Forgiveness

Stop for a moment, and think about how powerful forgiveness is. Forgiving someone or allowing someone to forgive you can be the most liberating feeling you will ever experience. To hold onto resentment and allow it to consume you is the equivalent of a parasite slowly eating you from the inside. It becomes the entire focus of your existence and you can concentrate on nothing else.

Over 20 years ago I nearly let this get the better of me…

I had taken a summer job working for a forest products company. My co-workers were three other forestry students. The only background I had in forestry was that I was related to the manager, he was my father, although I was told that nepotism was not the only reason I got the job.

Since my experience was limited, I was often paired up with one of the two other more seasoned summer students. That was how I met Craig. Spending countless hours together in a truck traveling the company roads or out in the bush learning to cruise timber, we got to know a lot about each other. It was only a matter of time.

I remember our first kiss, vividly. The students were housed in tiny rental cabins about 10 minutes from town – being the only female I had one to myself. The three guys shared the other one which was two doors away. I had been fighting feelings I had for Craig for a while. He had never given me any indication that he felt the same way, so I was not about to make a fool of myself by blurting something out and then having to live with the consequences of my actions for the remainder of the summer. I obviously did not hide these feelings that well.

It was a windy evening. The cabins we were assigned were situated at the mouth of the English River and there were soaring views of Lac Seul from the doorsteps. I was feeling particularly out of sorts one evening, lamenting, as a young woman does, my solitude. I left my cabin and walked down to the shore to watch the sunset and the waves on the lake from the floating dock. I guess that’s why I didn’t hear anything or notice the dock move, until I felt an arm around my waist. Instinctively I knew it was him. We stood there, silently, as the waves rocked the pier. Slowly he turned me around and looked straight into my eyes. As I stared back I felt like I was looking into eternity. Our kiss was slow and gentle and if I close my eyes today, I can still feel his lips on mine. From that moment on the summer was ours.

Unfortunately, had I been able to think properly, I would never have been as hurt as I was. I should have realized this was a summer romance, that it would end in August when our contracts were up, but I blindly let my heart lead me. I should have known when I found the crumpled note in his truck that there was someone else in his life: “Hi there princess, I miss you…” He never called me “princess”.

I barreled on, with blinders, because it was what I chose to see. We went on a canoe trip, we shared photographs, we went fishing and spent many hours drinking on the dock where it all started. And at the end of the summer, when the windup BBQ was over and he took me home, I should have said, “That was a great summer! Thank you for the memories!” But I didn’t. I called and we talked. I missed him and he said he missed me too. He didn’t. He couldn’t, because the next time I called I was informed that he had moved out, and no, they didn’t have a forwarding address or phone number.

I was crushed into tiny pieces, and scattered. I was too lost in my own pain, and then the anger hit. I sat on that anger for over a year. I wrote letter after letter that I threw away. I let it stew and burn inside me. I held onto that fury like it was a lifeline. It became my raison d’etre. I evolved into an empty unfeeling shell.

And then one day I saw it in the card store. A simple card – a picture of an overgrown sidewalk with a child’s red wagon sitting on the cement, slightly askew, the handle leaning on the ground. It looked like it had been abandoned, the red wagon, my red heart. Alone, and overgrown. I bought it immediately and went home to write. All I needed was one simple sentence; “Last summer you hurt me deeply, but I forgive you, because by forgiving you, I set myself free.” I sent it in care of his parents’ address, never knowing whether or not he received it. It didn’t matter. The act of sending the card set my healing into motion. From that moment on I fully began to appreciate what forgiveness could really do. Maybe knowing its destructive force helped me to move on, and look at it in a different light. I do know that I have not allowed it to consume me in that manner again.

Life is too short. Forgive.