Forgiveness
Who would have thought that forgiveness was a doorway, but then how does one know when one has reached it unless one’s walked through it. Now here I am, standing on the other side of it, the past in
front of me as real as the wind on my face.
I stand on the shore, the smell of ocean, scented with salted seaweed stinging my face in the mid
winter breeze, the waves frothing as they crash on the shore, murmuring of memory that echoes in
my head or is it before my eyes…
I reach out to the hand beside me, their fingers cold, distant, focused on the words that are churning
in their mouth, stumbling over their lips The words cut through me like the cold that surrounded me, burning into my heart, their had withdrawing with the closing of their heart.
I turn, as if in a dream, choking in a fog that creeps over me, numbing me with words that sink to my
very soul. I try to speak, but the words choke in my throat. My mouth moves but only my eyes speak, tormented with the pain that can only come from the truth of goodbye.
She smiles, the relief of her burden lain bare, a burden now I must bare until I too can walk away
from the past and the moment that brought me here.
Her eyes know the pain, she’s felt it so many times before, but now is her moment, to give rather than receive. I always thought that quote brought joy to both parties but no more. I now know that to
receive is not always a gift and to give is not always in love.
The sun shines though the grey and the hand is gone. I’m alone except for the age of time. The red of
my beard, grey, my face that was full of youth now weathered and dry.
For a moment I feel her beside me, haunting the recesses that I keep alive like when men's heart seek
the sadness of unrequited love, but today is different, the sun is out and the heat from the summer's
kiss now speaks into the recesses of my heart. I speak to the ghost beside me, the words that have
brought me to this moment, the moment my heart is ready to embrace.
I reach for the hand that is now gone and the eyes that have long since departed and without a word
say my final goodbye, and let go the hand and hurt that has no place in my heart.
I walk down the beach, my long dormant smile appearing with the sun. The footprints behind me
washed away by the incoming tide, forgotten like the pain from my past. The future in front of me.
My winter is over and my summer has begun.
My heart has awakened to the thoughts of what might become.