Saying Good-bye…
February 16, 1931 – February 24, 2020
…May his heart now rest in peace…and may mine also
My Father’s Family
…quite a handsome young man that looks very happy in this photo…but as I look at this photo, I remember the frequent times that he voiced that he blamed his Mother for all the anger that he felt toward’s women…and I felt the brunt of that anger as the eldest…both emotionally and physically…and more that my mind has ever would allow me to remember…
“Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different.”
― Oprah Winfrey
The year that I was about 9 years old…with a family that he needed to feed and only a seasonal sawmill job…plus the promise of religious fulfillment…he put his wife…all four of his children, our German Shepherd Sheba… in a beat-up jalopy with a huge hole in the back floorboard…and with $50.00 left for Jeffersonville, Indiana…
…and there my life in the religious cult started…the abuse became more profuse there…he was either fervently and brutally religious or demonically violent…the pain traumatizing each cell in my body…until the only way to survive as not be inside of my body… in anguish and agonizing a-loneness…bleeding in my child’s soul…
…my mother was the perfect example of grace and beauty…inside and out…even in the place of her own pain..for once I had wanted to see if she remembered what had happened in a place that we had lived in Wisconsin…to this day, I don’t remember anything about that time…yet when I asked her about it…she replied that it was too painful to remember…
….Smiling on the Outside
After the age of 18…for many years I didn’t see or have much to do with my Father or any of my family…and life moved on…time moved on…as I had my own family and dealt with another abusive relationship with a cheating husband…
After finding out that my husband had an affair with my sister…all my Father could say was that… it was my fault…for I had not been a good enough wife…and the abuse was still agonizing…
Yet over the years…I realized that I did not want to continue to feel the pain and live a life less than…to continue moving forward and through was by forgiveness…forgiveness and healing is never a one-time process and it took many years of therapy…prayer…and every book that I could find…step by step…small slow steps…backwards…then forward again…day by day…year by year…the healing slowly and gradually covered the open wounds of my heart…soul…and mind…
…when I came back to Indiana in 2013…it was different now when I saw him…he was physically frail…and he was changed…altered somehow…he often talked about how sorry that he was that he was not a better father…and asked for forgiveness…on more than one occasion…with tears in his voice…not for any specific occurrence…but for a lifetime of hurting his children…
Another layer of forgiveness…I knew in my heart that I would probably never have the chance to see him again once I left for South Africa…I spent as much time with him as I could…loving him and letting him know that I forgave him…so he could have some peace…and I could also…
“Forgiveness is not a feeling: it is a commitment. It is a choice to show mercy, not to hold the offense against the offender. Forgiveness is the expression of love.” ~Gary Chapman
In my life I found that…most of the world contains good people that do the best that they can…with what they know and understand coloredand tightly bound by their life experiences…be patient and forgiving…for if they knew and understood…they would do things differently…
Love is still the answer…and it will always be…
The most highest and most beautiful form of love is forgiveness…
Dad, may your rest be filled with serenity in the arms of our loving heavenly Father…
your daughter, Renee
Threads of Thought 