This is a story about a friend and her family whom I have known for over two decades. For the sake of anonymity, let’s call her Betty and her parents Cynthia and Derek.
Derek left his family when Betty was about ten. He had three children with Cynthia, but simply could not get along with her. I did not know what the real reason was, as Betty never quite revealed whether there
was some other woman in her father’s life, or just that her parents’ marriage fell apart.
Derek went to Europe to make a life of his own and left the responsibility of bringing up their three children to Cynthia. At the age of 14, Betty started working as a model. She was successful and started supporting her family. Cynthia started petty businesses to support her young ones. I met Betty when she was around 16, and we were modelling together. Over time, I became close to her and her family.
Every year for about a month, Betty’s father would visit and stay with them. Strangely, that topic was never discussed between us, and I too refrained from bringing it up. But I always knew that there lay a deep resentment about this whole situation within Betty.
Around 10 years ago, Betty announced that her father was coming back to live with her mother permanently. By this time, all the children had their own families. It was the first time that Betty discussed her father and their situation with me.
She said she had come to know her father better, as she had visited him every year with her family. Betty was keen that her children know their grandfather as well. “I love him and can now understand where he was coming from,” she
told me, referring to his abandoning his family.
She wanted to forgive her father, but feared that she would be doing wrong to her mother.
Alas! Cynthia and Derek could not make it work. All Cynthia wanted to do was punish him. She wanted him back alright, but each time he came back she would whine, curse and complain about the years she had spent struggling to keep
her family afloat without him. He tried three times to move bag and baggage with her.
There were so many sides to this story as Betty and I talked about it. Was Derek coming back because he was still guilt-ridden and wanted to be forgiven by his family? Or was it the love for Cynthia that kept bringing him back? Was he not able to give her the retribution she needed? Why did Cynthia want him back and yet was unable to keep
him? Did she long for him and want him to understand her suffering but he couldn’t? Was it her ego that wanted him back? Why have and want him back, only to punish him and make him feel worse for it? At what point would she forgive him completely and wipe the slate clean? Or was there simply too much left to clean?
Very few are blessed with the ability to forgive freely. Forgiving sometimes can prove one to be foolhardy. Forgiveness with wisdom and awareness is rare, and seldom found.
Times are changing and situations are becoming more grey and complex. Everyone is looking for his or her pound of flesh. Forgiveness is becoming conditional. “If I forgive you, will you...?”
My father was one man I knew who could forgive easily. “It brings me peace of mind,” he would say. “The rest is up to the others’ conscience.”
Derek’s and Cynthia’s is a complex story, and I often wonder what the outcome will be, except that now, they are grandparents and have very few good years to live together, even if they eventually choose to.