The Quality of Mercy
Shakespeare suggested that it is not strained,
and mild gentlemen behind their pulpits exhort us to
love our enemies, to turn the other cheek so that
it may be more easily slapped, and self-help gurus
as well as seasoned psychotherapists say we need
to forgive and forget, move on, live in the moment,
bigger and better than our small-minded detractors,
the ex-lovers and bullies and schoolyard taunters,
the broken parents bent for years on breaking us.
What, then, is wrong with me? Why can't I --
Try and try but I can't get past this anger. Forgiveness
is not in my lexicon. In fact, the topic makes me
vaguely queasy. Whole days I move forward burning
remembered rage, chewing a bitter past, spitting
rusted nails. Though I understand the man, though
I have now walked more than several miles in
his backbreaking shoes, though I can see that sorrow
bloats him with saltwater, drowns him in his
sagging chair, and even though I realize that, all things
considered, he was the best father to me that the life
left to me had to offer, I still can't help but
hate him. Forty-five years later I lie awake in a pool
of blue hatred, his face floating through my brain.
More than a lifetime later, I'm still that sullen child
who saw him put the ring on Mother's finger and
lost my little mind, bucking and kicking through
the pictures. I knew, I knew he was guilty.
He was my father, but my father was
dead. He lived -- that was his sin, you see, his
terrible crime -- he lived a small mean life and
made me live it too.
How can I forgive? After all, he
lived and lived and lived.
No comments:
Post a Comment