Dear Agatha,
We grew up in a broken home, though my father and mother live under the same roof. It was indeed a very violent home where physical abuse was the norm. There was total hatred in the union between dad and mom. This was so evident that people including us never stopped wondering what brought the two of them together in the first place.
All the several ugly incidents that happened before they brought us all up were known. So much so we knew nasty details of things between them that we should know. Having them as parents, to us, was a big shame. It was inevitable for us, their children, to inherit their hatred gene. I, for one, would have since disowned them if it were possible for me to do that.
We were always in one contest against each other. Anybody could see that there was no family bond between all of us. We preferred to be nice to a total stranger or an outsider than to each other.
I actually thought this rivalry thing was part of growing up and that things would change. We are now grown ups, the eldest of us is 38 while the youngest is 21. By now, I thought maturity would have made right the entire past misdeed, but this is not the case.
It is so painful that things have not really changed and everybody has chosen to live his or her life without caring what happens to the others.
There are always grudges to contend with. Some find it difficult to let go of past pains. This has dug a very deep hole in the unity of our family.
Agatha, how can we gain love, joy, peace and understanding in our family?
I have particularly tried to forgive my parents especially my mother, but the memory of the pasts is interfering with my attempts. It is so difficult, because up till now my parents still do not understand the gravity of what they did and are still very much at it.
Worried Sister.
Dear Worried Sister,
Even though it is a tall order given the history of your family, achieving peace in your home isn't impossible. What your family need is just the effort of one person to heal it of the heritage of hatred and improper foundation your parents bequeathed you all. Don't blame your siblings if they are unable to overcome their heritage of hatred. God doesn't work with multitude. He works with a minority to get the multitude going.
Since you are the one that is bothered about the relationships in your family, it means you have to set the ball rolling. To be the perfect icon and ambassador of peace and change in your family, you have to learn first to forgive and forget. You also have to learn to be selfless, enduring, caring as well as friendly with every member of your family.
There is no way you can be a good ambassador if you don't exhume the ghost of the past; this include all the hurts, pains, tears, disappointments, aches of growing up with your parents as well as coping with their insensitivity.
For all the ghosts to be rested and the pains of the past forgotten, they have to be examined one by one to ensure these ghosts are all bone without flesh. Any flesh on the bodies of these ghosts has to be skinned off before any meaningful attempt at forgiveness can be real.
There is no way you can forgive your parents or yourselves with the memories of all those bitter years still fresh and intact. Bringing up the issues would help procure a better understanding and with this comes the peace to let go. Some pains you would never understand for them, but at least going back to the scene of crime always produce better insight into the reason for some crimes whether in form of more physical evidences or physiological explanations.
To understand your parents better, you must first appreciate the condition that brought them together and the reasons they got married. Their families may have arranged their marriage. They may also have gotten married to each other for all the wrong reasons and being forced to stay together by the society. They have no choice but to keep the marriage alive despite their differences and choices.
The best you and your siblings can do for your aging parents who despite the magnitude of their differences stayed together to give you a home is to learn to accept them as they are. No matter the level of hatred they had for each other, at least they are still together, which shows that what you and your siblings think is hatred may be their own way of expressing passion. If the feelings were that deep, they really don't have any reason to be together again.
Love and marriage are strange combinations that produce different chemicals. What works for you may not work for another person, love isn't stereotyped. It comes in different colours, creeds, shapes, sizes, expressions, temperaments as well as bouquets. Some of these are so strange and crude to people around, but to the couples involved it is their own way of interpreting what they feel inside. Granted, some expressions of love confuse and hurt those around the couples but, people just have to let them be as long as it isn't life threatening.
The way your parents understand love and express it, is obviously different from your interpretation of it hence the importance of you showing them another side of love. Remember, after all these years of doing it their own way, they don't know any other way but theirs.
And unless someone who understands another way of expressing love leads them by his or her example, theirs would remain the only one they know.
Therefore, you have to learn to forget the pains as well as disappointments of growing with parents who are not so perfect because out of their imperfection came you and your siblings and whatever claims to greatest you now nurse.
Can you think of what they have never done for you or what they seem to like the most? Give them the best surprise of their lives. Get your mother a wonderful gift as well as your father. Show them your brand of love, although they may not recognise it at first but patience and selflessness on your path would eventually make them more amenable as well as amicable. Love can only grow from you to them if you learn not to condemn or judge. Allowing yourself to flow in the powerful and embracing grace of love and friendship is the only way to revive all that is dead in your family; bring about a powerful renaissance that would obliterate the disappointments of the past.
This is the role you must play in a family that is struggling with emotional disability and confusion. Your siblings want love; just don't know who to ask or how to go about it. Your position in the family has little to do with what you can do to help them achieve because you have the picture of their needs. What you require is the focus and determination to help them see another kind of love, the kind that would melt away all the bitterness of the past and as well show the beauty of relationships.
By refusing to be bitter, condemning and resentful, your family will come sooner or later to appreciate as well as emulate your special gift of friendship and good nature.
Change bearers as well as peacemakers are those with the unique power to forgive and forget completely. Doubtless, the past is a heritage but for it to work well it has to bear no grudge or bitterness.
Ask for the grace of God to be a worthy peace ambassador in your family.
Good luck.
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