Few moments in life are etched into your memory so clearly that you can recall the details surrounding that moment, even years later. May 29th, 2010 was one of those moments. It was a Saturday. I remember who was in the room with me and what I was wearing. The clock read 6:57 p.m. when I received the phone call from my mother as she revealed that she had been diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease. This was also the moment which prompted a life lesson in forgiveness.
This new reality paralyzed me with shock and the barrage of emotions was overwhelming. I was distraught, forlorn, angry, and devastated. However, what I felt was far more complicated than just sadness and shock. For much of my life, I had carried around the heavy burden of anger and resentment toward my mother. She was not the kind of parent one might call a good parent. Due in large part to her struggle with alcoholism, she was significantly neglectful to me as a child and was not supportive or nurturing. Nor was she the kind of mother I could count on when I needed her. As a child and even as an adult, she didn’t demonstrate much interest in my life. Consequently, the challenges these circumstances presented prevented me
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It was this day that I got the call at 2 a.m. that my mother had passed away. Her fight was over. The experience of watching my mother slowly perish to a debilitating illness is an ordeal that challenged and changed me profoundly. As I reflect on what I learned on this journey, two things are apparent. First, it was this journey that taught me the meaning of forgiveness. Second, I learned that in the face of life’s uncertainties, we always have a choice. We have a choice to be grateful. We have a choice to be kind and we have a choice to forgive and not live in the past. When we can do these things, life takes becomes just a little more
Finally, Kor expresses the importance of forgiveness. “Anger and hate are seeds that germinate war. Forgiveness is a seed for peace. It is the ultimate act of self-healing. I look at forgiveness as the summit of a very tall mountain” (Kor and Buccieri 133).
Learning How to Forgive Forgiving someone do not remove the guilt of a person or a group who makes mistakes. Forgiveness is an unexceptional theme that society has since early times in the history of humanity, and it is a easy target for individuals of a social group to judge. The theme brings up religious effects, which influence many actions and what believers do. When it comes to family, the society’s finger of blame is pointed at parents who fail their responsibilities in raising their children.
While others at school fretted about fitting in, I was constantly anxious about what was awaiting me at home. Beyond just worrying about my mother being drunk, I was always unsure of what condition she would be in when I got home from school. Would I have to take care of her and clean up her vomit or would I need to avoid her while she barraged me with screaming insults through my locked bedroom door? Remarks such as, “You worthless daughter” still haunt
We are humans and a majority of us have dealt with heartache, pain, broken promises, along with the joyous things like dreams, aspirations, and successful futures. Humans mess up and make mistakes, but we have to remember that forgiveness is a very prestigious and powerful thing. Forgiveness affects people’s lives in positive ways through the hardships, difficulties, and struggles of life. There comes a time when forgiveness should not be available to some individuals. However, this depends on the past situations that have occurred in your life as well as other individuals.
I examined the man sitting across from me, who was with his family yet his eyes seemed to not understand what was going on. I examined another lady who was with her family, she seemed so energized and happy, At that moment I began to realize how much things I took for granted. As a teenager I have never thought about aging, I’ve thought about having future goals and what not, but I have never thought about myself as an elderly. . Not only that,I realized that the things that have never crossed my mind, have been what most of the residents have been wishing for.
My hands became clammy and my heart started racing. I did not want to believe the words coming out of my mother’s lips, “His kidney failed three weeks after the operation, he is dead”. I was just 5 years old and I felt like there was no purpose to live. My father was everything to me. I already missed his genuine kindness, the way his smile formed whenever he talked to me about life, and the times where we had father-son time at the airport, watching airplanes fly.
Foster care and abandonment The baggage that remains By Shaylah O’Hara Guest writer I had always felt that my mother did not want me. While she had several opportunities to get me back by simply providing a few clean drug tests, she was unable to do so. I tell myself that I ended up in the foster care system due to her addiction and that she did not intentionally choose drugs over me; while I do believe that, it still hurts.
“So, I close in saying that I might have been given a bad break, but I’ve got an awful lot to live for,” Lou Gehrig made that as his closing remarks in his “Farwell” speech two weeks after announcing he had ALS (“Farewell”). ALS, or Lou Gerhig’s disease, is a degenerative neurological disease that weakens and, eventually, renders muscles useless and has many other symptoms and causes that are still being discovered, including brain concussions from football and other sports. Described by scientists as far back as 1824, it wasn’t until 1869 when French neurologist Jean-Marie Charcot first wrote and published reports of the characteristics linked to ALS (“About,” ALSA.org) (“About,” Wordpress). It wasn’t until when Lou Gehrig was diagnosed with the disease. In 1938, after having a difficult time with playing baseball, Gehrig visited the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, where he was diagnosed with ALS (“Lou Gehrig”).
But forgiveness does not come cheaply. It requires work. It means acknowledging the wrong, taking responsibility for it, and making amends" (Tutu Speech). Tutu recognizes that forgiveness is not just about letting go of anger and resentment; it also involves holding people accountable for their actions and ensuring that they make things right.
Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth” (Gehrig). It creates ethos because he lived with ALS and not everybody
Most transformative moments in life can be caused by the smallest of occurrences in life. Often people do not even realize that a pivotal moment in their life is happening. Someone may realize when they are mature enough that there was one special moment during their childhood that ultimately determined their lifelong goal. For others, they probably realized an “aha” moment right when it happened and from then on decided that they knew what they want to accomplish later on. I actually have taken from both sides of the spectrum from realizing that one special transformative moment but also not even knowing that it would end up steering me towards my current career choice.
It’s difficult to pinpoint a specific moment in one’s life in which your life is transformed. We often realize that this moment is so signingagent when looking back on personal experiences and don’t realize it at the time. For me, this moment occurred when I realized that I had taken what I love most for granted. It all started back in 2004 when my family suggested that I get into a sport at a young age.
Tuesdays with Morrie is a book that examines a life threatening illness from the perspective of a passionate, mindful, and charismatic elderly man. Medical and nursing programs frequently use this book to discuss issues surrounding chronic illness and death. I viewed the movie adaptation of the book, and in this paper, I will discuss my initial reaction to the story, issues surrounding touch and intimacy, the concept of aging as a spiritual journey, finding the meaning of life, and two examples of the effects of Morrie’s quotes. Initial Reaction Elements of aging and death are difficult to think about, and people are busy so there’s not much time for reflecting on life’s bigger picture. For myself, end-of-life realities seem far away even
I caught myself getting furious at even nominal things. I thought a lot about how I was going to survive without her being here. I thought I was moving on, until one day someone asked me, “ If you had one wish what would it be?” and the first thing I thought was to spend that one wish on my mother.
One perfect afternoon, on the second floor of a military apartment, I sat in my room surrounded by toys. The sun was blazing through the window and spreading its friendly warmth on my face. The smell of fresh carpet that my mother so vigorously attended too was the perfect aroma for the concert that was about to start. The site of seeing a mess of thirty to forty figures on the floor in an unorganized manor to some create havoc, but to me nothing, was more pleasant for eye to behold. For when others saw chaos, disorder, or repulsiveness, I saw a work of art about to unfold.