The most powerful line in the Khaled Hosseini's "The Kite Runner" is this: "And that, I believe, is what true redemption is, Amir jan, when guilt leads to good."
My regrets are different from the narrator of "The Kite Runner." I didn't watch my friend get raped because I was too afraid of standing up to the bully. But I'm very aware of the holes in my heart from those times I didn't do the right thing.
Out of fear.
Out of selfishness.
Out of desperation.
Out of loneliness.
Last weekend, when I was knee deep into the pee pool (kids' pool), an 18-month-old fell over into the pool from the side, and he wasn't wearing any floaties to keep him buoyant. His dad spotted him face down in the pool and was on his way to scoop him up, but I was there, so I quickly snatched the boy and patted his back to get the water out. As I held him, I felt a huge sigh of relief ... and I knew it had something to do with the guilt I still feel about Will, the toddler that almost drowned under my care five years ago when two-year-old David pushed him into the frigid waters of the city dock.
"Thank you," the boy's father said to me as he took his toddler back from my arms.
"A moment of redemption," I said to him. And we laughed.
Turning guilt into good was what a fellow classmate was doing when he told the student body at a recent awards ceremony that you never know when a loved one will be taken from you, so always say "I love you" when leaving the house. Never leave a squabble unsettled.
Why would he say that?
He and his father had been arguing one afternoon, when my classmate stormed out of his house in a fit of rage, using language not included in Webster's dictionary. His father, a pilot, crashed several hours later and was killed.
In the last few days, especially, I've been trying to turn guilt into good.
A friend of mine is tip-toeing down a dangerous path that has been the source of immense suffering for me. I can't go back and undo the damage that's been done in my life. It's too late. But I can warn her about the risk she is taking, and share the very painful lesson I learned from my mistake. And when I do ... when I try to turn my guilt into good ... I am relieved of some of the weight I lug around with me and experience a kind of forgiveness that's unspoken.
I guess you could say it's a kind of redemption.
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How do you let go?
How do you forgive yourself?
Wayne,
Perhaps you could write a letter explaining yourself and then send it to your friend or his family. If your friend accepts your friendship back that would be great, if not, I think at least a bit of weight will be lifted knowing that you gave it a try and at least got to explain yourself. If you don't hear back from your friend, at least you gave it a try and you will know it's time to "let it go" and move on with your life...???
Hi Therese,
AS always your blogs and videos apply in my life. Letting go and forgiving myself is the hardest thing that I have ever done in my life.
I have forgave others when my dad died and realized life is to short (he died and I was not talking to him at his death), I forgave my mom and my mother and most important I asked for their forgiveness why I don't know but it brought closure to me. Now I have a teenage daughter who is almost 16 years old who has cut me out of her life. The pain of that and everything else going on in my life is out of control. My dr's and husband want me to Respite and I won't for once I want to fight and take one minute at a time or one second if I have to. I always blame myself or maybe it's b/c of certain people whom blame me for things and not long ago I went to confession. There I confessed all the sins I could think of after 7 years of not going sins that the father told me I didn't even have to confess that they were not sins. He even told me that I am way to hard on myself and I laughed and said father you hardly know me and he said everything you have told me you have taken ownership in everything, there must be others involved and to blame. Well I did what he told me to do. Guess what I still am the way I was when I walked out, I did and still do fell great about confession and the cleansing of the soul but I continue to do the same old same old. How do you get past it? How do you turn off your ears when others attack you or blame you? Will I ever believe that it is not my fault and not take the guilt and let that as well as my mental illness run my life instead of me controlling it and not it controlling me?
Thanks again
God Bless Leeann
Nicole, when Bess Myerson died someone said that everyone night before she went to sleep she said "I forgive you" to herself. I thought that was so neat. So now I've been practicing that.....and also during the day when I have the usual blunders I beat myself up about and get into regrets from the past.
Say "amen" to it also and try to move forward. With practice you will find yourself freer.
It's taken me over 50 years to learn that forgiving yourself is the most important.
Forgiving is the only way i know that I have been able to move forward. I have to forgive people who don't like me or hate me for no reason. I did not know that people out there can hate me for being too slow or being very easy-going. I am sorry if it bugs them, but they aren't fair to me because they expect too much too fast from me or maybe they enjoy making it hard for me and try to turn me into a bitter person. I rebuke them and refuse to be bitter. I choose to love and forgive. The way I beleive it should be is that if they still want to be my friend it is great, but if they don't, then that's okay, too. Anyway nothing has been lost in my opinion, except maybe getting the chance to know one another better. Everyday is an opportunity to forgive ourselves and others for our sins and faults.
It sure feels good to get this problem off my chest and to forgive everyone who has wronged me or treated me unkind.
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