Growing

Its been almost a year since I wrote this and I continue to find the words close to my heart.

Pilgrim on a Long, Long Journey

“We’re only passers-by, and all you can do is love what you have in your life. A person has to fight the meanness that sometimes comes with you when you’re born, sometimes grows if you aren’t in lucky surroundings. It’s our challenge to fend it off, leave it behind us choking and gasping for breath in the mud.” Jane Hamilton, American novelist

With me, it was a difficult father and a mother who neutralized the hurt with enormous love for my two siblings and me. Dad got more fierce in those remarks I call zingers as the hurtful speech continued through his 85 years.

I think he couldn’t help it and at times didn’t gather how hurtful his remarks could be. He just never really garnered much self knowledge.

There are times we hurt those we love. I try my best by grace of God to keep those moments at bay. I…

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Healing Stories?

“Stories are how we make sense of our lives. To tell a story is to own it: to own the narrative thread, to own a piece of our past. And when we own a story, when we put it in a tidy box and store it on a high shelf, it becomes manageable so that whatever negative effects it’s been having on us are, in theory, lessened.” Deborah Copaken, an American author.

I am sitting in the wake of three books of memoirs I published from 2015 through 2021. Writing my stories and doing many edits prompted me to think and emote through the best and worst moments of my life. That was besides the most engaging and funniest of my stories, at least to me.

After sleeping on the most painful events besides editing them, I have made more sense of how they fit in my journey, guided by the good Lord. Hopefully, the negative effects have diminished. My life has become more meaningful. 

I hope and pray I forgive more readily than seven years ago. May God bless our journeys, yours and mine.

Forgiveness

“What matters in life is not what happens to you, but what you remember and how you remember it.” Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the late, highly acclaimed, South American novelist.

Lord knows people see things differently. Witnesses to crimes don’t tell identical stories.

People are entitled to their feelings about events. That affects their ability to recall an event and how it is recalled.

My older sister saw several of our shared memories differently. That was true of the memories involving dad. Though he was difficult for all of us, he was more distant and painful with me

And so, we have the perceptions that live with us and die with us. Forgiving my father for loving me less than he might have has been all uphill.

My faith requires me to forgive him, and by the grace of God, I am on that journey.