with,

Immovable,

Cold,

Strangely polite.

The closed-off silence of a woman who had chosen to survive by condemning instead of softening.

It stung.

The whole visit felt so empty.

Lauren shared the two most tender topics in her world and yet walked away with her chest burning.

On the drive home,

Lauren recalled the story of Elena's own mother turning her away when Nico and Nathan were so young.

She could only imagine how scared,

Disappointed,

And hurt Elena must have been when she felt her own mom turned her away when she needed her mom the most.

It was the same quiet refusal she had learned to expect,

The same sliding door of love that closed when someone needed it most.

Her mother's distance pierced her like an old wound reopening,

Reminding her body of every time love hadn't been offered when she needed it most.

Lauren's mind drifted back to the family constellation workshop.

For the first time,

She got curious about what might have happened to close her mom down the way that she was.

What might live behind that coldness,

The way she protected herself,

Even with her own daughter?

How she couldn't even try to forgive her dad or really even talk with anyone about it?

Even after all these years,

She still carried such bitterness and so much hurt about it all.

She made a decision that while she still could,

She would find out more about her mom's childhood,

Her grandparents,

In an effort to understand why her mom felt so unreachable.

She no longer had that possibility with her dad,

So she made a decision not to take that for granted with her mom.

These early patterns don't just repeat.

They live inside of us.

Lauren had found herself in the same silence again,

A door closed,

Feelings denied,

Only distance left.

But with her hand on her belly,

She knew this is where it would end.

She extended a silent promise to her baby in that moment.

For the first time after leaving a disappointing visit with her mom,

Lauren didn't collapse under it.

She started the practice of giving to herself the words her mom couldn't.

I see you.

I hear you.

I'm here listening and you're safe with me.

She whispered them to her belly and in some sacred way to the girl she had once been.

This became her daily practice,

Offering herself what her parents never could.

She spoke out loud,

Not in grand speeches,

But in the moment sort of sentences.

I know you're nervous.

I'm here.

You've got this.

You're not alone in this.

It was like a slow drip.

It was ordinary,

But this is how patterns break,

Not in lightning bolts,

But in daily devotion.

Lauren began to believe in small,

Trembling increments that she could raise a child without passing down the silence,

The rage,

The abandonment.

She could give this baby something different.

She wasn't expecting perfection from herself,

But more of a love that could be counted on,

A love that stayed,

A love that listened,

A love that could be trusted.