When I am an old man, lying in my bed, I don't want to look back at my life as a series of angry moments. When I close my eyes at the end of my life, I don't want a single moment of madness, of violence, to pass through my mind. I have made mistakes. I've made terrible, horrible mistakes. Some of them were non-intentional... and some were mistakes made with full prior knowledge of the possible consequences. I've hurt people. We all have. And how many of us, in that moment when we realize what we've done-- the heart-heavy feeling of guilt, the wrenching disappointment with ourselves that chokes us-- how many of us have ever known the beauty, the wonderment, the relief, of forgiveness? I have known what it is to be forgiven. To make a horrible mistake and have the person I have erred against reach down and help me up from my knees. The weightlessness of being absolved.
And I have forgiven people. I have been that person who reaches down and finds the strength to lift a person from the worst feeling... and sometimes, to be honest, it's more about me then them. It's not always about making them feel better. Sometimes, it's about me not wanting to carry the weight of being angry with them for the rest of my life. At the end of my life, I want to carry with me the image of a life lived with grace, with dignity, with as much laughter and as much beauty as I could find, create, and sustain. This is a desicion I made many years ago, as I watched them wheel my grandpa out of the church, the lid to his coffin closed over his face. And all I could think about was how he hated to sleep, because he didn't want to miss anything. And I wondered what his last thoughts were: and if in that last moment, being pissed off at someone was really what mattered to him... or if it was all the beauty, the laughter, the love, that he knew in his life. I've made a lot of mistakes, and all I can do is wish that I had learned my lessons in a different way. As for me... the best advice that I can give is the mantra that I always try to live by. Forgive everything. No exceptions. Forgive... let it go. And at the end of your life, may it be happiness and peace that finds you.... not anger and resentment.