TRIGGER WARNINGS: Suicide reference, among others
I know this is a less-visited thread, but it seems the appropriate place to post.
I had an aunt that loved me very, very dearly. She was alone in my family in that she loved me without any agenda whatsoever. Unlike everyone else in the family, her love wasn't "contingent" on whatever I could do for her, and I can't recall a time when she was the least bit negative with me. I really don't know what I did, but to her I walked on water. Unconditional love.
Now the plot thickens. Or sickens.
I found out from my mom she had been abused over a period of years by my great-grandfather. She and my mom grew up in an alcoholic family where Dad's solution to most things was to hit the kids. Great-grandpa paid for my aunt's singing lessons (she was an amazing Coloratura Soprano) but the price was the abuse.
Flash forward. She married a toad of a man who was madly in love with his mother, even long after they married and had kids. Mommy lived with them, and he beat my aunt, probably raped her, and abused her pretty much any way possible. He and his mom ran the house, including picking out what color the toilet paper was. No, I'm not kidding. My aunt was relegated to her room and stayed stoned on valium, other assorted tranquilizers, and alcohol. She didn't drive or leave the house. He made sure she was well-supplied.
To make things worse, my dearly dysfunctional family chose to take HIS side. You read that right. His. Side. They berated her for the drugs, drinking and so on in every way possible when what they should have done is intervened. She was the bad guy, not her loser of a sick husband.
One day when my cousin and I were both in high school, I received a phone call from him that my aunt was having an "episode" and was locked in her room with a loaded gun on her nightstand, placed there by her loving husband. I raced over there in my car and he and I concocted a plan where we broke the door down and managed to get the gun away from her just before she almost grabbed it. She was making noises that I've never heard a human make before-- I guess you'd call it screaming. Luckily, none of us died that day.
So that's what sort of a man he was.
Why am I posting this, you ask? Well, he took someone away from me who was not only an uncommonly kind person, she worshipped the ground I walked on. And she was the only one in the entire family who seemed to recognize some sort of good in me.
She killed herself about a year later. Thanks to him.
So what about forgiveness for him? Well, I just received word that he died two days ago. I'm still in shock, but now I can finally realize what a pathetic mess that whole situation was, and now my cousins and I can heal and move on. He's gone now.
I don't have the energy to bear ill will towards him. He's not worth it. So I don't know if any of this counts as "forgiveness" for a real louse of a person, but it's nice to finally have him out of the picture. One of my cousins has been his enabler since my aunt died, and God willing, she can start to heal.
So I suppose "forgiveness" is a very broad term, but I'll settle for "you're out of my hair now, and we can all start to move toward normal." It's a start.
Bob
