Love and Forgive as you are Loved and Forgiven

As we close the window on 2019 and open another to 2020, we are invited to pause for a minute in this special time of the year and recall the fundamental message of Jesus’s birth and manifestation in a physical form on our Earth over two thousand years ago.

Like many other prophets, sages and masters from millennia before, Jesus came at a turbulent time marred by political turmoil and religious unrest. History tells us that conflict and wars were raging in Jerusalem and far beyond. Jesus brought with him the message of hope and peace that can only be attained through love and compassion toward each other.

His message was simple and clear: love your enemies as your father loves you.    

With the year coming to its conclusion, it is only apt we take a moment to reminisce on the joyous and testing times of this year and the years to date. It is only right to take a moment to remember those who entered our lives and acknowledge those who left scars as well as those who attended to our wounds and mended our broken hearts. As we ponder on these moments, let us send deep love and gratitude to those great teachers who delivered the particular lessons we needed to learn at the time: fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, friends, lovers, ex-partners and total strangers. As we embark on a new year, let us send them blessings for crossing our paths, imparting their wisdom, enriching our lives and making us the people we are today.

One of the most vivid memories of New Year’s Eve from my childhood is the image of my siblings and myself sitting around a big tray with candles in the middle and tiny glasses for each of us etched with intricate patterns and vibrant rich colours. It probably was not more than two sips of sweet red wine but for us was a novelty that many children did not have.

My father made this a tradition in our house to celebrate the beginning of a new year. This was the circle of joy we shared once a year where we forgot our daily troubles and the many other things that other children had but we didn’t. 

Growing up, I was always hypnotised by the eloquence of my father’s speech and his tales of past adventures. My father was a nurse whose only formal training was gained from working with English doctors at the hospital that belonged to the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) in Kirkuk, Iraq.

The IPC was one of the biggest employers in Northern Iraq. It was established in 1929 as the largest oil company for the exploration and production of oil in Iraq by some of the biggest monopolies in England. It was run by them until 1961.

The British colonised Iraq after World War 1 and installed a monarchy in 1921. They granted the kingdom of Iraq independence in 1932 but continued to run Iraq until June 1972 when the Ba’athist government took over, nationalising the IPC and renaming it ‘the Iraq National Oil Company’.

In the 1950s, my father was in his early teens and began work at the IPC hospital as an apprentice. He worked there for many decades and during his time there, he acquired nursing skills and learnt the English language, which made him highly employable not only as a nurse but also as an interpreter later in his life.

Throughout my childhood and early teen years, I idolised my father and adored him. I was enchanted by his tales and knowledge of everything under the sun. He loved and cherished us and always ensured there was enough food on the table for all nine of us. I was under his spell and didn’t see his faults, or more accurately his insecurities and inadequacies.

Whenever a conflict arose between him and my mother, I always blamed her and took his side. I thought she was an illiterate woman who didn’t understand him. What I failed to realise in my tender years of age is that she was a child herself trying to raise children and please a husband who had deep childhood traumas. His parents passed away when he was very young, and he and his older sister had to work at a young age and effectively raise themselves. 

My mother married my father when she was barely 16 years of age. It was an arranged marriage by her parents, who were farmers and lived in a small village. They believed they were offering their daughter the gift of life by giving her in marriage to this young well-versed city man who had a privileged job that only a few men had. The only girl between two boys, my mother was spoiled and adored by her family. She didn’t like school and stopped going to school when she was in grade two. Her parents didn’t force her or convince her to go back to school because they were illiterate themselves and didn’t appreciate the value of education for a girl, as they saw her future secured through marriage. After all, it was the 1950s, and girls’ schooling in the Middle East was not a priority.

Looking back at those years, I can only now discern her passivity, her absence despite her presence. She was there but not there. She did not have a voice or a saying in how things were run in the house, except in the kitchen and raising the children. My father was the breadwinner and the decision maker in almost all areas.

While I did sympathise with my mother and appreciate the heavy weight on her shoulders, the only assistance I could render at the time was helping her with domestic chores, which I started doing at the tender age of seven. 

I was not very close to my mother in my early teenage years. There was always a distance that I could not fathom between her and I, unlike my father who knew how to speak to me and make me feel important. Although at times I was terrified of him, especially when I didn’t deliver the high marks he expected of me. He had great expectations of us all and wanted us to reach the lofty goals he couldn’t accomplish in his life.

As years passed by and I moved into adolescence, my perspective of my two parents started to change. I began to see things more clearly, and my allegiance shifted from my father to my mother.

In the years that followed, I came to realise that my mother’s inert and submissive personality was out of her fear of him. After all, he married her when she was 16. I also started to recognise that my father’s addiction to gambling was one of the main reasons why we never seemed to have money, despite the fact he did inherit some wealth from his father. Another addiction of his was alcohol, and this got worse as the years progressed. To his credit though, he never left us hungry even if he had to borrow money.

My tense encounters and arguments with my father grew bigger and more frequent as his behaviour towards my mother became more hostile and aggressive. He ignored her the whole time as if she didn’t exist despite the fact she was still performing her duties as a devout wife and mother: cooking, cleaning and serving him as the master of the house. I could see her pain and heartache and took it upon myself to be the voice she didn’t have. 

My constant questioning and confrontational attitude started to frustrate and infuriate him. He couldn’t cope with it, so he became more assaultive and belligerent, especially when drunk, which happened invariably every night. My determination to stand up for myself, my siblings and my mother and challenge him whenever needed strained our relationship further. At times it drove him totally insane, raging with anger, throwing whatever comes his way at me or chasing me with a knife and threatening to kill me. Our house had become a living hell, and we all wanted to escape in any possible way.

The distance between my father and me continued to widen, and over the years, we became adversaries instead of friends. Our relationship improved slightly after my marriage but it never was the same, mainly because I was no longer the innocent child who believed in fairy tales but saw things for what they really were.

Years flew by and distances separated us. Eventually, I settled in Sydney, and my father settled with my mother and siblings in Melbourne, where I visited them every now and then. By then my father had reached his sixties, and the daily consumption of large amounts of alcohol and tobacco had started to show on his body. His health began to deteriorate, but this did not change his habits. Either he thought he was invincible or he knew he was heading to his grave way before his time so he just persisted with his harmful addictions. 

To say my father and I had some deep disagreements and unresolved issues would be an understatement. To think we could discuss these issues like mature adults was near impossible, especially since he was intoxicated most of the time. My father always thought he was right, and we had to agree with his opinion no matter how ridiculous it was and respect him regardless.  

In late 1999, my diabetic father was admitted to the hospital to be treated for some health complications, which did not surprise the doctors given his abuse of alcohol and tobacco. I was in South Korea working on the final project of my Master’s degree. The family did not tell me his condition was serious, maybe because they didn’t believe it was.

My father passed away and was buried while I was overseas. His kidneys collapsed, ultimately causing his death at only 63 years of age. I was told later that his eyes kept looking at the door waiting for me to show up, but I never did.

I mourned my father, wept for the happy and sad memories we had together, for the spoken and unspoken words. There were times when I thought that God had finally listened to my prayers and taken him, granting my mother and us all deliverance. At other times, profound feelings of sorrow and grief took over me, a strong sense of guilt coupled with a deep sense of loss.

For a couple of years after his death, my father visited me in my dreams nonstop every night. I could not decipher the meaning of these dreams until I described his visits to my intuitive psychologist at the time who suggested I perform a farewell ritual for him.

On a bright sunny afternoon, I walked to my father’s grave carrying deep pink roses in one hand and white lilies in the other. The pink roses to convey my sincere gratitude and appreciation for his love and sacrifices and the white lilies to celebrate his soul moving to the other realm and restoring its innocence. 

I circled around his grave scattering rose petals over his grave chanting and weeping; mourning his death as if it had just occurred. I sat at his feet with my head down sobbing and lamenting, asking for his forgiveness and offering him mine.

“Let’s call it even, dad. I love you regardless, and I know how much you loved me.”

To this day, I can’t forget the image I saw as I sent his soul off: a magnificent white dove flying away.

“It is time to fly free dear father, free of the burdens this life placed on you, free of the shame, guilt, pain and suffering. It is time to wave goodbye and fly.“

That was the last time I saw my father in my dreams. He released me, and I released him. We both are free now after shaking off the shackles of hostility, anger, fear, animosity and all the anxieties and bitter emotions of the past. It was time for me to open up my heart for love again, forgive and make peace with him and with myself.  

Years later, I had the opportunity to attend one of Brian Weiss’s seminars in Melbourne in which he guided us through powerful meditation and a vivid visualisation exercise to reconcile with our deceased parents.

I wept throughout the meditation picturing my young father as a terrified, helpless child who lost his parents and was left alone with his sister to fend for themselves, deprived of love and protection.

The traumatic death of their father, killed at the hands of a mob while defending his farm and family, left deep scars in their memories. Their mother took on the full responsibility of her young family after his death. However, she died a few years later of severe pneumonia, leaving her two children orphans at the mercy of their uncle and his wife. Their struggle and strenuous life with their uncle’s wife soon became intolerable, leading to their escape to another town where his sister started working and raising him despite being only a few years older.

At last, I was able to see how the intergenerational traumas of the past were so acutely entrenched in his psyche, materialising in his destructive habits and unhealthy cravings. After all, research has revealed that people who experience intergenerational trauma are more likely to engage in self-destructive behaviours, develop lifestyle diseases, mental health problems and addictions. 

For me, being able to see my father’s fears, vulnerabilities and suffering, to transcend above my emotional pain and mind limitations and perceive the distressed soul underneath the harsh façade he put on, empowered me and enabled me to be more compassionate, forgiving and loving.  

It is only when we see each other from this perspective, through the eyes of our souls, and recognise our interconnectedness and the oneness of the humanity we share, we comprehend Jesus’s message of love and see the world through his eyes.        

So as we farewell 2019 and welcome 2020, let us remind ourselves of our human essence, pure unconditional love. Let us open our hearts and arms to embrace all those who crossed our paths and made an imprint on our souls, for they came into our lives for a reason. Let us find in our hearts the compassion and empathy to be in their shoes, the courage and strength to forgive them, and the generosity of heart to send loving, kind thoughts to them so they too can find peace and healing wherever they may be.

As we set our intentions for the New Year and New Decade, let us evoke the good spirits of our past, present and future teachers, not the bitter, resentful memories that resurface in our minds when we recall their physical faces.

Through unconditional love, forgiveness and acceptance of all as one, let us all heal the traumas of our shared past, rediscover the innocence of our humanness, and invite peace to dwell in our hearts and our world.

May 2020 and the new decade bring peace and harmony to our Earth, repair and reunite our fragmented world and restore our humanity.  

Footnote

Dr Brian Weiss is a renowned expert on ‘past life regression’ and conducts international seminars and experiential workshops. A trained psychiatrist, Dr Weiss came across the concept of past life traumas while treating a patient in 1980 using hypnotherapy to discover the roots of her paralysing phobias.

During one of their sessions, while she was trying to go back to her childhood, she went back 4,000 years in time to a past life. Dr Weiss was a sceptic at first but soon became a believer when she began to channel messages that contained remarkable revelations and specific details about Dr Weiss’s own family and his dead son.

Since then, he has cured many patients of their anxieties and phobias using past-life therapy and authored many books including: ‘Many Lives, Many Masters’, ‘Miracles Happen’, ‘Only Love Is Real’ and ‘Same Soul, Many Bodies’.