It would be wonderful if folks could forgive without someone else saying sorry. Lack of forgiveness and holdingonto grudges hurt us as much as they hurt others. We create much of our own pain in this way. An interesting read for those struggling with this and wanting peace in their lives is: Loving What Is by Byron Katie.
Darren Hauck
/
Rapport for NewsWeek
Making Amends: The silent treatment is self-perpetuating
MY TURN
The Power Of ‘I Am Sorry’
After years of silence between my parents and me, my father reached out with a few simple words.
Published Sep 6, 2008
From the magazine issue dated Sep 15, 2008
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When I was growing up, my family had its own way of dealing with disagreements. We stopped speaking. Sometimes the deep freeze lasted a day, sometimes a week. Every once in a while, an offending cousin or aunt was simply erased from the family landscape, airbrushed out of our lives like a deposed member of the Politburo.
I stopped talking to my parents after a series of family difficulties culminating in an angry phone conversation with my mother in 1988. This communication blockade continued to 2000. Other than an annual Christmas card from my parents, which they warmly signed using only their last name, there was no interaction whatever for 12 years.
People like me who were raised in a grudge-holding culture know that the silent treatment is self-perpetuating. The longer you are silent, the longer you will be silent. The further out into the ocean you sail, the harder it is to see the harbor. After a year or two or three, it's not so easy to pick up the phone and just chat.
And then my father sent me a card in which he wrote three very powerful words: "I'm so sorry."
We began to write letters. I told him about his grandchildren. He told me about his weekly golf and bowling outings. He also told me about my mother's Alzheimer's. Every letter matter-of-factly mentioned a new loss, always preceded by the phrase "Mom is about the same," as in "Mom is about the same but she can't cook anymore because she forgot how to use the stove."
The letters represented rapprochement but not reconciliation. That would have to happen in person. A year later it did. On the six-hour drive to their home, I asked my husband every 10 minutes what I should say to parents I hadn't seen in 12 years. "Say hello," he said. "Ask what's new."
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