The Art of Forgiveness and the Power of Words

The Art of Forgiveness and the Power of Words

I have had the luxury or bad luck, depending on your point of view, of once having participated in a dog-birthing.  My three young sons , their Dad and I watched our dear young husky/shepherd give birth to nine puppies.  She had mated in her first heat with the Chocolate Lab down the road -(and having had the kids watch THAT prompted my new BOOK: “Sex Education: Looking Out the Window at what the Puppy’s Doing”). She now was ensconced in a humbly-fashioned huge cardboard pen we’d made in a spare bedroom just for that event.   We even pulled apart one of the pup’s sacs as Champ labored to complete her natural task and was falling behind. 

So, you can imagine how close we all felt to those pups.  Eventually, we gave them all away - all but one - the runt of the litter.  He, named Peregrine Falcon for the ebony of his coat and some romantic book-memories from the boys, became Perry for short, and  along with his mother Champ, and our other dog, Uncle Jake, (a stray whose story I have fashioned into an article elsewhere), became the Gang of Three.  They would roam our acres, they would run off to the nearby lake, they explored everywhere within reason, and always returned, led first by Mom, then her son, with Uncle Jake bringing up the rear.  So it was for one blissful spring.

One day I got a call from a far-distant neighbor, leaving word that they’d been spotted some distance away.  I jumped in the car to retrieve them. Driving down our long, steep hill, I saw too late the wagging yellow blade of Champ’s tail in the woods to my right. Just at that moment, I felt the thud of my car’s wheel - and despaired instantly of what I knew was to come.  Please, I thought, don’t let it be.... But it was.  I had hit Perry - and hard.  

I pulled him out from around my wheel, not knowing then that I had broken his back. 

I knew only the screams that he howled into my chest, for over thirty minutes as I drove to the vet’s.  He lay across my lap, then a 40 lb teen, and kept trying to reach up at me.  I knew I must; yet wasn’t there something - I thought - we could do - not to put him down? My husband joined me there; it took but one wail for him to hear and then say - Stop the pain.  And we did.

Any of you who has lost a loved pet knows the sobs that wracked me then.  Double sobs - for I felt the burden of having killed him.  I had taken a life.  The pain seemed unendurable.  But the worst was yet to come.

When we reached our driveway once more, I saw then that the dog’s collar lay there.  I had missed it in my hurry, but now realized that my sons were gone too - on their bikes, looking everywhere for the mishap they felt had occurred.  Soon here they came - Mom -where’s Perry/ Where’s Perry? - they cried.

 Now, if your household is anything like ours was while raising kids, you know the pace at which life goes.  We didn’t at that moment even have time to process grief.  We had soccer practices to attend. 

“Get in the car, guys,” I said bleakly.  “We’ll tell you about Perry.””

And so - as my husband drove with the 7 year old up front, I blithered my way from the back seat about what had happened, my ten year old beside me, agog and then stricken. Shouts of rib-binding “NO’s” -and honest tears - hot, blinding, rained in that stifling car.  And then, we reached the soccer field, and my seven year old, clothed still with the armor of YOUTH, wiped his tears, and sniffled aloud, “Okay. Okay, Mom and Dad. I’m going to go play soccer now, but then, when I get back I’m going to CRY some more.” He ran out and onto the field, with my husband in tow.

But the son still next to me, now TEN, had no such protection. He continued to heave and cry so that I thought the  both of us would break.   And then, a miracle happened.

Somehow, he pulled himself up, and sat tall, and turned fully to me, and grabbed my face in his two little hands.  He pulled me to him, almost nose to nose, and in the space of inches and the wisdom of centuries, he said the following.

Mom.  It was an Accident.  AND I FORGIVE YOU.

In that moment - my body changed.  I felt an extreme rush of relief.  Not joy, of course, but reassurance.  Relaxation.  I knew in that instant that all would-eventually - return to well.  My sobs stopped. The heaving lessened.  I could catch my breath, as I took in all the while the POWER and the MIGHT of those uttered words: I -forgive -you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have ever caused an injury of sorts - whether physical or mental - real OR imagined, and have then known forgiveness, you know what happened to me that day. If you have ever been the brunt of a hurt - physical or mental - real OR imagined, and have had the GRACE and AUTHORITY and WILLINGNESS to forgive - you know what happened between my son and me that day. 

The fact is, it wasn’t he whom I had harmed directly, but Perry.  Perry, though, wasn’t around to offer up his love to me once more - to show me that all would be right again in my world. For that’s what the gift of forgiveness brings one:  the ability to know that another chance - another opportunity to live in better harmony with the world - is his.  (And if you know dogs,  you know that dog would have forgiven me if he could.  For dogs really are the higher creatures on earth, as still another son has told me.  They know the ‘Secret to Life’ and it’s very simple - LOVE and BE LOVED.  Frankly, these ambassadors of love are really our angels on earth...). 

But no, Perry was gone.

Yet my son took ownership of the responsibility of letting another human being know that even if wrong, one gets another chance. Everyone deserves it!    Somehow, out of the mouth of this young boy came the balm to heal my soul for a careless act.

And what I learned above all, is that words DO count.  When I heard that phrase uttered, in all sincerity, I knew that never again would I take lightly how powerful words are. 

And since that time, forgiveness in all its complexity has become my life-long study. More on that later.