Holding A Grudge for Dummies

As far as the east is from the west,

so far has he put our transgressions from us.

As a father has compassion on his children,

so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him

The story began on April 22, 1990.  My mother was in the hospital and underwent surgery for lung cancer.  She came through the surgery as well as could be expected.  Going into the game we knew what the ultimate outcome would be, there was no hope, she had terminal cancer and the surgery was done to buy her some more time.  My two sisters and my brother arrived at the hospital at 9:00 AM to be with Mom until the surgery was scheduled at 11:00 AM.  We arrived on her floor and were amazed to see her on a gurney in the corridor, the surgery had been moved up.  We got there just in the nick of time to give her our love and to let her know that we were pulling for her.  Then began the waiting, one hour, two hours, the time dragged on. Finally, the surgeon came and told us that she had come through the surgery fine and he had done what he could to extend her time on earth. We thanked the doctor and were taken to intensive care where my mother was on a ventilator but awake and alert. She smiled as her children gathered around her and she happily responded to questions using a dry erase board that they had given her.   We were all relieved and assumed that we would have Mom with us for the year that the surgeon promised.  We all visited her the next day and she was a little less okay, more distant.  I could not visit on April 24th and on the 25th Mom's eyes were open, but she no longer wrote on the dry erase board.  After some time, she closed her eyes and stopped responding to us and at 7:11 PM my mother went home to the Lord. We celebrated her life at a Mass that following Saturday and she was sent to be cremated as was her wish. 

I was walking around in a daze.  this was not supposed to happen, we had been given a year.  The very fact that Mom was dead was a great wrong, she was only sixty-four when she died.  She died because of bad doctoring, and I do not mean the surgeon.  Mom worked for a doctor and part of her compensation was free medical care.  The doctor she worked for provided the absolute minimum in care and in doing so misdiagnosed the cancer that eventually killed Mom.  She provided her with a salve to put on a growth on my mother's shoulder.  It got no better and after six months Mom went to another doctor friend who immediately diagnosed cancer and had the growth removed but it was too late.  The disease had spread to her lungs during the six months on non-caring care that she had received.  

The funeral was a typical Catholic funeral. The Church did her job and offered prayers for my mother's soul.  For the next six months, I was in the grip of a great depression.  I held in my heart a great and bitter hatred for the doctor that cared so little that she did so little and in effect murdered my mother almost as if she took a gun and shot her. My life was in disarray.  I could not concentrate and went through the motions of life.  Then one day I came to the realization that while I was morose and in pain, the doctor that caused it was fat and happy and practicing her trade not bothering to think of what she had done.  Then it happened.  I passed a Catholic Church and the God of the Universe inside the tabernacle reached out to me and I forgave the doctor who caused my mother and me so much pain.  At that moment, through the grace of God, I came back to life.  

Since that time I cannot hold a grudge.  I forgave the person that murdered my mother, what else could someone do that would allow me to keep them in bondage? 

Every so often I trot this story out because I think it is important to remember that we have been forgiven much by God and we are called to forgive as well.  I write this as a reminder to myself.