It was a cloudy evening and I knew driving over that there wasn’t going to be a sunset worth capturing.
But it was the 6th anniversary of my Dad’s death, so I wanted to visit with him at Lake Parker, which is where some of his ashes found their resting place.
My mood was as cloudy as the skies but I was determined and brought a candle and lighter with which to shine a little light for him.
I found an old fishing pier by a power plant on the edge of the lake. One I had never visited before. And as places go, it was a nothing little place.
But there were only a couple of people at the near end, fishing off it, so I strolled to the very far end where I had complete privacy for my little “ceremony”.
The privacy allowed me to sing his song, as I let the candle light reach out from the darkness. And out of nowhere a little miracle happened. He lit up a tiny section of the cloudy sky to let me know he heard.
It was a wonderful moment and I have attached a few images I managed to take, at the end of this blog. You will see what I mean by the very strange section of sunset in a thoroughly clouded sky.
Anyway, the whole “sunset” lasted less than 3 minutes and then disappeared as quickly as it arrived.
It returned me to the darkness of the evening and I strolled back down the pier to where I had parked and drove home.
There are a million distractions on me at the moment and it took Ann to remind me of the special day that it was. I was annoyed at myself for having to be told and felt that I had disappointed his memory.
But he forgave me. I could feel it. So, I forgave myself too.
In fact, forgiveness is the thought that really ran through my head for the drive home and ultimately led to this blog.
When you are forgiven there is an amazing feeling of acceptance that we are all human and slip up occasionally. I slip up more than occasionally and need more forgiveness than others.
Accepting forgiveness is an act that can restore some peace to a heart that is troubled by conscience. Many of us expect perfection within ourselves and therefore get overly disappointed at our failures.
It is one of the mechanisms by which we improve as people. Accepting the failure and resolving to try harder next time.
In the Rocky saga, Morgan and I have been struggling with trying to nurse the little guy back to health and it is a difficult road. The next two weeks are the proving ground for us.
He has to wear an e-collar and a harness and take all sorts of nasty medicine. And we hate having to do this to him. He doesn’t understand and quite possibly thinks he is being punished for something. Which breaks our hearts even more.
But each time, after a round of medicine and his initial frown is over, he forgives us. And we bask in his forgiveness and recover from the ordeal a bit better than we otherwise would.
If only we could explain the what and why to him, life would be so much easier, but we can’t. So collectively we all just have to push forward and try to get through it all.
I don’t know if his act of forgiveness helps him. I hope it makes him feel a little better.
I know that when I forgive, I too feel better.
There is a passive healing that occurs when you are able to let go of a wrong or a hurt and forgive.
Grudges being held, just fester within us and don’t just make us less happy, but they can ultimately change who we are.
Why on earth should we allow a wrong that was done to us, change who we are?
Clearly we shouldn’t.
I am atheist but one of the things that I love about Christianity and in particularly Catholicism, is the act of forgiveness. While weekly confessions might be a thing that most of you reading this, won’t recognize, it was a moment when the priest would forgive us our sins. No matter what we did, we stepped out of that confessional, clean and renewed.
Turning the other cheek is an approach that I will accept any day over an eye for an eye approach. Yes, it leaves the offender unpunished but punishment per se is not what makes people better humans.
We each have to accept the wrong that we did, accept the forgiveness that we might luckily receive and resolve to try harder next time not to err.
We will err of course. But the key word there, was “try”.
A very special person asked me last night “what outcome I expected” from my coming years and I answered that I have none, other than focusing on the journey that leads me to my own sunset.
A big part of this journey will no doubt involve making many more mistakes and causing hurt to others along the way.
But hopefully, my own efforts and their forgiveness will light a little candle and make the world a little less dark for each of us.
… just a thought.
