Forgiveness, Finally…

I have been on the path to finding forgiveness for a very long time. 

My first conscious round with it came to a head while participating in a retreat on the topic. We watched a documentary about forgiveness in impossible circumstances (i.e. Arabs vs. Israelis, parents of murder victims vs. the murderers, Protestants vs. Catholics in Belfast, etc.). One segment featured three moms who lost their sons on 9/11 who were faced with having no remains to bury– only truckloads of mixed bits and pieces being dumped in open fields in New Jersey. They stood in one of these fields talking about how angry they were even though they had no idea who to be angry with. 

They didn’t know how to begin to forgive or even grieve. 

I felt guilty for how small my troubles seemed in comparison, but I appreciated knowing where to place my anger as I wasted years going in circles only blaming myself. I was so uncomfortable with anger that I felt paralyzed until I began to really feel it, accept it, and allow it to push me out of that stuck place. The minute I allowed myself to feel it, it bubbled up hot and heavy, and I could barely contain it. Like the valve on a pressure cooker I had to ease it out in measured portions. Poetry became that valve and gave words to describe what was happening which gave me the momentum and safety to keep going. In hindsight I now understand that was a first step toward real forgiveness. 

Without the anger there was no way to see clearly or move ahead. 

My first two forgiveness poems (“Forgiveness I” and “Forgiveness II” from In Your Bones: Poems of Radical Forgiveness) came after that retreat only to find out in the years following that they barely even started the process for me. They began as one poem but soon became two after a key reader failed to see more was on the back of the page. When I pointed it out he said, “No, there are enough pieces of forgiveness on the first page alone, there are at least two poems here!” Over time it did not feel like even those two poems could tell the story of my slog toward forgiveness. So then came “Forgiveness III: It Can Be” and, eventually, “Forgiveness IV: Forgive Yourself” from When You Know: Poems of Self-Love. What started as one became two and then doubled into four.

Twelve years have now gone by since the person I’ve been trying to forgive has passed. Six years have gone by since writing the first forgiveness poems. Finally I am ready to write about what may be my last go around with forgiveness over this situation. To do that I have stood out in my own field of bones and faced my own hopelessness over this person's blatant and final refusal to make any acknowledgment or change. I have stood in that field alone and just kept writing my way through it. 

When I came to the end of this, what I hoped would be my final forgiveness poem, I struggled to finish it in peace. Although I immediately entitled it “White Flag” it occurred to me that I never mentioned a white flag at all. During the struggle to revise it I wrestled my way there. Eventually it ended with a wave of surrender even though I was holding out for a fight although it’s pretty hard to fight when that person is long gone. This poem, which could be entitled “Forgiveness V: White Flag”, is the end of an era. It is the first time in twelve years I looked back and found the anger gone, replaced with a hollowness I would have to learn to fill. I can only hope those three moms in the field have found their own ways through it by now. However, I think we’d all be in agreement that, although there is relief to be done with it, it will never feel like a cause for celebration.

We all have to find our own way through to forgiveness whatever size or shape it is, otherwise we will never get there. 

We might not even know that it is eating away at us until we find a way to let it go and feel the relief of life without it. Some never get there for their entire lives, and some only after the death of the person who may need to receive it the most. And some of us have to go beyond death in search of it. Most of us can only find it with help and some grace. What no one will tell you is that the energy spent on it will leave a hole that can only be filled after you see it for the opportunity it is. Something longed for, for all these years.

white flag 

the night i came to you on the fumes of my last hope 

you sat smug as always propped up in that chair 

due to your bones being frozen 

when in reality you couldn’t even stand

still I asked you to throw me a bone  

tell the truth 

but your memory was frozen 

you had outlived your backbone 

i went through the motions of asking again 

you went through the motions 

of answering 

again 

although we both knew you wouldn’t 

when i finally picked your pacemaker out of the ashes 

it seemed those twisted wires were all there was to bury 

the truest remnants of you

 still i will lay all the parts of you down together 

remembering how you painted i love you on the back of that poster 

to discover it years later as it fell to the floor 

reminded of days when the hope of a new generation 

brought us back together

 to find we shared 

some search histories

some loves

some stories that didn’t sting 

as we circled ‘round a ceasefire 

that lit up the white flag 

i’d been holding tight 

in my fist 

all along

dena parker duke

from the new book, coming soon…