Forgiveness Is Necessary

Forgiveness is a tough thing to find in your heart after so much trauma. However, I have found that forgiveness is extremely important on my journey to healing. I will never forget, but I do forgive those that had their hand in hurting me. I truly believe that karma has its way of taking care of unresolved bad that people put out into the world, and I am sure she has had her way with the man that hurt me. I am sure that she has had her way with my mother as my mother has a lot of medical issues that are unexplainable and affecting the quality of her life. My dad is seeing people that he once chose over me on a daily basis for who they truly are, and I am further down the road to healing. I feel bad for my father. When his mother died in 2010, she left everything to his oldest brother who was supposed to split everything equally between all the siblings. He was greedy and did not do as he was supposed to. He kept it all to himself and ripped him and his brothers apart. They lost their bond due to a small house and a small sum of money. The eldest brother even returned the casket that my grandmother had bought many many years ago to have her cremated and put in a little pine box to get the money back. He was infuriated when they would refund the plot she had bought. Greed took him over in an ugly nasty way. Anyways, my dad never found forgiveness and I have watched him deteriorate slowly from getting eat up by hard feelings and bad memories. To give you an idea of what happened to all three brothers after the greed smacked the oldest in the chest... The oldest lived in fear of one or both brothers retaliating until he got lung cancer a few years ago and died a slow painful death while guilt chipped away at his soul. The middle son moved to a small apartment and has become a black out alcoholic trying to bury his hard feelings in a bottle and my dad has taken to his couch allowing the hard feelings to chip away at his health, heart and soul. My dad lays there depressed, and you can almost always guarantee that his brother or his mom and dad will come up in a conversation somehow. What hurts is that I was there when the oldest brother manipulated my granny into leaving everything to him. My dad feels as though she just favored him and no matter how many times I tell him the truth he just can't accept it. But my youngest uncle had gotten into a huge wreck as a young man, and he had a lot of fines and debts that he never could fully pay. There was a tiny amount of bad blood between my dad and my youngest uncle because he also owed him money. My dad never treated him any different, but my oldest uncle decided to use all of that as his play. One day him and granny was talking about her getting a will made and my oldest uncle told her she should leave it all to him so he could split it up amongst the brothers because if she put all three on her will then my younger uncles would go to the state and if she put my dad's name on there he would hold my younger uncles part for what he owed him and then my younger uncle would be left with nothing. My granny believed him and really felt like he would do the right thing. When she was bedridden and on her death bed his true colors showed. He cheated on his wife and eventually left her for a younger woman. Began talking to my grandmother like she was a burden. There was a couple of times he screamed at her and made her cry. I used to go visit her and when I would sponge bathe her, I would shut and lock the door, and she would tell me that she wished she would not have left everything to him. Once his true colors began to show, she knew he would not do the right thing. But he had kept up the facade until he knew for sure that she was unable to make any changes. Now that house belongs to his wife, that speaks to no one in the family and none of us are ever going to be able to walk back into our childhood homes that was filled with so many memories. Seeing how this affected everyone, even the greedy one made me realize two things. 1. I will never fight over a deceased family members items. I will never care enough about stuff... replaceable, store-bought things enough to be the greedy party or allow an entire family to cave over it. I prefer the person to be in my life and alive rather than be left all their stuff. 2. Forgiveness is necessary for a healthy life. Had my uncle forgiven his mother and his greedy brother, he wouldn't be hiding in a bottle. Had my dad forgiven his mother and brother, he would not be stuck in a never-ending loop of pain and depression. There is a couple of things I hope my readers take away from this. The greedy party suffers too. You made me greedy and get all the THINGS that you are after. But once you have them you realize that they are only THINGS, and you got them at the expense of IRRREPLACEABLE things such as family and friends. And once you realize that guilt kicks in and you realize you have so many things, but no one to truly enjoy them with. The ones that are hurt in the process of others greed suffers. They have hard feelings that build and build and depression ensues, and they realize that they were betrayed in the worst possible way. After so much pain, it takes an enormous amount of strength to find forgiveness. It's okay not to forget, but you have to forgive. God bless you all. Thanks for reading!