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LightHearted Musings - Sincere Forgiveness Isn’t Colored with Expectations That the Other Person Apologize or Change
Posted by Dr. Bruce Roberts on October 19th, 2008
Sincere forgiveness isn’t colored with expectations that the other person apologize or change. Don’t worry whether or not they finally understand you. Love them and release them. Life feeds back truth to people in its own way and time - just like it does for you and me.
–Sara Paddison
I learned some very important lessons about forgiveness from my father. My father was a brilliant man. He was an automotive engineer during the day and spent his evenings and nights working on various inventions. Like many men of his generation, his job was to be the breadwinner. It was the woman’s job to take care of the family and deal with all those touchy/feely emotional things. With his preoccupation with work and his inventions he, sadly, missed out on many of the joys of family life and fatherhood.
My dad carried a lot of anger from his childhood, growing up with a bitter and critical mother. His resentments increased as a Jewish soldier in Germany in the aftermath of the Holocaust, and piled up further as he had one patent after another stolen from him by powerful corporations (see the movie “Flash of Genius”), leaving him with severe financial stress, marital stress, and a sense of failure. His interpersonal skills left something to be desired and he was prone to episodes of rage that distanced him further from those who loved him.
My father was overweight, smoked a pipe, and didn’t exercise. He took 20-minute catnaps through the night while working on his inventions and cracked open 5 raw eggs for breakfast before heading off for his day job. He was a walking time bomb, but it was still a shock when, at the young age of 42, he suffered his first heart attack. Fortunately he survived the heart attack and the subsequent triple bypass surgery. This was a relatively new procedure and I marveled at the medical system that could replace a man’s arteries in his heart. The doctors did an excellent job at addressing his physical risk factors, getting him to stop smoking, improve his diet, start exercising and lose some weight, but the emotional and spiritual aspects of his heart attack were never addressed.
He eventually returned to work and redoubled his efforts to make up for lost time. Ten years later, not surprisingly, he suffered a second heart attack. This time, during his heart catheterization, he coded on the table - his heart stopped beating. I’ve always imagined the conversation my dad might have had with God during this near death experience: “You know Sy, you can check out now if you’d like, but there are still some important lessons to learn. If you want to stay, it may not be easy, but you will have another opportunity to learn those lessons you came here to learn.”
Stand clear! ZZAPPP! The doctors brought him back to life! He survived another heart attack and bypass operation only to begin a 15-year downhill course with Alzheimer’s disease! Now why, I asked myself, would someone choose to come back only to suffer such a horrible, debilitating disease such as Alzheimer’s? What was he thinking?!?
Well, first my father lost the ability to organize his thoughts and was unable to work. This was tough on him, for sure, but it prevented him from spending all of his time working and brought him back home. Next he began to lose his memory in retrograde fashion with his most recent memory going first. He would perseverate for several months about someone who had harmed him in some way, or some anger or resentment, and then suddenly that memory would be gone. Then he’d perseverate about his next resentment, and then the next, until he went all the way back to his childhood. I even got to hear (over and over again!) how his mother had humiliated him by making him play violin in front of company when he had only been playing for six months, while his cousin, who had been playing trumpet for 5 years, had just wowed the crowd!
My father eventually reached the point where he could no longer plan for the future or remember the past. All he had was the present moment. At that point in his life, he had nine grandchildren from newborn to age nine. He still had many challenges, to be sure, but the younger grandchildren didn’t know that he was ill. There were precious moments where my father experienced true peace and contentment, holding the babies in his arms, and being fully present in love. It took two heart attacks and Alzheimer’s disease, but perhaps he had finally learned the lesson he had come here to learn!
So, what did I learn from my father’s life? I learned that anger and resentment are poisons that destroy our health and damage our relationships. I learned that it’s best not to wait for an apology that may never come. I learned that we must find forgiveness in our hearts, not for the sake of the other person, but for our own sake. I learned that our physical and emotional symptoms are messages showing us where our lives are out of balance and that the universe is conspiring in our favor to teach us the lessons we have come here to learn. “Life feeds back truth to people in its own way and time.”
The biggest lesson that I learned from my father, however, is that all we really ever have is the present moment. Nothing else is real. Most of us spend precious little time in the present moment. We are either worrying about the future or perseverating about the past. It is only in the present that we are fully alive to experience true joy and passion. It is only in the present that our hearts are fully open to giving and receiving love. Let us vow not to waste another moment holding onto old grudges and petty resentments. Let us make a sacred commitment to appreciate each and every precious moment of our lives and be fully present in love!
Dr. Bruce
Good morning, dear brother,
What an amazing story~beautifully and accurately written. Your insights and wisdom are so evident as you accurately summed up dad’s life in such a concise tale. Heck, I learned and saw issues in a whole new light. I loved dad’s “conversation with God.” And he did learn, evolve and heal along with his debilitating Alzheimer’s disease. When dad finally passed on, any anger or resentment I had toward HIM for being the dad he was, was gone. I suppose dad helped me learn along with him, one of my biggest lessons in forgiveness and letting go.
Comment by Gail Roberts — October 20, 2008 @ 8:06 am
Thank you Bruce for this amazing gift of your heart and perspective. It touches me deeply as I consider my own family history and relationships, but especially as I look at the freedom and healing in this example of such profound acceptance. Thanks to you, Gail, as well. Reading your comment deepened even further the powerful way that such circumstances - consciously and openly experienced - ripple out and heal, during the event and even years later. Beautiful!
Comment by Jordan Hunter — October 20, 2008 @ 11:59 am
Thank you for sharing your story. My mother has mild-moderate Alzheimer’s and is not speaking to me because I hurt her 15 years ago. She refuses to forgive me. She does not remember that we healed over and grew from the experience. Your story gives me hope. Though I do not want to see her deteriorate maybe she will forget the hurt and I can have a relationship with her again.
I was able to let go and forgive her after she went through an episode of acute full dementia. I saw her vulnerable. Though their was emotional abuse & neglect, I’ve forgiven her having learned she did the best she could do with what skills she had. But seeing her almost childlike helped me to really let go. There’s not much ‘real’ time left with her, I want it to be the best it can be - In the present as you said.
Comment by Lisa RP — October 21, 2008 @ 1:51 pm
Bruce and Molly, As someone that knew you “when”, I learned along the way with you how important family connections are. Although your father may not have shared affection with you when you were young, I saw the tremendous amount of nachas he got from your acheivements. I realize it is hard to grow up with resentment as a main feeling within a family. My husband also grew up in a home with a father that was off being the breadwinner and the resentment filtered from his mother down to the children. But like you and your siblings, Bruce, Joe and his siblings became better people because of it. They have refuse to have resentment as a part of their adult lives and embrace the love and affection of those around them now and look forward to emanating that down through the generations to come. The chain can be broken, although the chain breakers have to “do the work” to leave the harm behind. You are both an inspiration for anyone “doing the work”. Love to you both, Carol
Comment by Carol Secor — November 2, 2008 @ 11:10 am
ps-I haven’t seen the movie yet, but when I saw the previews a couple months ago, your dad was exactly who I thought of!!
Comment by Carol Secor — November 2, 2008 @ 11:15 am
Dearest Bruce, After reading about your father, I was truly shocked about the similarities with my own father. It helped to further the shift in thinking about this angry, violent man and enabled me to continue my work of forgiveness begun a long time ago. That includes forgiving myself for how I felt about him for many years. Thank you so much.
I love you both dearly………LuAnn
Comment by LuAnn — November 10, 2008 @ 9:56 am