Few moments in life are etched into your memory so clearly that you can recall the details surrounding that moment, even years later. May 29th, 2010 was one of those moments. It was a Saturday. I remember who was in the room with me and what I was wearing. The clock read 6:57 p.m. when I received the phone call from my mother as she revealed that she had been diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease. This was also the moment which prompted a life lesson in forgiveness.
This new reality paralyzed me with shock and the barrage of emotions was overwhelming. I was distraught, forlorn, angry, and devastated. However, what I felt was far more complicated than just sadness and shock. For much of my life, I had carried around the heavy burden of anger and resentment toward my mother. She was not the kind of parent one might call a good parent. Due in large part to her struggle with alcoholism, she was significantly neglectful to me as a child and was not supportive or nurturing. Nor was she the kind of mother I could count on when I needed her. As a child and even as an adult, she didn’t demonstrate much interest in my life. Consequently, the challenges these circumstances presented prevented me
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It was this day that I got the call at 2 a.m. that my mother had passed away. Her fight was over. The experience of watching my mother slowly perish to a debilitating illness is an ordeal that challenged and changed me profoundly. As I reflect on what I learned on this journey, two things are apparent. First, it was this journey that taught me the meaning of forgiveness. Second, I learned that in the face of life’s uncertainties, we always have a choice. We have a choice to be grateful. We have a choice to be kind and we have a choice to forgive and not live in the past. When we can do these things, life takes becomes just a little more