Forgiveness & Grief

In the undercurrent of loss, forgiveness plays a quiet support to our healing.

After my daughter died, a neighborhood mom who I’d never once met stopped by my house. She said she’d heard about my daughter’s death, and dropped off a meal for me and my family. After a few minutes of chatting, I realized she planned to stay for a while. As she continued expressing sorrow for my loss, I felt resentful. She went on about how difficult the situation would be if it were her in my place.

I tried to erase my resentment with logic: “She’s just trying to be nice. She just wanted to tell me about how deep the loss would feel if it was her that had lost a child.” Yet it stung. I felt angry.

A part of me felt I had a right to this righteousness and resentment in the wake of the greatest loss of my life.

Righteousness, anger, resentment: these are all a starter list for the shadow feelings of grief. They are the surface to the deep well of loss. And yet, sometimes we hold onto them so tightly as a means of saving ourselves from the depth of our grief.

When I realized that my frustration was more about these deeper emotions than about my neighbor, I opened the true door to grief. Forgiveness—of myself, and of my unknowing neighbor—allowed me to loosen the grip on *should* and open my arms to my own, hurting heart. Suddenly my mind wasn’t arguing with my emotional experience. Mind, body, heart grieved together.

For me, it took years of tears, yelling, screaming, sobbing to heal. But forgiveness led me down the difficult path to the deepest of those true feelings. It was always there, I only had to allow it to lead the way.

When you open your heart to allowance and forgiveness, what emotions do you find beneath? What truths reach out to you in that sacred space of forgiveness?