Letter to my big brother

Brother,

When I was a little boy, you were my hero, my rock, my guiding light. When I scraped my knees and our mother couldn't be bothered to pay attention, you cleaned them for me. When my father beat me, you read me stories until I stopped crying. When he was screaming at my mother in the kitchen, you taught me to put my hands over my ears and sing. When my mother couldn't be bothered to give us something to eat, you showed me where she kept the bread. You beat up any bully who as much as looked at us. You walked us home from school. You helped me with my homework.

And you made me suck you penis.

You were a lost child. You mother, for reasons I will never understand, took you from your dad and delivered you into the hands of a monster. Your step father, my father, beat you. He used you for an ashtray. He raped you. I don't know how old you were when he started abusing you, but I remember the first time he raped you, because that was the day I saw you die before my six-year-old eyes. Still, you found it in yourself to try to protect me, the child of your abuser.

Visiting my father's grave, redefining "me"

My father, my abuser, died last year.

His sister called me and asked me to the funeral. I didn't go. I have never felt anything but fear and hatred for him. I had no desire to spend the day surrounded by people who had loved him, who thought he was a good man.

This weekend, I went to visit his grave for the first time.

I expected to be angry. I expected to be overcome with a desire to vandalise his head-stone. To piss on his grave, so to speak. Instead, I stood quietly, devoid of any raging emotion. I read his name on the head-stone, and I felt that it was a stranger's name. The surname is the same as mine, but that was where the connection ended. The inscription didn't even mention me. It said only "beloved brother..."

Fitting, I suppose, since he disowned me years ago.

Forgiveness can set you free (or so I'm told)

I have lived most of my life filled with hatred for both my parents. Heaven knows, they were easy to hate. But hatred is like a pool of acid in your gut - it eats you up from inside leaving behind a huge, empty space where your soul should have been. If you live with hatred for too long, it will destroy you. And it does absolutely nothing to the person you hate.

Its a bit like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

How could one possibly forgive those who abused you?

Forgiveness means letting go of that hatred - draining the pool of acid, and allowing your soul to heal. Forgiveness does not mean that what they did is suddenly OK or acceptable, only that you will no longer allow them to control your emotions and thereby your life. Neither hatred nor forgiveness make any difference to the offender, but it makes a radical change to your ability to heal, and to grow as a person.