The Lesson to Forgive Yourself

The grave smiles and beckons. You look forward to another existence, but this has large question marks you need to answer. Your children, as you hope to feel you have done your best to give them an understanding of what life has in store. Your fears and clear knowledge that some hard lessons have to be experienced by each of them and all the intense love you have may not be the solution. You are the one who has felt the intensity. You are sharply reminded that they incarnated through you but do not necessarily need to have the kind of life you have or the one you have experienced.
The lesson is urgent and intense sometimes and your memories could sometimes be painful as you remember. You are desperate to forgive because you know if the bell goes and your flight to the next realm is announced, there are destinations you want to avoid so you are desperate to learn here and now, why you must forgive yourself so you can forgive others.
‘One day at a time’ goes the song and you repeat it in your heart as you watch your children and their children. You ask yourself over and over, did I give them all they will need? You are not thinking of money because you never had enough of that, you have been taught very bitter lessons about not having enough money. You never did have enough money. Came to that recognition, when you sadly accepted that you could not sell water in the desert. You felt the pain of watching your son die in your arms because you did not have the money to pay for the doctor to order that he should be given a drip. He had gastroenteritis and you were not taught about oral rehydration then, no mom in close communication who could have taught you how to do local rehydration, the father of the child had gone on his own sporting activity. He was not a professional, it was something he could afford to ignore, he really was not into being a father, and you paused as the next painful recognition sails into your consciousness…he had made such a big deal about his freedom to come and go as he pleased.
You watch your son as he keeps emptying a now empty bowel so you use the only money left with you to take him to the next government hospital, the doctor and nurses run around accepting your blank look of terror, confusion and pain and a very weakened boy is taken into the ward. This time you knew it was too late for that soul that had kept you company and happy. He’s always smiling face, his eagerness to breathe was being hampered by his collapsing lungs as he struggled for air. Your heart is slowly shattered as you watch him depart. You stand up and go over to the nurses to tell them to come and tidy up your son. You say it so calmly that they wonder if you have lost it too. You watch as they calmly tidy him up. The question in your head is, if you had thirty naira, he would have been saved. You remember your desperate appeal to the nurse at the private hospital where you had rushed him to at first because it was the closest to you and it was the hospital where you had given birth to him eleven months before. You remember begging them to hold you and not discharge you until you have settled the bill. As they park your dead son away, you stand up and walk from Lagos Island to your house on the mainland. It was maybe six or ten kilometres, but that was covered in a blur at three am in the morning. The buses had not started running and the bridges were quiet.
The one lesson you learnt was you did not have money. If you had money your child would have been alive. As you arrive home and take the stairs, the numbness wears off and you break down in tears. You apologize to the departed son. You weep, two days of intense misery then the father of the dead son returns from his trip and is stunned to learn the passing of his son. You watch his shock from a distance in your soul. A page is drawn over your misery. .
Just like the page was drawn over your very first child as she never made the required necessary pass to exist. In three years, you had lost two children for the same man in circumstances that were very preventable. You had no money.
Life rolled on but sometimes you woke up screaming silently helplessly seeking answers and comfort. Lonely, alone and afraid. As the years grew on, you learnt the art of sinking the pains deeper. You recognised your bitterness and anger only when you had other children. You were willing to do anything for your children within the financial bounds you found yourself.
You had silently celebrated the birthdays of your dead daughter and son, chatted with them and finally explained about incarnations, karma and missions.
Now the smile of the grave gets wider and friendlier, you have one worry, will you be given time to forgive yourself so you can forgive them, the ones who had taken advantage of you, the ones who had ignored your appeals for help… Why do these remembrances bring you so much intense pain even after? Your gratitude will only be accepted when you learn the importance of forgiving yourself so the lessons Life offered could be absorbed in the gratitude to the King of Creation.