As I live my life today there is no person in my life who I need to engage in the forgiveness activity. For this reason I will share how this process relates to forgiveness I have found for my father. I went through this process as a necessary part of my recovery from substance abuse.
1) The hurt I felt from my father was wondering why he could not express love on a consistent basis. As a child I took this to be a sign of my unworthiness to be loved. I also felt anger at the way he treated my mother. I also felt fear of the unknown as I struggled for a feeling of security that never emerged. There were many times I was angry and lashed out because of his intoxication and ambivalence of the feelings of his family.
2) Empathizing with the struggles of my father is easy for me. I am my father, with the only difference being I am blessed with sobriety and recovery. He had the disease of alcoholism which left him in a constant war between his desire to be a good person, father, husband and his inability to cope with lifes problems in a productive manner. I know the pain he felt at not living up to his own ideals and his inability to keep promises. To live a life of compromise and violation of his own values and morals. He was a very sad man who died at a young age with only his regrets and alcohol to keep him company. He did not know how to make it right although I know he very much would have if he could have.
3) Altruism: As I said, I am my father. My daughter grew up with an alcoholic father, knowing exactly the same hurt I knew. When I was about four months sober I wrote her a letter and she invited me to her 16th birthday party. I can remember the release I felt from my bondage of shame and guilt. I truly understood that my father was doing the best he could at the time, with the tools he had to work with.
4) My commitment to forgive my father involved visiting his gravesite. I drove to Portland on Fathers Day in 1998. As I sat in front of his grave and expressed my understanding of his pain, I was released from my bondage. All those feelings of unworthiness that I had carried since childhood disappeared. I was also able to forgive myself for the rebellious acts I had committed towards my father.
5) My remembrance of this forgiveness is continuous. “I forgive much, as I have been forgiven much”. Any time I need a reminder of this forgiveness I just look at the pictures of my daughter and my 3 beautiful grandchildren. If it were not for forgiveness I would not have them in my life. It does make me sad when I think of all the love my dad missed out on because he died in his disease and never knew the joy and freedom of being forgiven and forgiving himself. One other thing I would like to mention, as we are so inclined to focus on the negative. Life with my father had its joyful moments. He was a passionate fisherman and enjoyed the outdoors. Some of my fondest memories are of the times we spent fishing and camping. I often think of him in a very positive light when I am out on the water, enjoying our shared passion for fishing.