Family and Forgiveness

It is in the light of the tweets of one of my most favorite tweeter that I am composing this piece. Thank you by the way for knocking into my heart to register this very rare instance/encounter in my life, and in my family's. You know who you are. =)

Forgiveness. Arguably, I will tag this word as the hardest thing that sons and daughters of Eve can do. The person causing us unbearable pain is a heavy load to pin in our shoulders. Add up that your relationship is connected by blood, not by any circumstances...

The greatest problem that God has tasked my family to carry is my sister. She is the eldest among us three, and I wrap up the list of siblings. As such a very young age of like 14 or 15, she was already bold enough to run away from home. I vividly remember when at the wee hours in the morning, the rest of us will toddle through the city to search for her. Our Volkswagen was my and my brother's frequent mobile bedroom.

The routine goes on and on. She'll come back, after a certain period of time she'll run away, we will search for her, then she comes back home again. Pain was inevitable. I once heard my friend's mom telling my friend not to hang out with me because my sister has a nasty record. I became the extended recipient of her tainted image. All of us were a victim. One day, I promised to myself that I will never ever step on the road which she chose to take. I will eradicate whatever negative perception the society might have for my family. It was not an easy task. And more impotantly, it was a very long path to take.

Each of our family members took one step at a time to improve our lives. Except for my sister. Through the years, she was still the same. No, I am not saying that she was ruthless enought to not even shed a little space in her timetable to do good. She shared a responsibility to the family. But her share equated to acting as the god in the household. As she was responsible in restoring our business and took it to greater heights, she thought that she made it singlehandedly. This resulted then in her obnoxious ways of treating the rest of us. Little did she realized that, ALL of us played an important role to it. I was in second year high school when after my class, i'd go straight in our store to help out. I helped while my friends are in their teeny weeny hang outs as a normal highschooler normally do. My dad too has been diligently reinforcing everyday after he got out of work. Mom and bro played the back office roles. But my sister was a very proud woman. I remember how she slapped my face in front of so many people. It was one of my darkest days. That very same day, I again promised to myself that I will be one of the most respected people in our community. I succeeded.

Years passed, she got herself into a whirlwind marriage. Just the same, her life was still in a mess. A mess that that could have been avoided if only she waited for the right time. Yet, our family still has that long patience and understanding for her. Demanding that she should be paid for the time she spent "working" in the business was granted by my dad. It was a very disrespectful act, but still my dad chose to support her. She was the same pain in the ass.

Worse has come to her marriage, my niece became a member of a broken family. She has no one to run to (just the same for the longest years) but us. We accepted her amidst her wrongdoings to us. We still remained patient with her. But for some unknown/unexplainable reasons, she still cannot manage to fix her life once and for all. She was still the same, a proud, obnoxious and disrespectful woman. She also became an irresponsible mother to my niece. At a very fragile age, my niece suffered so many heartaches. She was a child that was like thrown in the middle of the sea with no parents to rescue her. She has an estranged father and more painfully, she has a mother who chose to live a single life again and dumped her to lolo and lola. I can't bear that pain that I want to teleport from US to Negros to hug my niece and give her comfort. Her mom was out in the streets, enjoying that "freedom" that she regained. Being a mom was not in her vocabulary.

Worse change her last letter to "t' when after several months she came back to our home, pregnant by her second child in another man. It was an unfathomable pain for all of us. Pain, shame, hurt, - everything. It was again, a very nasty feeling that cannot be explained in words. So what we did? WE STILL ACCEPTED HER. But, amidst everything, I cannot still find any justification on why she has not genuinely changed. Our family life became a lousy cycle, battling every single day with that biggest burden in our shoulders. Our concerns got broader with two young kids whom at their very childhood have already experienced the pains of this so-called life. What greater pain can you feel if you come to know that your niece, at a little more than one year old, was again dumped into the middle of the sea? All these has become my frequent nightmares, getting goosebumps everytime I think of the kids back home.

We all became numb. We became indifferent that whatever "routinary" mistakes she does, we chose not to entertain them. My dad whom I've known to be the most patient man in the world has given up on my sister. We all gave up on her. You cannot blame us, with all those excruciating pain we suffered from her, we were just human to feel that way. For the longest time that we tried to understand and help her, we got nothing but just pain. She became a stranger in our house.

Two accounts of my friends' family members' unexpected death awakened my senses. Their situation were quite the same like ours. Those deaths were deaths of the so-called black-sheeps of the family. It was the deepest guilt that my friends felt when they lost their loved one. They were full of regrets and what ifs. It knocked me off, relating everything to my own family's situation. It was an eye opener for me.

The unexpected moment came when I went home recently to attend the house and the business as well as the kids as the folks are out for some important matters. My sister was in our house as well. So I planned to talk to her, a one time bigtime talk. We had one, and it was a funny, casual talk about the happenings in the family. In between those funny lines, I sensed that she still has that concern for the family. I felt how she missed saying "mama" and "papa" without that awkward tone. She spills out admiration to the family members in those trying times that we undergone. I realized she has unknowingly confessed what she really feel. I acknowledge our shortcomings to her. I did not push further for her not to feel awkward.

Thanks to the techonology of cellular phone. In quite a number of SMS exchanges with dad, I told him that I do not want to feel the same guilt my friends had. It was a turning point. Dad spoke to my sister (I don't know what went through).

Everything is not yet in perfect shape though. We are in the process of seasoning that stained blood relations we had. We do not convince ourselves that all is well. We do not give assurance that my sister will genuinely change.

But what I am thankful of is that amidst the repeated times that we were hurt, we managed to seek that forgiveness for our family member. As I told my dad, what is important is that we exhausted all the possible means of helping her rise up once again and fly. The ball has now been passed in her court.

Nobody knows what will happen next. What I am certain of is that God has definitely completed sewing this part of our family journey.

Truly, God has reason for everything. =) Good day to you!