I’ve been thinking a lot about forgiveness. In so many ways, I’ve found a lot of peace in my life, but that sense of peace and overall healing has revealed what wounds remain, and I’ve been struggling the past few weeks with how to close them. I’ve been careful to avoid going into too much detail about my family with this blog. I feel like my thoughts and feelings, my struggles, even a little bit of insight into my relationships is okay, but family is a different animal. Discussing family involves a lot of thoughts and feelings that are not my own; it involves speaking for others in a way that I just…can’t.
I don’t speak to my father. Or his father. Or his mother, brother, sister, wife, children. I don’t speak to anyone on that side of my family. We left my (physically and mentally abusive) father when I was in 4th grade, and that effectively severed those ties. Sure, we’ve had a visit or two. We’ve exchanged a couple phone calls and emails over the years, but for the most part, I’ve lived my life with one parent, one side to my family. A few years ago, my father found Jesus and subsequently stopped sending birthday cards, Christmas presents, etc. Most holidays, after all, are “Pagan traditions” and we should “just be thankful for what we have.” He further justified this absence by pointing out that he was not even buying presents for “his own children,” as though my two sisters and I were not linked to him in any way; we were just something that happened to him a few years back that he’d moved on from. He had a family now, and he didn’t have time to bother with his pesky first wife or their three little accidents.
We don’t communicate, and the rest of his family has followed suit. My grandparents send birthday cards and Christmas presents, but they don’t know anything that goes on in my life. I’ve emailed pictures a few times to no response. My great grandfather passed away a few years ago, and no one told me until a few months later. I guess they thought I didn’t care, despite the fact that I pretty much learned Spanish just so I could write letters to my great grandparents in their own language. Now, my grandfather has prostate cancer, and still, no one has officially told me. I found out through the grapevine. And, if he dies, I’m sure no one will think to let me know.
And the whole thing has me wondering, how will I feel when these people are gone? The funny thing about our lack of communication is that they’ve always held me responsible for it. Like, hey, you’re 12 years old. Why aren’t you better at staying in touch? We’re not the adults in this relationship or anything. It’s your job to come to us. That’s the big excuse. We don’t talk to Ashley? Well, that’s because she doesn’t talk to us. I’ve always found that kind of ridiculous, mostly because I’ve always been the child in the scenario, and I wasn’t willing to reach out to anyone, let alone a group of people who, to me, felt like strangers.
I’m an adult now, though, and I’ve felt lately that those relationships are partly mine to mend. So, I emailed my father. And now, we’re going on day one, two, three…
No response.
My grandmother has been emailing my little sisters, mostly because they sucked up to her at the opportune moment to secure a birthday present. That’s how I found out about my grandfather’s cancer. And, I guess if I sucked it up and played happy, I could probably secure some sort of phony relationship from them, too. Here’s the thing, though: I won’t. There are big things at play here, big wounds that need mending, and many (too many) lost years to make up for. I won’t gloss over that. I don’t want anything from anyone; I just wanted to feel for once that I had a father. I told him my immediate feelings, I asked for guidance, and I promised to do my part in return.
I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe for him to write back and finally support me in something? For him to validate my feelings? Finally deem me worthy of his time, effort, energy, support? It was a foolish notion, though. My father has never supported me in anything, even my decision to leave South Korea under such heinous circumstances. In fact, the only support my father has ever given me has been court-ordered. And, even that, has been a nuisance to him; something he fought and sought ways out of.
I guess in writing to my father, I was looking for him to redeem himself somehow. I was looking for a way to forgive him; for him to do something that would allow me to forgive him. I was looking for him to extend a fatherly arm around me and tell me that he had my back. I was looking for a way to heal, and I assumed, wrongly, that I needed him to be a part of that.
I had a conversation with Zach a while back about forgiveness. “It’s not so important to seek closure and forgiveness from the other party,” I told him, “as it is to find it within yourself”:
I forgive myself for the confusion and wanting that these relationships have brought into my life. I forgive myself the hard lessons I’ve had to learn, the unorthodox family that I will bring my future husband and children home to for the holidays, the million ways that I’ve sought love in every wrong place, the million broken things I’ve done to fill that void.
I forgive the Molitors their shortcomings and failures. I forgive them not knowing me or the story of my life, and missing out on the opportunity to know fantastic people in their children, grandchildren, and nieces. I take responsibility for the faults that I can claim, and leave them responsibility for their own. I carry with me the appreciation for their lives, as their existence ensured my own. I forgive my father’s wife for being able to stand by a man who values his family so little. I forgive my father the way he’s twisted religion to justify his means. I forgive all of us the things left unsaid.
I understand now that their story in my life is what it is, and need not be more. And, I feel comfortable sharing that here because, though we share a last name, the people I consider my family exist very separately from them.
“It’s hard to give, I’m never gonna forget, but everybody needs a little forgiveness…”
