Because you deserve peace

Peking 1954

Forgive others. Not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace wrote Jonathan Lockwood Huie. Had I heard these words in early days, when life still seems full of promises and innumerable morrows, when a tinge of hubris is part of every individual and you feel you can conquer all, I would have brushed them aside with the easy contempt of youth or the misplaced confidence of an adult. But these words have reached me in my twilight years when bucket lists are being hastily completed as one looks back upon the years gone by with certain sadness and wonders if one did go wrong. But time moves only in one direction and the past cannot be reversed. In your twilight years all you can do is tie up loose ends and above all avoid further hurt.

The little girl in the picture had never been hurt. How could she. She was smothered in so much love by parents who wanted to shield her from all that was bad and tried their best to do so. I know that my papa would have plucked the moon from the sky and brought it into my space had I so desired and were it possible. But life is not a bed of roses and the thorns start appearing sooner than one thinks. Some are easily removed and barely leave a scar, others fester for far longer than you would want and leave ugly scars that even time does not heal.

Then one fine morning when things seem almost unbearable and unending, you suddenly realise that it is you who holds the key to your release as all you actually seek is peace, even if it means to forgive those who have hurt your most. Forgive them in your heart and walk on without looking back and above all ever allowing them to enter your space.

To some it may seem cowardly as if one was running away from reality. Not at all. It is simply not allowing something that had taken all the breathing space in your life to cast even the smallest shadow on your twilight years when you have finally earned the right to peace.