Disclaimer: my current relationship with my mom is currently better than it was before. I’m just sharing this as I looked back to the past.
Whenever the talk falls on the topic about pain. There’s one person who my mind would immediately turn to, and that would be my mom.
Hindi naging madali relationship namin. She was my first and worst critic. She would be the first one to shoot down any thing that I was doing that was not “profitable”. One incident in fact was when I had my poems published in Junor Inquirer waaaaaaaaay back when I was a kid. When I was showing it off to other people I remember her words even up to now of how she replied.
Tigilan mo yan, wala kang kikitain diyan (stop that, you won’t earn from it)
Things just spiraled most especially when my dad died. Without giving much details, things really got so bad that my anger at her reached to the point where I can’t even write down “Happy Birthday” in a card made by my youngest sister.
I was angry and unforgiving of her then. That unforgiving practice eventually poisoned a lot of things that I’ve done. It was a cross I bore. And ironically, it was a cross that I didn’t have to bear at all.
One of the lines of the 12th doctor, in the Zygon Inversion struck something raw in my past and actually brought upon this sort-of memory jog.
The only way for everyone to live in peace is that they are prepared to forgive
– 12th Doctor
One of the things that was apparent then when I was unforgiving of my mom was the way I was easily triggered by the things happening around me. Whenever she was mentioned I would immediately be pissed off and irritated. Calls coming from her would immediately have me want to throw the phone away (and sometimes I still do today sad to say, sorry na, I’m working on it). And for a real bad joke I even use the transformed image of Hunson Abedeer’s (Marceline’s dad) as my mom’s phone book picture.
I used to have that sense of bitterness aimed towards her back then. But everything changed when I started to forgive her.
To be clear. There was no asking of forgiveness for all the emotional pain she has brought to me and my sisters (which she does do for a bit even up to now). Or was there any repentance on her part for all the suffering she has brought because of her then emotional outbursts and use of us as her shield from the consequences of her actions. But I decided to let roll that pain into a ball and threw it away as a symbol of my forgiveness of her.
And I did not want to be the person who continued on the cycle of pain. I wanted to stop it on my time, because there’s already too much hurt in this world without me adding into it.
I decided to stop the cycle of Pain with me.
Hindi siya madali. There will be a lot of times when I had to keep on doing forgiving. And it’s been a hard road especially for me who had tons of emotional baggages against her. But I keep reminding myself just as I was forgiven for my own mistakes, pain, bad decisions and whatever things I do to hurt others. I should forgive others as well.
And you know what you need to do with all that pain? should I tell you where to put it? You hold it tight, till it burns your hand. And you say this, no one else will ever have to live like this, no one else would have to feel this pain. Not on my watch.
– 12th Doctor
Yes, the Dr. Who episode had a far heavier situation because what was in the balance was the lives of two whole species. However, regardless of the scale, forgiveness, in whatever shape of form is the first step in living a peaceful life. Because pain, regardless of whatever form it comes at you, affects us to the core. And letting that pain twist you to become another hate-filled person, not only ruins your life, it diminishes your potential to become the person who you were truly meant to become.
John 16:33
“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
End it with you.