The Unforgiven
What is forgiveness?
Forgiveness means different things to different people. But in general, it involves an intentional decision to let go of resentment and anger. The act that hurt or offended you might always be with you, but working on forgiveness can lessen that act's grip on you.
Forgiveness is a very elusive thing. To be hurt either physically or mentally by another person either intentionally or unintentionally and actually be able to reset the clock. To let it go. Do we forget? The old saying, forgive and forget is time worn. But you can’t forget. No one can. In 1970, while working in a gas station a drunk woman coasted onto the lot while I stood in front of a Buick, checking a customer’s oil. There was a head on collision with myself between the two cars. Two bi-lateral compound fractures, on both legs. I became crippled and remain so until this day. And I hated her guts! I hated her so much that when I was told that she wanted to come and see me in the hospital I secretly hid a knife from my lunch tray to kill her, but never came, and I continued to hate.
Years later she died of cancer. I went to the funeral home and stood alone at her casket. When no one could see I spit in her face and left. And I hated. Years later I met a girl. I was working in a pool hall when she came in the first time. She played a few games, paid her bill, leaned across the counter and she kissed me. A beautiful little thing. And I saw her every night after that. She seemed to know me, and we became very close. She would wait as I counted the day’s receipts, and then she’d stay a bit longer. One night as we were there she told me a story. It was a story of a woman who, after an evening drinking with some friends, ran out of gas in her small car. Her friends pushed her to a nearby gas station. The car wasn’t going very fast, and as the woman entered the lot she tapped the brake. Power steering, and power brakes were a new innovation and when the motor was off there were no brakes! As her foot pushed the brake, it was like a brick, and she slammed into the car I was servicing at the time. The girl looked me in the eye and said, “I am her daughter, and that’s what she wanted to tell you!”
And the hate went away. I never saw her again. Almost as if she was paying penance for her mother. Debt paid, explanation delivered, and I had forgiven her, but I could never forgive myself. I thought about her mother now and then. I wondered if she was as beautiful as her daughter in her younger days. When I saw her in the funeral home her lip was pulled up on the corner like Elvis. I imagined she must’ve had a stroke that even the mortician couldn’t erase. I forgave her, did she forgive me?
Last night Erika Kirk mounted the stage at her husband’s memorial and brought down the house as she forgave Tyler Robinson for killing him, the father of her two children.
Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.
America has been so divided, so full of hate that we can’t even forgive a comedian for an insensitive remark in a monologue. We can’t forgive a feeble old congresswoman for saying feeble old things. And democrats can’t forgive four letters on a red baseball cap.
We are the most unforgiving people on the planet. And it’s tearing the country apart!
Don’t get me wrong, men in little girls’ restrooms should not be allowed, but a simple gay couple should be able to safely walk in the park. The reason for forgiveness is simple. Hate doesn’t hurt the unforgiven, it hurts the unforgiving. All those years of me hating the woman who crippled me didn’t hurt her at all. It was my sleepless nights. It was my grinding teeth. And it was Sherri’s love and words that freed me.
So, I’m sitting there in my back yard this morning watching the chickens. And I thought about last night. Erika looking up, saying those words, and the crowd leaping to their feet. As I looked through the morning mist there, among the Crepe Myrtles was a faint image of the woman in the casket. She was young again, her face no longer strained, and she did look like her daughter. She smiled at me, turned, and disappeared into the mists. Oh, I forgot to tell you that I could never find anyone who ever knew anyone named Sherri, nor had ever seen her in my pool hall.
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