‘To err is human, to forgive, divine.’ Alexander Pope, 1711.

Forgiveness is a really difficult thing for me. Generally I can absolutely forgive, completely, wholly and without reproach. Generally. I find it really simple to forgive when it’s me that’s been wronged. When I am the one who has been hurt or aggrieved I can box it up, file it away and move on. My family is a completely different issue and more often than not I find forgiving those who hurt the ones I love nigh on impossible. While I would imagine most people have the same ideology my particular struggle with lacking in forgiveness is it flies against my spiritual faith and I’ll explain why, and why this particular nugget has raised it’s head.

I’m a paradox. Anyone who knows me can testify to this but no more so than when looking at faith or religion. I am absolutely not a Christian but believe Jesus existed. I am not in any way religious but have always had a belief or a faith from as far back as I can recall. From primary school age I was in a church choir and can remember feeling a comfort from the Church; from the pomp and ceremony, from the teachings of love and acceptance. Maybe this was my escape from my home life, maybe it wasn’t but it did pique a curiosity within me and I think I found the answers in Spiritualism. I feel understood and included, no pressure, no judgements  and I feel  it’s principal teachings resonate really well with my ideas and my outlook.

Apart from forgiveness.

I understand why it’s a core belief, I understand why it is massively important for spiritual well-being. Sometimes though, I. Just. Fucking. Can’t. Everything I’ve personally been through to this point in my life is minimal, means absolutely nothing to me other than being formative experiences, influences or lessons learned. Where forgiveness mostly fails me is when my family are affected, particularly my parents. Both my folks are a bit ‘vintage’ and over the last few years have had their challenges to deal with; health for the most part, financial (as does everyone) but in no small part they have struggled with the aftermath of my brother.

Imagine discovering one of your kids had suffered abuse in your household.

Now imagine finding out the abuser was your eldest kid.

I gave a small insight into how this has been for them here and over the last year in particular my parents have struggled with guilt, with memories and with forgiveness. Guilt that they should have seen what was happening in their own home; memories of ‘bike accidents’ or ‘falls’ and now seeing them for what they actually were and being completely unable to forgive themselves for not stopping the abuse. Both my parents have health issues, like MAJOR health issues but have done for almost all of my adult life. I absolutely believe that the last few years’ decline, for BOTH of them has been in direct response to the stress they were under, the lies they were told and the shame and embarrassment they have felt.

All at the hands of one person.

Another part of my struggle with Spiritualism is the ideology some of the elders have that no one is born evil. I have to call bullshit. Some of my earliest memories are of being 3 or 4 and being utterly terrified to be in the house with my brother. I used to scream the house down when dad went to work (my mum has verified this), not because I didn’t want him to leave but because I didn’t want to be left with my brother. From these early memories he was a cruel, malevolent and torturous presence and bearing in mind he is only a short few years older than I am I cannot understand how a child so young, so supposedly pure and naive could have been so cold and cruel without the belief he was born evil, hard as that may sound.

He was also a mummy’s boy. Would always gravitate to Mum and I was unashamedly a daddy’s boy, which led to it’s own problems but that’s for another day. Over the years he would act out with our parents, treat them terribly and pull some horrendous stunts (mostly aimed at my dad) and each time my folks’ gave him chance after chance to change, to atone and make amends. Problem there was he never could and would always, ALWAYS revert to type. See I believe my brother is a narcissistic sociopath and his continuous battle with my dad was for alpha male status within the household. He was always right, everyone else in the world was wrong, was beneath him. Maybe he saw my dad as weak or sub par because of dad’s disabilities, maybe he didn’t, either way dad was predominantly the target, never usually mum and that’s why for me forgiveness will never be an option.

You see I loathe bullies. I loathe people who prey on others’ weaknesses and exploit them for their own gain. I completely understand how choices are influenced by illness, by addiction, by mental health or by experiences and I was always of the belief that something HAD to have happened to my brother in his younger years, something I could hang all of his shitty choices on. All of the self-centred behaviours and absolute disregard for anyone he ever came into contact with, all of it had to stem from somewhere right? Wrong. An opportunity for him to say as such bore zero fruit. In that instance I realised two things.

Firstly he had absolutely no regard for me or my feelings whatsoever else he would have lied one of his many, many fragrant lies to alleviate himself of all responsibility. Secondly I realised in that instance that he was toxic. There was no way in hell he’d be able to understand what he had caused and what he was responsible for. No way would he see how he had very nearly destroyed my parents, my sister, me. He couldn’t even see he had done wrong.

Right and wrong, it’s like black and white, night and day: we all know the difference, all of us. People screw up, make mistakes and do some shitty things. That’s not always important. What’s important is how you put it right, how you pay your ‘bill’. Some people never realise what they have broken let alone how they fix it and that’s okay. It’s also okay to realise that some people are best out of our lives, best gone. There’s absolutely nothing wrong in walking away from someone, letting go of someone toxic and sometimes to do what’s best by you and yours is to let go of someone else.

To err is human.

Forgiveness? Forget it.