Finding Forgiveness by Memoir Author Joan Rough
Posted by Kathleen Pooler/@kathypooler with JoanRough/ @JoanZRough
“It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.”~Maya Angelou
Photo Credit: FreeGoogle Images “Peace on Shore”
I am thrilled to feature my good friend and memoir author Joan Rough in this guest post on “Finding Forgiveness” and to support her in the exciting launch of her memoir, Scattering Ashes: A Memoir of Letting Go. Years ago, I had the honor of doing a beta read on her manuscript and found it to be a powerful tribute to the power of forgiveness.
Joan and I met online and were very fortunate to meet in person for the first time in 2015 in Chincoteague, Virginia in a wonderful writer’s retreat at Janet Givens cabin on Oyster Bay along with Marian Beaman and Shirley Showalter.
My reviews of Scattering Ashes can be found on Amazon, Goodreads, LibraryThings and Riffle.
Welcome, Joan!
Memoir Author Joan Rough
Finding Forgiveness
“I forgive you” and “please forgive me,” are phrases that have been used every day, every where, since the beginning of time. But what do they really mean? Why would we forgive someone who has seriously hurt us? How do we handle the resentment and anger we can’t seem to shake? And when we ask another person for forgiveness, what is it that we want from them? Do we truly recognize and own the pain we’ve caused them?
It wasn’t until my mother died, nine years ago, that I truly began to understand what the word forgiveness meant. She’d been living in my home, under my care for almost seven years. Her health had been failing and rather than talking her into moving into an assisted living facility, I decided to be the good daughter and care for her myself. I didn’t realize we would cause each other so much pain.The steadiness of our relationship had been questionable for years. She was an alcoholic. I had difficulty accepting her behavior when she was under the influence. And when she wasn’t I never forgot how she was when she had been drinking.
The first six or seven months of being together were fine … mostly pleasant. She was not drinking. There were issues but I believed things were getting better between us. But as her health deteriorated and she needed pain killers to help manage her discomfort, the peace we’d been holding for each other began to erode. The pills she was given for her pain caused the same sorts of behavior that alcohol did.
She became terribly abusive. I began having memory flashes from my childhood of being beaten by my father, and screaming for my mother to stop him. But she always disappeared at those times. And when I was being disobedient and/or simply being a kid, she continually threatened me with, “Wait till your father comes home and I tell him what you have done.” That in itself began my life-long journey with overwhelming anxiety. I never knew what was going to happen. I waited in fear for my father to walk through the door to see if she would tell on me or not. Would he beat me or simply glare at me as we sat around the dinner table eating our evening meal?
As Mom grew sicker, our time together became extremely difficult. We argued and mentally bruised each other on a daily basis. Her denial of what was happening and my anxiety over what might happen next made her last years a living hell. When she died in May of 2007, I was left feeling confused, angry, filled with hatred for her, and strangely, also missing her. I felt my life had no meaning and that I’d failed in my mission to make her last years as pleasant as they could be.
It took several years for me to sort myself out. I wanted to understand what had just happened. I wanted to leave my misery behind and live a more peaceful and meaningful life. I knew I had to change the way I looked at the past and the present. I began working with a psychologist whose specialty was trauma. She asked lots of questions and had me dig through never-ending mounds of memories, looking for the whys and wherefores of how I ended up feeling so broken.
As I dug through my parent’s lives I found a history of child abuse on my mother’s side, and PTSD on my father’s side. I wondered, “Why would I not be messed up?” I had been living with two people who were in horrible pain. Besides understanding that they had been suffering all of their lives, I began to accept and own the life I’d been dealt. There was nothing in my past that I could change. It was, what it was. But I could take charge of my future and leave my victimhood and my life-long “pity-party” behind.
But forgive them?
I’ve used the word forgiveness all of my life without truly knowing what it meant. I hadn’t yet learned that when you forgive someone you accept what they have done to you and hold no grudges or resentment. It does not mean that you must forget what they did to cause you discomfort. You need to recognize that they are in pain, just as you are. Then compassion for them and yourself begins to arise.
Giving forgiveness or asking for it is a promise. It means complete acceptance and being able to leave the pain behind. It helps us to live a more authentic life without blaming ourselves or some other person. That is the point when anger and hatred turns to love. Despite Mom’s abuse, I am grateful for the years I spent caring for her. Without them and the history I uncovered, I would not understand what forgiveness is all about.
Photo Credit: Free Google Image
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Thank you, Joan for showing us how “anger and hatred can turn to love”. Your raw and poignant story will touch many struggling with forgiving abusive parents. You show how forgiveness is a gift you can give yourself. Now you can live with freedom and joy. That is a powerful message for all of us.
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Author’s Bio and Contact Information:
Joan Z. Rough is a visual artist and writer. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals, and is included in Mariflo Stephens’ anthology, Some Say Tomato. Her first book, AUSTRALIAN LOCKER HOOKING: A New Approach to a Traditional Craft, was published in 1980. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with her husband, Bill, her two dogs, Sam and Max, and crazy cat, Lilliput.
Joan can be reached at:
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Book Synopsis:When her alcoholic and emotionally abusive mother’s health declines, Joan Rough invites her to move in with her. Rough longs to be the “good daughter,” helping her narcissistic mother face the reality of her coming death. But when repressed memories of childhood abuse by her mother arise, Rough is filled with deep resentment and hatred toward the woman who birthed her, and her dream of mending their tattered relationship shatters. Seven years later, when her mother dies, she is left with a plastic bag of her mother’s ashes and a diagnosis of PTSD. What will she do with them?
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How about you? How have you learned to move on from the challenges in your life? Have you found forgiveness?
Joan has offered to give away a copy of Scattering Ashes : A Memoir of Letting Go to a commenter whose name will be selected in a random drawing.
We’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~
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Next Week:
Monday, 9/26/16:
“Mastering the Ordeal Through Writing: A Memoir Moment”
September 2016 Newsletter:
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