Forgive The Inconvenience

“Disculpe la molestia….”

My mom had an affair with our pastor.  “Mom,” I messaged her a few days ago, “what’s the last name of Senor Esteban?” She didn’t see it until the next day, responding with his last name & “but he was not a man of God. God forgive me.”

I almost glazed over the “God forgive me”. Instead, my judgement focused on her deflection; HE was not a man of God, as if it was his fault.

I paused.

After 15 years of marriage, 2 significant failed long-term relationships, & many failures in recognizing the red flags in these men, this was the first time I wondered what his part in it was.  Was he manipulative? Did he prey on her, & perhaps other women, recognizing their weak spirit?

No. My judgement had fallen solely on her.  She was my mother. She wasn’t ever a particularly loving mother. She had neglected my siblings & I in many ways, so it had been easy, I suppose, to point at her as the reason for all the ways in which we had suffered.

“My name is Judy Alegria, & you had an affair with my mother.”

My mom had a Kia Sportage. How I hated that thing. It was boxy & narrow, & every time my mom made a turn, I could have sworn it was going to just flip over on its side.  She sat there next to me, her hands on the wheel as Joan Sebastian’s “Secreto De Amor” played.  I stared at her; her olive skin soft against the sun, her green eyes staring at the road but looking somewhere else. I didn’t recognize this look. She was somewhere both lovely & far away. A look that I now recognize as yearning. In love.

“I’m writing to tell you, sir, that I have never thought about forgiving you because, for all my life since the affair, since the event that began the destruction of our family, I have been angry only at my mother.”

The woman, for her part, always treated me as a slave, it seems. Or, as I got older - but still a child - as a friend. Perhaps she had no one else to go to but she’d tell me about her & my father, their sex life, their disconnect, & her anger for all his previous failings.  Sitting next to her, I’d think about how I really did not want to hear this but I remained silent, never asking questions, never adding more; just listening. I simply disassociated many times because I loved my father. He was a difficult man, indeed. He was quick to anger, & stubborn, but he was also the only one of the two that played games with us. He was funny, hard working & often said “I love you”;  a thing I don’t recall my mom ever really saying to us.

“Now as an adult, I understand that you, Sir, played a part in this as well.”

Our childhood - mine & my older brothers - was one of either raucous playfulness or darkness. There was rarely an inbetween. It would start with voices rising in the bedroom, my brothers cue to quickly create some game for me to complete. He’d quickly grab a piece of paper, write some simple math problems, along with sentences which I was tasked to do something with, like circle the vowels. He’d write it quickly, giving me clear instructions as the yelling turned into screams.  “Don’t go anywhere until you finish this…”, & he’d run off to be the young referee between two dueling adults. 

By the time I finished, he was back, grabbing my arm, pulling me into his closet with a final set of instructions, “don’t come out until I come get you.”

“In any case, I want you to know that I forgive you.”

We did experience some years of peace. My dad, having gotten arrested again for domestic violence, had finally moved away. I missed him every day, & despite the problems my brother worked so hard to shield me from, I didn’t really understand why my dad wasn’t there anymore. He had sat in his recliner one day, I recall, crying. I don’t recall ever having seen him cry before. I looked at him with my little eyes, walked over to his open arms & he held me with a sadness I couldn’t comprehend. 

Moving to Walla Walla to be with him after several months dunked me into a world I had never known before.  The Pentecostal lifestyle was rigid, but it also created between my mom & dad a kind of relationship I had never seen.  They were happy.  With each other.  They smiled. They hugged. They kissed.

“I know you’re not asking for my forgiveness. I truly don’t know how you’ll receive this. But I feel I need to tell you this…..”

God. We had a complicated relationship from that time. It was as if I knew Him but I didn’t really know what it meant to be saved. I knew we went to church religiously, and an hour service could turn into 4 hours if the Holy Spirit deemed it so. Eventually, the other young teens & I would go outside to play while the adults sang & danced in worship.

The message for me was conflicting; He was a loving God but a jealous God.  He died for our sins but there was nothing we could do to warrant our salvation. He was love but damned in destruction those who were not pure & obedient.

I recall sitting in the pew as the preacher spoke of damnation to the sexually unpure & wondered if I was going to hell. I didn’t choose to be abused but I was, I thought, dirty. Spoiled goods.

“In my heart, as in God’s, you have been forgiven. He died for you as much as He died for me.  It is finished, Jesus said. In sin, there is no measure and, so, as a fellow sinner & sister in Christ, my brother, I forgive you.”

When we finally moved back to Texas, the seams began to loosen. The previously close-knit thread of our family began to fall apart. Suddenly, but likely not suddenly, voices began to rise once more.

God, I wondered, where are you in this?

Where are you?

Are you even real?

“I pray you are still a man of God, seeking Him daily & knowing His love & grace. I pray your family is well, having also healed from the affair as I am certain it hurt them as much as it hurt us.”

I have forgiven my mother, for the affair as well as for so much more, but we don’t have a relationship, & I think that’s okay with God. Who am I to say for sure? I don’t hold ill will against her but as God created boundaries between the earth & the sky, between man & beast, I have learned that forgiveness doesn’t mean excusability. It doesn’t mean we put ourselves in positions to be hurt over & over again. It doesn’t mean we dismiss the wisdom that comes with experience.

I love my mother, though she rarely loved me. Her inability to be a good mother has nothing to do with me.  I was little, and loveable, and deserved protection & care. She did too. & her mother before her did too. & her mother before her.

We’re all lacking in perfection, shaped by the traumatic experiences or tragicness of our lives.

“Please know I don’t expect a response.  I lay my heart at the feet of the cross for I, too, deserved damnation but His forgiveness extends to us all.”

It is finished. Jesus said.