healing

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.
-- Helen Keller

This past weekend I was a witness to healing. It wasn’t in the aisle of a church…it was at a table at Olive Garden. Let me set the stage for you.

Over 25 years ago my parents’ marriage disintegrated. The reasons are many and complicated. The process of ending it was very messy. But end it did. And I found myself surprised at how impacted I was that my family of origin was no longer intact. No more summer trips home to spend with family, no more holiday celebrations, no mom and dad. I pondered how the future would look. How would we navigate birthdays, graduations, weddings and births trying to bridge the chasm that lay between them? That, my friends, turned out to not be a problem. In the past 25 years, my parents have never been in the same room together.

You would think that as an adult, with my own family, that this would not be such a big deal. But, I don’t care how old you are, or what the issues were, it is heartbreaking when your family is irretrievably broken. You now have no ‘home’ to go home to, you have to tell every story two times….you always need to send out two invitations and you need to navigate two completely different relationships. Add on the fact that they lived in different states on different sides of the country, you plan two different vacations in order to visit with them.

There is no ‘my mom and dad’….just ‘my mom’…..and…..’my dad’.
But, Friday afternoon, at 12:30, for the first time in 25 years, I had lunch with my ‘mom and dad’. I moved my mom here last year from Arizona. My dad was in visiting from Florida. I had talked to my dad about seeing my mom when he was here in York. He was open. I wasn’t sure until Friday whether or not my mom was coming. On top of how emotionally loaded this situation was she had hurt her knee pretty badly and was having great difficulty walking. She had the perfect excuse for not coming…but she did.

We had a lovely lunch, no wait… they had a lovely lunch, reminiscing and laughing. They talked about their life together – which I must admit, I had not thought about for years. Healing was happening right before my eyes. It was time of each of them seeing things through the others’ eyes, a time to lay down the weapons of words and the need to be right…a time of an unspoken “I am sorry” and “I forgive you”. Those words did not need to be said – the very act of showing up, breaking bread and having grace-filled conversation expressed sorrow, regret, forgiveness and the hope of moving forward.

To my parents – thank you for allowing me to witness the beauty of opening yourselves to healing, to restoration and to a new beginning. You have just given me the single best gift I could have ever been given…the restoration of my family, no matter where we live.

Hey – guess what I did Friday? I had lunch with my mom and dad. Praise God.
Grace and peace,
Deb