The noble virtue of forgiveness

This is an extraordinary story. It is the all-too-human story of an American government warehouse worker, Karl Taylor, and his factory worker wife, Edith. A very devoted couple, they had been married for twenty-three years. Their unusual bond was such that whenever Karl’s work took him on one of his frequent out-of-town trips, he would write Edith a long letter, accompanied by a gift, from wherever he was at that time. moment.

And then came the longest journey. In January 1949, Karl was sent to Okinawa to manage a warehouse in the US.

Okinawa is the southernmost prefecture in Japan and consists of a dozen islands that are also known as the Ryukyu Islands. Okinawa, scene of one of the bloodiest battles of World War II, when US troops invaded the islands, remained under US administration until 1972.

It was to this Far East that Karl was sent, apparently for a few months, while Edith, all alone in the small town of Waltham, Massachusetts, tried to make the best of an untenable marital situation. As the months passed, Edith became concerned with purchasing a quaint, unfinished farmhouse and worked hard to complete it. It was going to be a surprise present for Karl when he got back.

Surprisingly, Karl’s letter writing became unusually infrequent, slowly fading to a pathetic solitary letter within a month. More alarmingly, and for some inexplicable reason, he seemed to prefer an extension of his stay abroad beyond the call of duty.

Finally, after a long silence, tragedy came in the form of a letter from Okinawa: “Dear Edith, I wish I could find a nicer way to break this news to you, but we are no longer married…”

Apparently, Karl had filed for divorce in Mexico and had been granted his request by mail. “…and Edith, I am sorry to inform you that I am soon to marry a Japanese girl from here. She is eighteen years old and I love her very much. Please forgive me…”

Edith was forty-eight years old, broken and heartbroken. She was justified enough to be bitter, and all the known laws of human nature supported any extreme degree of antipathy she might feel toward Karl and the Japanese girl, whose name was Aiko. Incredibly, this was not the case, as Edith instead chose to make excuses for Karl’s renegade behavior. She had been pathetically lonely, she told herself. So far from home, she’d probably had too much to drink sometimes, she rationalized through tears. And when you added a poor, vulnerable local woman to the sad picture, you had the perfect recipe for utter disaster.

Even to her grievance, Edith still found Karl’s conduct commendable for being honest enough to divorce and marry the girl. She, frankly, was not convinced the marriage would work due to the vast disparities in her ages and backgrounds. She believed that Karl would soon recover his lost sanity and return home. With a heavy heart, she sold the cabin, refused to tell Karl, and kept her job at the factory. She waited.

But Karl did not come home. The next letter from him announced that he and Aiko were expecting a baby. The girl, Marie, was born in 1951, closely followed by the arrival of Helen in 1953. Edith sent gifts to the girls at her christening and life went on.

Another letter arrived from Okinawa. He brought terrible news. Karl was dying of lung cancer. He told his fears to Edith, his long-suffering friend. His medical expenses had wiped out his savings. What would become of Aiko and the girls?

At that moment, Edith decided that the last gift she could give her ex-husband was peace of mind. She offered to take the two children to live with her in Massachusetts. Aiko’s maternal instincts initially proved to be an understandable barrier to this arrangement, but she eventually capitulated when she realized that all she could offer the girls was poverty and despair. In 1956, the girls arrived in the United States, quickly adapting to their new surroundings and making Edith a very happy woman.

Aiko, all alone in Okinawa, was a very unhappy person. She would write pathetic letters to Edith. Were the girls okay? Did they cry often? Finally, Edith decided that her love for Karl exacted yet another price: she would have to bring the children’s mother to live with her in the United States. However, it was a challenging undertaking, as the immigration quota for Japan was exhausted, with many on the waiting list. Edith was not discouraged. She sought the help of influential Americans, and finally, in 1957, Aiko was allowed to enter the US.

When the plane landed at New York International Airport, then known as La Guardia, Edith was suddenly overcome with fear. What if she felt hatred for this woman she had taken from Karl? The last passenger to disembark was a thin, frail girl who looked like nothing more than a child. She stood unsteadily on the catwalk, clutching the railing, and Edith realized that Aiko was probably alarmingly scared. She called out Aiko’s name and the hapless girl ran down the steps into Edith’s arms. At that moment, her eye blinded by tears, Edith said a silent prayer: “Help me, my God, to love this poor girl, as if she were a part of Karl. I prayed that Karl would come to me, now he has.” “. in the form of her two little daughters and this poor sweet girl whom she loved. God help me to love them as I loved Karl. Help me God”.

And she was crying uncontrollably.

Edith and Aiko lived together and raised Karl’s two children to be two beautiful young women.

This is a remarkable and moving story of selfless forgiveness. It’s also quite touching, isn’t it? This is because the tale itself has traces of divinity.
One of the most important lessons we can learn as we traverse this earthly plane is how to forgive. Anger, hatred and smoldering resentment put up barriers that deprive us of spiritual power. Truly, unrelenting and malevolent rancor is a cancer of the soul.

How do you put yourself on the path to being a forgiving person?

First, you have to get rid of all judgment. This is because we can never be in possession of all the information we need to make an absolutely fair judgement. There will always be facts hidden from us, and known only to our Creator, and so it is more appropriate to leave the judgment to Him. In any case, none of us is so perfect that we allow ourselves to be ruthlessly harsh and uncompromising with people who hurt us. .

Second, you have to become a compassionate person. Admittedly, this is still a difficult thing to do when taking damage, as the instinctive and primarily animal reaction is to fight back and deal damage when it thinks it is taking damage. There is an understandable tendency for people to equate kindness with compassion. They are two completely different entities. Compassion actually involves putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, asking yourself if the other person is entirely to blame or if you should take some of the blame, imagining what it would be like to feel someone else’s pain and dilemma, diverting attention of himself. for a moment, and then feel love for the person.

Third, you must creatively visualize the entire situation in terms of a reconciling attitude. This means really and actively visualizing the fractured relationship as healed. Imagine the poisons of anger and resentment emptying your system. Allow your imagination to overflow with images of what a renewed and healthy relationship with the person will accomplish.

Fourth, pray for the person who has offended you, and if this proves to be an insurmountable challenge, as it often is, pray, rather, that you be given a special grace to say a prayer for the person, and then go ahead. to say it It is imperative that you realize that forgiving the person will be of greater benefit to you than to him. Remember, in your prayers, you normally ask to be forgiven your debts as you forgive your debtors.

Your antipathy towards someone who has hurt you is not only understandable, but can even be considered quite logical. However, you must immediately begin to incline your thoughts toward forgiveness. If you focus exclusively on people’s shortcomings and forget that they have good points, it will be difficult, if not almost impossible, to find a good and worthy person in this whole world. Simply, by a conscious act of your will, refuse to hold a grudge against anyone. I tell you that you cannot develop a higher level personality if you allow yourself to collect and store grievances of any kind. There’s a fun angle to holding grievance. While you are worried about your grudge against some people, they are dancing and having fun, happily and totally oblivious to your negative feelings towards them.

Forgiveness is your key to the kingdom of inner peace. You will discover, as is the case with most people, that it is the most difficult and yet the most important thing you will ever do in your life. The beauty of this cathartic process is that it will release you from the past and wonderfully free your mind for creativity. Do not let any man believe in your soul by making you hate him. Forgiveness is the key to the realm of mental and spiritual development. When you become a fully forgiving person, you are emulating the character traits of some of the greatest men and women who have ever walked this earth and, in the process, siding with the angels. The regular practice of freely forgiving everyone for everything will make you a calmer, kinder and more compassionate being. Forgiveness recognizes that what you thought your brother did to you simply didn’t happen in the first place. Forgiveness will always be the most powerful thing you can do for your physiology and for your spirituality.

Expressed in the most sublime terms, forgiveness ranks as the greatest spiritual act of love you could perform for yourself and others.