Judgment or Love?

In 1985, on Christmas Eve, my father lapsed into a coma. He’d been ill off and on for a period of time, having lost a leg a couple years earlier to arteriosclerosis, the result of too many years of hard drinking and smoking and other sins against his body. Now there were other problems that had landed him in the Veteran’s hospital for what was supposed to be a routine exploratory procedure. Something didn’t go right and he suffered a stroke and then the coma. We were notified Christmas Eve day and so I spent my evening beside his bed, listening to him breathe and wishing he would open his eyes. He never did, although there were a couple of precious moments when he managed to squeeze my hand, letting me know he heard the words of love I murmured in his ear. He died New Years Eve. I was thankful that he died peacefully, in a bed, and not mangled in some car accident, something we’d feared would be his fate for years when I was young. Dad was an alcoholic and eventually did lose his license because of a DWI accident. He didn’t drive again until in his 60’s, after he’d stopped drinking.

I had thought at the time of his death that things were reasonably okay between us but recently as I was writing an essay about this event for our memoir group, I realized that in actuality, I had been in a state of deep emotional detachment from my father for some time before his death. A resentful kind of pride had crept into my heart about the past and the poverty and trauma we’d endured as a result of his drinking and now that my situation was considerably more comfortable, I’d become full of judgment toward my father, and a hardness and lack of concern had settled over me. In place of the childish infatuation and adoration I had for my father throughout my childhood and adolescence, now as an adult, I was judging him as inferior, as a failure as a person, and especially as a parent. Because of my judgments, I found myself unable to truly forgive him the way I wish now I had, and to love him in the lavish manner he deserved at this point in his life and that would have freed me from the lingering regret I tried to justify for years. I realize now that it was the judgment I was passing on my father that truly hurt my soul far more than my father’s actual past behavior and the judgments that made forgiveness necessary at all.

I guess I wanted to tell this story and the conclusions I reached because I know that many people struggle with their relationships at this time of the year and the past rises up with a vengeance for some, not allowing them to enjoy holiday events or to connect lovingly with family members. Maybe, like me, they can’t let go of the hurts and resentments, but have become numb to the fact, because of subtle judgments they have made and continue to hold against others. Let’s face it, my Dad had his problems and they affected my life, but he was just a man, doing the best he could and learning along the way. When I became a parent myself, I discovered how difficult it is to not make mistakes, sometimes big ones, sometimes repeating the very mistakes your parents made that you swore as a child you’d never commit. I’m so thankful when my now-grown children tell me that they don’t even remember some of the things I bring up in my fits of regret. What they do remember, I’m told, is that when I realized I’d messed up, I acknowledged it and apologized and that they always knew I loved them, even if I was acting like an idiot. I would hate to think they were withholding their affections from me now, even unconsciously, because of old judgments and that our brief time together on planet Earth was being sabotaged by these old ghosts.

I miss my father deeply and I’d give anything to have him back with me so I could spoil him and enjoy him and tell him how much I appreciate all the good he made possible in my life. I can’t redo this, not with my father anyhow, but there are others with whom it’s not too late. Maybe you have someone too. Let’s face it, the only thing we’re going to take with us when we leave this place is our relationships so let’s make them worthy of an afterlife.
Blessings.
Carol