The Brave and Bruised Heart of Forgiveness

"What is forgiveness?" asked the teacher. A little girl answered, "It's the wonderful fragrance that a flower makes when it has been crushed." My daughter's suicide taught me forgiveness, whether I was ready to learn it or not. When she died, my world shattered and I broke into a million jagged pieces. Since then, I've been working on putting myself back together. If there's one thing this pain has taught me, it's that we must we learn to forgive before we can experience the fullness of love. Mother Theresa said it best: "If we really want to love, we must learn how to forgive."

For a long time I didn't want to forgive myself for the ways I let my daughter down and for the times I could have been a better parent. All I could see when I looked back was what I didn't do, and how rejected and abandoned I felt. Many nights I begged through tears to just die. But in its wisdom life didn't listen to me, it carried on. The sun rose every morning, and even though it was broken, my heart kept right on beating. One morning about 3 months after her suicide I thought, If this pain isn't going to kill me after all, then somehow I've got to figure out how I'm going to live again. I had to put myself back together. I knew it couldn't be the same life I'd lived before I lost her, because the shell that I'd worn around me as protection had cracked, and in the process of grieving I'd become a different person. What I wanted had changed-a lot. I didn't care about being a worldly success anymore, or being important anymore, and I didn't even care about money anymore. Everything inside me had been rearranged so completely that all that was left was my own failings and humanity, and the question of how to learn to love myself again. It was a difficult year of wrestling with anger, condemnation and self-blame before I was willing to be tender with myself and others again. I punished myself for a year before I understood about forgiveness.

What I learned was that I couldn't live without forgiveness. If I continued to harbor anger, if I stubbornly refused to let go of blame, it would haunt me for the rest of my life. A part of me was desperate to hang onto what had been, no matter how bad or difficult it had gotten with my daughter. There was a big part of me-those empty arms, all the forfeited dreams-that didn't want to say goodbye. That trembling, vulnerable part of me was terrified of opening to life again. I saw that unforgiveness was the only thing standing between me and healing. In one brave moment, I asked for strength-the kind of supernatural strength I'd never had before, and I choked out the one word I'd been holding back for so long...goodbye.

Even as I think of that pivotal moment-the bravest minutes of my whole life, I feel the loss anew and the emptiness comes flooding back. Yet towering above the loss stands forgiveness, tall and proud as the Statue of Liberty lighting my way. The instant I let go the guilt and blame fell away and what stood out in stark contrast was a beautiful, strong lady I was becoming. I learned it takes a strong and beautiful person to forgive. To forgive is to set a prisoner free and the prisoner is always ourselves. Forgiveness is the key that springs the lock of love. Mother Theresa was right-I couldn't love myself until I forgave myself.