Theme: Forgiveness

“I think it’s time to forgive your sister. It’s a fact of life that sometimes unforeseen circumstances prevent people with the best of intentions from keeping promises they make.”   Dear Abby, Sunday, September 07, 2014.

“How can you just get over these things, darling?” she had asked him. “You’ve had so much strife but you’re always happy. How do you do it?”

“I choose to,” he said. “I can leave myself to rot in the past, spend my time hating people for what happened, like my dad did, or I can forgive and forget.”

“But it’s not that easy.”

He smiled that Frank smile. “Oh, but my treasure, it is so much less exhausting. You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things.” He laughed, pretending to wipe sweat from his brow. “I would have to make a list, a very, very long list and make sure I hated the people on it the right amount. That I did a very proper job of hating, too: very Teutonic! No”—his voice became sober—“we always have a choice. All of us.”   The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman

I picked these quotes about forgiveness because they reflect my own feelings. I especially like the idea of forgiving once. So simple and practical. So useful on a personal scale—for everyday living.

I’ve always felt it costs nothing to offer everyone a polite “Good morning” when passing on the sidewalk or bike path. I’ve chosen that course because it was easiest for me, no need to constantly dredge up past wrongs. It’s more of a matter of here and now.

I wanted to use something of this philosophy in my novel, to make a spirit of forgiveness relevant for my fictional families present and past.

I hope I’ve succeeded to some extent.