Chapter 20: Their Forgiveness

After sleep did finally come for me that night I rose in the morning to find my mother sitting in distress at the kitchen table after watching a TV show that portrayed child abuse and had explained that the reason it is often a family's dirty little secret is because they all feel guilty for what a member of their group has done. She was almost in tears, so I sat with her not knowing the TV had even been on and thinking she was grieving again for my father.

“What is wrong, Mom?” I asked her as my heart went out to her once again for her loss.

“When your step-sister left your niece with us to babysit but never came back,” she said, speaking of the retarded little girl that was raised among us as a member of the family though she was only related to us by way of our dad's first marriage, “Dad didn't want to saddle me with another kid to take care of for there were already so many of you.”

Then she stopped talking for I knew the story well and knew what was sure to come next though I too had never spoken to her about it.

“So,” she sighed, “He bathed her, he clothed her, did her hair and he did it all for her and it was a lot of help and saved me precious time. But-” Then she inhaled deeply and began to cry allowing bitter tears to flow from reddened eyes directly from her tormented soul. “He bathed her even when she was a great big girl!” she said looking at me and I was shocked at the sight of her pain. “That wasn't right, Frankie!” she continued as if begging me for a way out. But I knew no way out for my father was long since dead. “It just wasn't right,” she wailed and continued to cry as she rose to fix my breakfast.

“There is nothing you can do about it now, Ma,” I said, “You just have to let it go. It's over with now. Even us little ones heard about it. They all know and none of them forgave him. Mom, they never let go of it either. They all hated him for it. But not one of them even complained to anyone, the way I understand it. But they have to deal with it the way they do. And you have to deal with it the way you do. Just lay it down and move on.”

“I can't!” she nearly screamed, her torment returning, “I can't forgive him, he's dead.”

“Do you still love him, Mom?” I asked.

She looked at me with anger and I saw she still did even after what he had done to the little girl and to his own family including her. And it puzzled me that mere humans can have such strong bonds, bonds they cannot break even though they want to. Things they know will destroy them also.

“Why are you going to do with that?” the Inspiring One asked me.

“Nothing,” I said, “It all happened before I was even born except the time she tried to kill him with a scissors. Thank Them the scissors were dull and all he got out of it was a lot of shame and sore wound that healed slowly.”

The Inspired One was silent.

“My writer had one just like her who abused three of his brother's wife's kids and though he was only three years older than they, he knew what happened and prayed for the opportunity to share that fact with the oldest one of them, which They allowed. He does not regret it. But only one of the three were ever able to forgive even his mother for doing nothing about it. But none of them came to her funeral. They probably hate us his family, him among the rest for he has never heard from any of the three. Animals react that way to abuse. They have no way to deal with it. But he tells me it made it a lot easier to leave it behind for she died in the back wards of a mental hospital in a distant state. It is remarkable how disgusting animals can be, even the human animals on earth,” I said.

“Lest you be like the animals it is important for you to forgive if you have time what the animals have done to you. They are only animals, remember. But you realize that is not really forgiving anything. To forgive them they would have to change their mind about what they did to their victims and there victims are many more than those they abuse as you know for even you were injured in your soul by it. Even should they ask you to forgive them, they cannot mean it though they think they do. They are just animals and can only mimic us. They do not do it, their father the Nemesis has trained their minds to even think about what they do. They will share his torment but they will not share it to the extreme the Nemesis will though they too know better. He is their shame and he knows what is his to his shame. He and they will get only what they deserve. They cannot be merciful to no one and yet be merciful, but they never were any more than the lie they never told, the same lie that overtook their father. Unlike Jesus of Nazareth who gave himself up to become the body the Light used to walk around among them, nothing more and nothing less, the Nemesis gave himself up to become his own lie, the lie They never told, for They cannot lie.

However should you find another like your writer, or even like you, you must forgive them and ask them to forgive you at the first opportunity, anything else is of the humans and not of Them. Then if they are of Them, they will forgive you. If not they were never of Them. And you must treat them like you would any animal or human. You must make peace. And if you cannot on your own, ask Them and They will help you, for They will forgive you and help you. In that case They are your only hope to live peacefully in the Light which you cannot ever corrupt. When the Nemesis' fate is revealed will not even the animals behave?” the Inspiring One explained to me.