There is nothing to forgive

Graciously look upon Thy servant, humble and lowly at Thy door, with the glances of the eye of Thy mercy, and immerse him in the Ocean of Thine eternal grace. — Abdul-Baha

Today is the second anniversary of your suicide, and somehow, it has come easier — not because there is less to say, less to feel; no, quite the contrary, because there is too much, and all of it so beautiful.

We were connected. I was the first in Dondeynehuis to whom you revealed the horror that eventually drove you to that terrible act, and I was the first to whom you conveyed your dreams of moving to America, probably the only hint you ever gave us about your intentions to leave this world.

Neighbors, many of my memories entail seeing you in your bath towel, or you sitting on the big inflatable ball in your room, bobbing slightly back and forth while we talked. Most of all, I remember your smile and the grace with which you walked.

I felt that somehow I was supposed to guide you — the experienced, older, wiser man. But I didn’t know how, I was too confused. And then I was at the station. Why did our connection bring me there, at that precise moment, standing on the platform? Was I your unwitting Charon, guiding you by whatever unseen metaphysical tethers across the railroad Styx?

This past October, I thought a lot about you in the lead-up to that season I enjoy so much, Halloween, Allerheiligendag and Allerzielendag. I saw you within my innerscape, dancing upon the stage, gliding through the hallways, and then you would grab me and gently say: Let me go.

It is hard to describe what happened next. I eventually found myself confronting a door that stood quietly upon a grassy plain. It would open, and I would see you, standing upon the shoor of a vast, surging ocean. You smile and beckon me to join you, as you dive into the water and swim away. I cannot go, and I cannot bear to see you disappear into the gently rippling waves. I run back through the door.

I would return to that door many times throughout the month, but at the end, I return there with my parents. We have travelled long and hard together, and now they ask me to forgive them for the past. I’m about to do so when suddenly something else happens: to my surprise, I instead tell them: There is nothing to forgive.

To forgive is to place myself above them; to forgive would mean that they had done something wrong, that I had been harmed. But when all is said and done, they had done nothing wrong; they had simply done their best, indeed, they had simply done. And I? I was not harmed. I was never harmed.

I was shocked by this feeling, that there is an act we can do that is greater than forgiveness: radical acceptance. This, this is the road to agape, to truly putting others before oneself, to love, to let go. And I felt as though I was being poured out.

My mother kissed me goodbye on the forehead; my father hugged me. Then they watched me, proudly, as I turned back toward the door. At this point, there was little division between imagination and reality. I opened it, to the shore, to the ocean, and passed through.

Firm, friendly hands held me and waded into the water with me as I cried, then set me loose, to swim, to drift. The sky was blue; the water was cool and refreshing. And I swam, and I swam, and I swam, until finally I could join Astrid.

I’ve thought a lot about this experience since then, in particular those words: There is nothing to forgive. They had welled up from somewhere deep inside me, pushing aside all ther considerations except one: to give, to be, to go.

And I can still remember that vast ocean in crisp detail, and as I look upon it from the shore of my mind, as I swim in it with the flesh of my psyche, I realize: it was you, Astrid, who were guiding me all along.

You are my friend. There is nothing to forgive. There is everything to thank.

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