I Had No Choice

I’m cannot even conceive in my natural mind how the lady in Minnesota could forgive the young man who took her son’s life. Even more, how she could forge a relationship with him. Nevertheless, when interviewed about the unimaginable, she explains that she had no choice. If she was going to move on with her life, she had to forgive him.


When people use to tell me “you need to forgive,” I thought it meant to dismiss what they did and resume the relationship as if nothing had ever happened. Time, experience and exposing myself to reinjury has taught me different.

Since a family member shared his struggle with forgiving what he deemed unforgiveable, forgiveness has been on my mind a lot. Just yesterday, I texted him this message:

You’ve got to forgive him. Every time the anger and hurt is left unchecked, the stronger it gets and more it eats away at your soul. He didn’t do what he did because he doesn’t love you. (I don’t doubt that if were in a burning building, he’d give his life to save us.) He did it because of what he believes about himself and what gives him worth. That’s what happens when anger and pain goes unchecked. So yes, hate what he did…but forgive him. That’s the only way you will grow into a better you rather than a better him. You don’t want that and what he did is not worth the hardness required to compensate emotionally.

This was hard to write to him because I truly understood the gravity of the injury. I walked with him through it and had to wrestle with my own feelings about the hurt he was enduring at someone else’s selfishness.

I wasn’t writing to him what someone else told me, but what I had discovered from the anals of my own wrestlings. You think you are making the other person pay. And to some extent, if they really care for you, you are hurting them. But more than that, every time the bitterness comes up in your mouth and you swallow it back down and justify doing it, it takes over more and more. Sadly, we don’t even see how it has affected us until we look back in retrospect.

When reading the story of the woman from Minnesota, Mary Johnson, I saw that she was engulfed in pain and hatred for her son’s murderer for over a decade. To me this is the sentence we serve when we allow our hurt and pain to take residence. Honestly, I don’t know how it can’t. Grief takes on many forms, one being anger. Sometimes anger is the only thing that gives us any kind of energy to keep moving. Sometimes it is a gift. When I have felt offended, it’s been the anger that’s enabled me to get out of bed and to seek justice or, in some cases, answers.

So, how do you do it? How do you forgive when your trust has been eroded and the pain is so hard to bear that you cannot function unless you do something with it? I think that if you were to bring everyone who has forgiven someone into a room and ask them how they forgave, they made some common discoveries. 


You can’t stay in a state of anger – not destructive anger. At some point, something bigger than yourself kicks in. This, I think, is the first discovery. There has to be an awakening from some wise part of yourself that knows that you can’t go on like this. Maybe you start seeing the toll anger is taking on your relationships, your family, your job, your experience of life. Maybe you start seeing what you are losing. Maybe you start realizing that anger is not going to bring the person back or make your life okay again. Maybe you realize that if you are going to have a life, you gotta do something to reclaim it. I believe this is what led Ms. Johnson to go to the prison to see Oshea. I think it was in many ways an intervention – not for Oshea, but for herself.

To some and possibly even to me, going to visit him and forgiving him would have been more than enough. So what would motivate this woman to continue to go to the prison to visit Oshea? I dunno what her reasons were; but I believe that forgiveness has to be protected. When you first forgive, your heart is open and vulnerable.  You have to stand guard over it and not put it in harm's way.  And too, you have to replace the anger and hatred with something positive. Perhaps, her visits with Oshea filled her with truth about the path her son took that put him in harm’s way. Clearly, her son was on the path to become an Oshea. So perhaps the second, or another discovery on the path to forgiveness is finding meaning.

I’ve not experienced loss to the extent that Ms. Johnson has. I don’t know what it’s like to look a murderer in the eye and say, “I forgive you.” What I have come to recognize is that bitterness is like having a hole in your heart. As a result, you can’t hold anything. You can’t hold love. You can’t hold kindness. You can’t hold goodness. No matter who gives it to you, it is met with fear or suspicion. And if anyone does anything nice, the satisfaction it brings is short-lived. You have to patch that hole. That’s what forgiveness is. It’s finding the patch for that hole inside of you and no longer requiring someone to do it for you.
Plugging the leak is what allows your heart to hold what comes its way. You receive love and you hold it. You receive kindness and you retain it. You start seeing the you that has been held captive and offer him clemency. You take the other person off the hook and you take yourself off the hook for what happened.

Now some may find that love by getting filled with the Holy Spirit in a charismatic church meeting. Others may experience the infilling of love as they bring home their newborn baby from the hospital. Still others may find their soul’s rescue while in service or volunteering to help others. Regardless of how it presents itself, the desire to be better and to live more honorably will bring you the help you need. I’ve never prayed for help and God didn’t hear me. And as long as I know He hears, then I know that His grace is sufficient to take me through all the peaks and valleys and get me to my ultimate recovery.

How long does it take?  Forgiveness can take place in an instant or it can take most of your life.  I believe it's completely up to you.  Right now, if you open your heart, you can be free.

From Going to Being

I just noticed something.  I took a picture with a man on Day 1 and picture with a man on Day 365 (see blog post "My Natural Hair Anniversary: I AM ENOUGH").  It's kinda suggestive:  Go Natural. Find Romance.  Now before you run for the scissors or run with scissors, you gotta know it's not that simple. It does however speak volumes about where I was then and where I am now.

Day 1.  It was Sunday morning.  I had done the Big Chop the night before.  Though my intentions were to walk the beach, take in the ocean and its majesty and breath in this new day in my life, I spent time on the beach with a brutha.  He seemed nice and complimentary.  I ain't gon lie.  I enjoyed the attention.  He told me that he admired my confidence to sport my natural hair.  He marveled at how shiny it was.  But it wasn't long before I felt like I was Garfield and he - Odie - was jumping around me, slobbering and ready to play.  You got it.  He was only interested in the packaging.

Being natural for me was brand spanking new.  I had done a simple act, yes.  Nevertheless, it was a big deal. After all, I was cutting away 30+ years of a mindset that said straighter is better.  TV ads of women of color swinging their hair effortlessly.  My self esteem, my feelings of attractiveness were tied to how thick, how fiercely cut, how stylish my hair was.  All of that was dropping to the floor and being swept away as nothing more than trash.  Instead of a caterpillar becoming a beautiful butterfly, I was re-entering the cocoon called nappy, Buckwheat, beady kitchens, Aunt Jemima, bad hair. 

I remember I took that Monday off.  I was standing in front of my mirror with product all around, determined to figure out a style I could go to work in the next day.  I only had 1/2 inch of hair on my head.  What to do? I attempted to recreate the sleek short fro I saw on a natural hair youtube video.  Gurl, you ain't got no baby hair, I thought.  But I DO have me some gel and Queen Helene shaping paste.  Hello!  Hum, cute but not enough.  Sooo, I went shopping for earrings and accessories that would help me to embrace this new look.  I had to wear makeup.  I needed to feel put together.  I needed to feel confident.  I needed to feel classy yet edgy to pull off this short hair.

What a difference a year has made! I am amazed at the transformation. I went from going natural to being natural. I am natural!  It's deeper than I could have imagined.  I have become more comfortable in my own skin.  There's something about being natural that feels more honest.  Sure, I still wear makeup when I get the notion.  It's a girl thang.  Yet, I can rock my Bantu knots or my fat two-strand twists with nothing more than a happy glow that comes from within not from a Mac counter.  Like the God who created me in His Image, I can honestly look at his handiwork and say with heartfelt exuberance, "It IS good."

Day 365.  It is a Sunday morning.  I had hosted my first Supper Club the night before.  I had gone to Ulta, a cosmetics store, to return some product and decided to stop by a brutha's residence nearby.  He answered the door.  "What you doin here, woman?," he asked with a playful smile. I grabbed him and said, "Kiss me, with your ole smart behind!" He wasn't spouting off flattering words or marveling at the packaging - at least not out loud..ha ha ha. He resumed watching the football game from his recliner: talking to me one minute and yelling at the players the next.   I assumed my favorite position on his comfy sofa and breathed in the moment.  I am home.

Emotional Availability: Gratitude Instead of Attitude

Don't get digusted but some of my greatest reading happens while on the toilet.  I've been bouncing around the notion of emotional unavailability for a couple of days now.  Although most books and articles you read on the matter have merit, I'm discovering the information needs to be weighed carefully before you label someone. 

I am into self-help books.  Have been since my first aha moment came while reading a book lying idly on my sister's bed:  Love Is A Choice.  I couldn't figure out why I was stuck emotionally in a relationship that was long over.  This book got me unstuck.  I digress.  Back to my epiphany while sitting on the Great White Throne. 

I picked up one of my books, Relationship Rescue, and, honest-to-goodness, there was a business card I had used as a bookmark on page 155.  My eyes went automatically to the section called Emotional Needs but right above it, these words jumped out:

A note about emotional needs: this is a broad category that deals with how you need to feel.  How you need to feel is up to you, not your partner.  Your partner cannot make you feel the way you feel, but your partner can help you achieve your desired feelings by becoming aware of what they are and sensitive to the fact that they are important to you.  At this point, don't worry about how you expect your partner to respond to these needs. Identify them so that you can communicate them.

WOW!  Just about blew me off the throne!  Unknown to but a friend or two - okay, maybe a dozen - I have been struggling with my emotional needs. 

While browsing various articles online, I came across this statement: If you keep attracting men who are unavailable, then something inside of you is unavailable (I paraphrase).  How profound! In the words of my friend, Pam, "Good God-A-Mighty!" As I sit here pondering that answer to a post on Answer.com, I realize that when I was unattached, I met my own emotional needs.  I wasn't starved for attention.  I paid attention.  I wasn't starved for connection.  I surrounded myself with like-minded people who were available to dish, to go places, to give warm hugs and interact with me.  When I longed for spiritual connection, I found ways to reconnect with my inner core.  When I needed pampering, I'd consult my Musiq Soulchild playlist and soak in an aromatic bath.  What happened to me?  Like many people, when I met that special someone, I made him responsible for my feelings. One could argue that by doing so, I became unavailable for me... and for him.

How many good men or women get thrown away because they don't do what we want, when we want and how we want?  How many people have we abandoned?  How many people have been spooked by our neediness?!  If they meet our needs, we feel good.  We might even say we're falling in love or have found our soulmate.  If they don't, we diss-and-dismiss.  We shrug it off as incompatibility or...well....unavailability.

When you realize your own power or your Higher Power's ability to meet your needs, there's a grace that settles over you.  You don't hold your partner at gunpoint.  And you don't just throw people away haphazardly.  You have a sense of joy that radiates from within.  You have a concern about the health and well-being of others.  It makes people feel comfortable being around you.  You appreciate what they add to your life.  Ummm, gratitude instead of attitude.

I don't say this as one who has attained.  Not. At. All.  I struggle like the next person.  Just ask my friends.  My girlfriends who feel with me.  My male friends who reason with me.  And my wonderful guy who is happy just to have me in his life - emotional and all.  Priceless!