We Don’t Di – Forever Forgive – Part 1 of 2

When I was in my thirties living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I was fortunate to have a scintillating spiritual teacher, mentor, and friend, by the name of Dr. Ilene Cummings.  Yes, scintillating fit her to perfection.  Ilene was my mother’s chronological age, but ageless in every other sense.  She drove a snazzy little red convertible with her long white hair blowing in the wind. She was, and is, a brilliant free spirit.  I had always wanted to be just like her when I grew up.

Now, here I was in my sixties and I realized I had grown up, but still trying to figure out who I wanted to be and what my purpose in life was.  A “life review” of sorts manifested for me right before Craig died.   (Craig was my personal trainer for two years before he died on July 10, 2017 and became my “afterlife” trainer.)   I didn’t realize at the time that shortly thereafter Craig would be recounting, to me, his “actual” life review from the other side.  (He did this through a gifted medium, Marcia Manoogian.)  But, the prominent moments of my life that stood out, before Craig passed, were those spent in spiritual retreats and classes with Ilene.

One of the life-changing courses that I took from her was on forgiveness. On the first day of the class we were instructed to make a list of all the people that we needed to forgive. All of them.  Dead or alive.  Make the list and check it twice.  I made my list and over the next six powerful weeks, we worked through the process.

While I was driving over the Golden Gate bridge on my way to attend the final class of the forgiveness series, I received a phone call from my long-time dear friend Keith, whom I considered family.  It was a stunning sunny day and I had my convertible top down as he sadly informed me that his mother had just passed away.  When I hung up the phone I realized, in that instant, in the middle of the bridge, that I never put Keith’s mother, Gerry, on my “forgiveness list.”  I looked up into the rare blue cloudless sky and exclaimed out loud, “Gerry, I forgive you.  I hope you can hear me, and I hope that you can forgive me too.”

For all the decades I had known Gerry, I had judged her and I had no right to do so.  Of course, I didn’t realize I was doing it, but I judged her of being lazy and of being a bad mother.  Me, who never had any children of my own, was judging her.  I had no idea what it would be like to be left with four children to raise by myself with no support whatsoever.  I had no idea what it would be like to not only be responsible for the children, but also to provide for an alcoholic father who lived with you that you had to support.  I had no idea what it was like to be an outcast in your neighborhood.  I had no idea of the humiliation caused from being on welfare, but internally, I condemned her for it.

As I proceeded to the toll booth (back when cash was paid to an actual person), it was unusual that the car in line in front of me had an out-of-state Michigan license plate and it had a frame around it.  The top of the frame said “O’Brien Motors” and on the bottom it said, “Evergreen Street.”  Gerry’s last name was O’Brien and she lived in Michigan just off Evergreen Street.  I took that to mean that she heard me, and that she forgave me too.  And I forgave myself.

Craig has indicated from the other side that forgiveness is the most important lesson in life.  Healing won’t take place without it.  You can’t follow your heart, heal your grief, or lose your fear of dying without it.  It means not only forgiving others, but also forgiving yourself.  Craig and I had both done things that we each thought were “unforgivable.”  During our workout sessions when he was alive, I was teaching him how to forgive others before he died, and he has helped me learn how to forgive myself since he died.

Craig’s forgiveness story revolves around his abusive father who physically beat him as a child, forcing him to flee his childhood home when he was still in high school.  When Craig was alive, he told me that he believed his diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease, in his twenties, was due to his severe head injuries imposed on him as a child by his dad.  He said he had been carrying a grudge against his father for his entire life.

I told him about my friend Ilene and read him passages from her latest book and shared the notes from my forgiveness class from all those many years prior.  I explained to him that if he could forgive his father, it would set him free.  I told him that he was the one who was in bondage, and he was utilizing his precious time and energy hating someone that he didn’t even know was still alive or not.  I asked Craig to find something good about his father to focus on, even if it was only that he was partly responsible for him coming into this world.  I asked Craig maybe if his own strength and resilience could be attributed to his father and if he could, at least, be grateful for that?  I further explained that I believed the anger and suppression he had been carrying around with him, like luggage, his entire life, was manifesting in his body in the form of disease or dis-ease.   He listened intently, but made no comment; so I continued.

We talked about the forgiveness list.  I indicated that I believed his estranged daughter should be on his list, as well as his father, if he chose to make one.  He said his daughter was the most important person in his life and that he loved her more than anyone or anything on the planet.  He said he felt he had done all he could do to try to reconnect with her, but that it was too late.  I told him that it was never too late.

Craig would tell me I was correct, that it is never too late, but sadly, it would be from the other side.  Once he crossed over, he told me his main objective was healing the relationship with his daughter.  He said it would have been easier if he had done it while he was on earth, but that he was working diligently with her now, in the dream time, to try to heal that fragmented relationship.  He said that from the other side he could clearly see that he was the adult and it was his responsibility, as her father, to continue to reach out to her – and he had given up.  He said it left a hole in his heart, and in many ways, he had abandoned his own daughter as his father had abandoned him.

Craig told me that I  had “opened him up” to a new way of thinking about forgiveness before he died.  (I never missed an opportunity to share a spiritual principle with him.) Because of that, he informed me that his consciousness had been raised before he crossed over.  He said that assisted him in moving forward in “heaven” and through his life review.  He told me that he was profoundly grateful.

He continued the conversation by telling me that I was right about his needing to forgive his father.   He said not only was it anger that he had for his father, but it was rage, and it had consumed him.   The lifetime of rage and unforgiveness ate away at his heart and was the real cause of his heart attack and death.  I asked him if he had forgiven his father now?  His answer stunned me.  Stay tuned next week for his shocking response.

Please share your forgiveness stories below.  Thanks so much!