She was still angry.. She was justified. They betrayed her. She knew that. Anybody would be angry after what they had done to her. It was uncalled for, and she would never forgive them.
They tried to pretend they were sorry. She wasn't fooled. They never really apologized. They never tried to make it right. They pretended to not even know what they had done. That's a laugh. As if that would fool anyone.
But she remembered. She would never forget. Never.
A few of the details were a little fuzzy. She couldn't remember what year it was, or how old she had been. Was she sixty? Or maybe eighty? She wasn't sure. But what difference does that make? It was horrible. It was uncalled for. She had been nothing but nice to them. And this was how they repaid her.
She never made that mistake again. She taught them a lesson. Whenever they came (and they came often, at first) she refused to speak. She just sat there and glared at them. Eventually they stopped coming. Good riddance.
Although she couldn't remember how old she had been, she remembered the day with perfect clarity. Most of it. She couldn't remember who had actually said it, or even the exact words they had said. But it didn't matter. They had all been there. And whatever it was that somebody (Jim? Cal? Harriet?) had said, it was a betrayal. That much she remembered.
They acted like it was nothing. Like it was she who had misunderstood. Like she was an idiot. She wasn't an idiot. She showed them.
They had been waiting for her to die. She knew that. They figured that once she died, the betrayal would die with her. But she would never forget. Not even in death.
Death destroys some things. Her body had decayed. Her bones had turned to dust. But not her anger. That was still very much alive. And would remain alive, for all eternity.
Spiritual questions:
- If you knew that you could create your own heaven or your own hell, which would you choose?
- What do you think you need to change to make it so?
- Isn't now a good time to get started?
This is one of the Parables for the Spiritual but not Religious Series.
August 2, 2019 - This was written with the Roundhouse Writing Group in Santa Cruz, Guatemala, remotely from Guanajuato, Mexico. The writing prompt for the session was: Anger is....
The photograph of the Stormy waves is by Tom Lee and made available through Flickr and Creative Commons, some rights may be reserved.
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ReplyDeleteSounds like me, for some things and some people. For others, I can accept mental illness or great trauma destroying these people's souls. But for others, it's deliberate and destructive and I want nothing more to do with them, ever. They won't get another chance to cause harm or hurt, at least to me. God can forgive them, I can't.
ReplyDeleteNot "forgiving" is not always due to anger. Sometimes it is due to justice, protection, and teaching someone a lesson so they don't do it to someone else. Forgiveness is God's job. As the great General Norman Schwarzkopf is (mistakenly) attributed to have said: "Forgiveness is God's job. My job is to arrange the meeting."
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