Is Death really the hardest thing?

I’ve witnessed death and I have felt the anguish and pain at the loss of someone very special to me, but no one could have ever prepared me for the incessant heart-wrenching pain, I would continually endure for a wrong I’ve done to my child. If for nothing else, it was because I did nothing else.

You have to understand, when you live under the iron fist of a controlling narcissistic person, you, yourself are also in a sense a prisoner. So the wrongs inflicted were not entirely by my own hands. Nevertheless, I did nothing to stop the verbal abuse and isolation of repeated groundings. The eternal lack of socialization, nor the patronizing, condescending whippings of the tongue.

Unlike death, when the person, who you grieve for is gone. You experience at least a closure to the event. Unlike a wrong, which can never be undone, corrected or done over. Without a chance of rewinding the events, you never totally rid yourself of the guilt, remorse, regret or the anguish of such a heartbreaking experience.

Then, compound the dismal heartache, when you see the effect and emotional scars left onto your child. The harsh emotional battle wounds that can only heal, by your child’s own choices in life. Of choosing to hold their heads above the ugliness they have witnessed. To grab at the opportunities they choose to accept for themselves and rise above.

But for some, the effects shine through their every decision. The scars too deep to heal. The jarring past continually transforms their future. All the while, you witness them intentionally trying to numb every memory of it.

Then there are those, stuck in time, like me. The battle wounds resurface and tear away bit by bit pieces of the heart and soul. After years of never-ending torment, it seems, nothing has healed and there is just a foreboding numbness, which has encompassed over my heart, mind, and soul.

So I ask…How do you forgive yourself for such ungodly feelings of regret, remorse, and shame…

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