Collateral
A common experience running through the heart of humanity is that all of us at some time have been hurt by the actions of someone else. I’ve seen enough of life to know of the terrible cruelty that can be perpetrated by one person to another, intentionally and with malice.
And while that is a horrible thing to endure, I think the counterpoint is much more common than we realize.
Because many times we get hurt or damaged by someone who did not intend it.
For many years I was extremely angry with my father for many parts of my childhood. The fact that we haven’t spoken in probably 15 years is kind of indicative of that. Yet a few years ago something shifted in my soul, and I was able to realize that while his actions were malignant, there did not seem to be any deliberate intention, or malice, on his behalf.
In his own way, he was damaged by his father, and that damage ricocheted onto me.
From what I understand from the very little I know of my father’s father, that was not intentional either. He seemed to be a good sort of a man, trying to make his way in the world. I believe he tried to do what he thought was right, even though it turned out to be the completely wrong thing to do.
Regardless of his best efforts, my father was collateral damage.
And I was the collateral damage of my father.
I wish I could tell you that it stops there, but that would fly in the face of reason, experience and basic common sense. I can see that my wife and my children have in some ways been the collateral damage that I never intended, as I have tried to work through my own weakness, trials and failings.
I have to live with that, and in some ways, I think it’s harder than had I done something willfully.
Because failing to do enough can feel like a worse scar on your soul than doing something you shouldn’t have. Because doing something bad gives you one thing to feel sorry for, whereas failing to do enough is a never ending list of things that you could have done, had you known better, or tried harder, and you get to feel sorry for all of those things, not just one.
The truth is that we are all collateral damage from the people we are close to.
My wife has been a collateral damage victim of her parents, just as they were from their parents, and it goes backwards forever. In the same way, our children are the collateral victims from her as well as from me. We are trying to change the things that we see, all the while mindful that there are things we probably don’t see, or won’t see for many years to come.
It’s called parenting. We all do the best we can, knowing that it’s never going to be right.
And it presents me with a difficult conundrum. For in as much as I would beg forgiveness from my children for the damage I have done to them, I realize I should offer forgiveness to my father for the things he did to me…. And I struggle with that.
Mightily.
Because even though someone isn’t necessarily to blame, it doesn’t take away what was done, and how that still affects us to this day. In not talking to my father, I can’t tell if I am protecting myself from further pain, or preventing the closing of a wound.
I only know that sometimes, even though the damage was never intended, it has been done, and sometimes those who have been hurt deserve the kindness of distance and space to live their own lives in the way that they need to.
Because all of us are just trying to find peace, and sometimes, that comes with a price.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings