"Forgiveness is Good..."

 

"...You got to do this sometimes..." --- A Sportscaster stated in the documentary, "Four Falls of Buffalo", after Buffalo Bills lost their first SuperBowl, when Scott Norwood missed a 46 yard field goal. And the Bills lost by one point. I remember that game.

The Bills arrived home, and a crowd of Buffalo residents gathered rather randomly. Some people kept their kids out of school. They held up signs and in celebration and gratefulness the crowd began to chant for Scott Norwood. They let him know that he was forgiven, still their hero and loved.

Many times in life, people hold onto so many disappointments they pollute others around them. I always had hope for others. It was because I saw where hope was held for them. Yes, these adults when I was a child had lost hope. They stood in the insanity of mind-altering substances. Which were first not present. However, forgetting that they were role-models, they refused to stop the blaming of others and self-loathing with forgiveness. Why? Because, "Forgiveness is Good".

As I've ever more had time that has been presented to me recently. The vacancy that I'd experienced as a child and into my adulthood from those who were to be there for me as a child, but weren't, arrived in my psyche once more today. 

Those thoughts have become ever more present. I wondered why that happened to me. And I wondered why or what it was that was lacking. Then I realized, it was being Loved. And that Love lacks for others when a person or people are self-loathing, blamers of others that there lacks the room for love. 

The love that should be known to a child from their parents. Especially, to your own child or children. No matter the gender. 

I realized I was unappreciated by my family, my relatives. Because if I was appreciated, there would have been no excuses as to why no one, not even my mother, father, brother. Godparents, no one came to my high school graduation. Or even before that, when my mother was in the hospital for six weeks, over two years prior no one checked in from either sides of our family. They were available, but not for me.

I remember my mother asking me a few times during my first eighteen years, "Do you know you're loved?" I didn't know how to respond. Because I absolutely didn't feel loved. I knew animals felt safe around me. I felt a Higher Source loved me. But I knew that both my parents didn't have that capacity. When I was age thirty-seven I realized this and I asked a trauma specialist if that was possible. She agreed that they lacked the capabilities to extend love to me.

I was told by my mother that if I looked too happy, people would hate me. That type of warning, now I see as a misguided threat. My dad loved to see people squirm. He enjoyed seeing people suffer, especially if he didn't feel they had. 

Like if they got to go to college, wore a suit to work or could afford a new car. I saw him get gleeful after my husband and I were visiting him with our new 1989 VW Fox with no air conditioning, a manual with a pullout radio. Yes a brand new bare-bones new car. My dad's dog jumped onto the driver's side car door and left a small scratch on it. Yes, my dad enjoyed the uncomfortable look on my husband and my face as we witnessed my dad's lack of controlling his dog

Too, he blew off, it only being a car.

It took my husband till 2018 to realize the cruelty of my dad's gleefullness that day, nearly thirty years ago, then.

Love, has been the hardest thing for me to feel freely as an adult. I could feel it for others tremendously. I could feel it from outsiders, animals and my husband. But aside from that there was no depth of feeling loved. 

Now, what presents itself in the vessel I remain in, is that there was one person who had the capacity to love me, made me feel loved and he, my husband is no more. I'd felt this from two other deceased relatives many decades ago, Loved that is. Not for any other reason than they accepted and loved who I was and didn't hold anything against me.

My reflection now, is that those who lacked the capacity or capabilities to Love who they could've. Lacked something else. Forgiveness. Because "Forgiveness is Good." ---Jody-Lynn Reicher