forgiveness

"Keep her talking, " Lorna says. "Secret weapon," she finishes with a wink and a laugh, referring to the best way to get Mom to eat dinner. Thankfully, I don't think Mom understands the humor. Unlike breakfast and lunch, dinner is consistently an issue. Even Mom comments on her non-eating saying--"I don't know why....why I can't." We don't know either.

Hanna, our Bread Queen, came earlier today, just before dinner--bringing a rye loaf she made. We cut thick slices, applied butter and giggled as we told each other we're "ruining our appetites." We asked ourselves, which would we prefer--ham dinner or fresh baked bread? The choice was clear. We stuffed slices into our mouths as we watched Obama reveal his plans for Afghanistan before an audience of second lieutenants who will soon be amongst the 30,000 deployed overseas, all in the cause of ending terrorism. As he spoke about unifying our country around this "new" cause, I wondered where we will get the money to fund this new war. Don't the democrats worry about overspending, inflation? I mean, we can't just keep printing money, can we?

Despite our earlier bread binge with Hanna, dinner still arrives, waits to be eaten. Lorna and I try to interest Mom in her food--"Ham w/ Bourbon Peach Glaze, Brussels' Sprouts w/ Almonds, BBQ Beans." It's slow going until Lorna starts talking--her "secret weapon"--telling us about her life in the Philippines. Mom's listening so hard, she's hardly aware of the food Lorna is stuffing into her mouth.

Our conversation begins with a question, about why she and her husband, Bernaby, worked for so many years to put their six nieces and nephews through college. This is after they educated their own three children. Bernaby worked in Saudi Arabia for 10 years, sending money home for educational expenses; Lorna cleaned, cooked and housed her extended family in Manila, while they attended college. This sacrifice is something that's difficult for me to understand.

I find it ironic, considering tonight's broadcast, that Bernaby worked directly for Bin Laden in the 1970s, as a plumbing supervisor for the construction of his palace. "Eighteen rooms, my dear," Lorna croons, and "gold everywhere. Oh my, so much gold, people took for themselves. But never my husband, never, never," Lorna reports proudly. "This is why Bin Laden doesn't want my husband to come back to the Philippines. He's a good man, my husband, honest."

"Family, my dear," Lorna tells me, when I convey my disbelief about her and Bernaby's sacrifices. "Life is very hard in Manila. We are poor. We want our family to have a better life. And they do--they have professions (medical technicians, accountants, engineers, nurses), cars, jobs, houses." Lorna is very proud of this, of how her extended family has prospered materially in the world. Not eating hand to mouth.

"Very hard, my dear," Lorna adds. "Very hard," referring to the years she harbored her nieces and nephews. Bernaby may have been sending money home, but Lorna was trapped in domesticity, raising a large "second family" in Manila while she worked full time as a teacher. There were no washers and dryers--Lorna did all the laundry by hand with a wash board--didn't even have a wringer. Yes, this sounds very hard.

"But they are good, my dear," she makes sure I understand. "When we go back to Manila, they are very good. Treat us like royalty. We spend nothing. All is paid for."

Still, I can't understand Lorna's idea of "family," particularly in conjunction with my own, where division rather than loyalty defines our existence. Family seems to have no limits for Lorna and I wonder how this came to be

"What about your son, I ask her, "Bernaby Junior?" I'm remembering Bernaby Junior's escapades with gambling and drugs and how he was spirited away, in the nick of time, to Canada, where he subsequently "straightened out." Bernaby spent Lorna and her husband's retirements (seventeen and thirteen years respectively) on gambling, drugs and women, per Lorna's report, after she and Bernaby immigrated to the US in 1997. $20,000.00 he squandered as their power of attorney (the irony is excruciating). How does a family survive this?

"Did you forgive him?" I ask Lorna.

"Ah, my dear. Of course."

While I know Lorna is a devout woman, I have a difficult time understanding how such a forgiveness occurs. And, as it turns out, there is much more to forgive then just the money spent. Bernaby Junior left his Caucasian wife and four children and disappeared for six months. He tells his wife, Mildred, he's going to Hong Kong for a month on business and then never comes back. Lorna and her husband support Mildred and the children for the duration, including six additional months after Bernaby Junior is discovered having been living all this time in Batan with another woman, Alma (an old flame), and continuing his drug habits--not caring a bit for the plight of Midred and children. How can this end well, I'm wondering?

Lorna sends her brother, Joey, a policeman to retrieve Bernaby Junior from the clutches of Alma. He shows up at the door with a machine gun and a belt full of ammunition. Bernaby sees the errors of his ways and agrees to come home. But it isn't until Bernaby Junior immigrates that resolution is found. He may have returned to Mildred, but he didn't change his gambling and drugging.

"I pray," Lorna tells me. "Pray that Jesus will change his heart." Well there must have been a whole lot of prayer as Lorna and her husband finally persuade their son to come to Canada in 2006. His departure is all under the cover of secrecy, as fear of Alma's reprisals are still real. When he gets off the plane, Bernaby Junior turns first to his nana, Lorna, and then to his father, ama, saying--"I am a sinner." He asks for forgiveness. Forgiveness is given. Incredible.

I confront Lorna with my misgivings--"Isn't there a line to be drawn? Can everything be forgiven?" As I am asking this I'm of course thinking of my own family, of Peter in particular, knowing Mom has never forgiven him his trespasses.

"No limit," Lorna says adamantly, going on to paraphrase Jesus--"if you don't forgive, how will the Lord forgive you?"

But there is a limit, apparently, when it comes to money. While Lorna will forgive all, it doesn't mean she will open her wallet to the sinner who trespassed. She tells the story of her uncle, her father's brother, who sold her father's land when her father died (fifty-seven hectors) and pocketed the money rather than dispersing it to her and her four siblings. Lorna's sister would not permit a legal action, so nothing was ever said to the uncle. Not ever. But when Lorna comes to visit in the Philippines, she brings no gifts for her uncle, a violation of custom that sends a clear message to the transgressor.

"What about you, Mom," I say, turning to where she sits in her wheelchair. "have you forgiven Peter?"

While I think I know the answer to my own question, I'm surprised at Mom's vengeance, after all this time has passed.

'I have NOT..." she answers very loudly, "HE HAS NOT...HAS NOT..."

"Not what," I ask Mom, modeling a calmer voice, hoping to encourage her to pipe down.

"NOT...NOT...NOT..." Mom sputters, getting stuck, as she has begun to do lately, on a single word. The result is a triplet of words that sounds like a record stuck in a rotation or a CD stalled in the groove from a scratch. Annoying.

So it's Lorna who supplies the answer to Mom's question, rather than Mom--"not asked for forgiveness?"

"Yes...that's it," Mom says in an excited voice. "Not asked."

"I'm going to...to...to..."

"Going to what, Mom?" I ask her, losing patience with her rigidity, her fervor.

"Teach him...a...lesson...lesson...lesson."

I actually laugh now, despite the tension in the room. Mom's really adamant, angry even. But I can't help myself, and I can't help myself from asking, with an edge--"You're going to teach a fifty-six year old man a lesson?"

"Yes," Mom says. No hesitation. "I'm going to hold...that thing...the money..."

"Mom," I say with another laugh, a laugh laced with disgust, if I'm honest. "You don't have to give him money...but you could forgive him, you know. It takes two to make a misunderstanding, right?"

"NO," she says again loudly, "those people...are ugly, UGLY," at which point Lorna decides to insert her perspective to our skirmish.

"My dear, even if ugly, you still need to forgive."

"I WOULD NOT..." Mom replies, her voice now close to a shout.

"Our Lord says, 'forgive and I will forgive you'" Lorna says back to Mom, at which point Lorna launches into a complete rendition of the Lord's Prayer, with its wisdom about forging those who tress pass against us.

Mom is enraged, her face the color of pomegranate. Her lips hinge open so wide I can see the small red seeds of her anger. "I want to teach my son," she continues, her sentences oddly getting clearer the more she talks and the angrier she becomes. "He doesn't know...doesn't care" she vents.

"My dear," Lorna offers again. softly. "You need to see each other and maybe the pains will be healed."

"No," Mom repeats. "They've NEVER done anything...I'm NOT going to...those people need to learn something...they never attempted..."

It becomes clear to me, as Mom continues in her rage, how she's inadvertently revealed herself to me--made clear a central value, a way to understand my mother. In her world, a sin is a sin. There's always only the sinner and wronged. Never can there be mutual wrong-doing. And in this black and white world, decisions are punitive--the old testament "eye for an eye" approach. Mom has spent her life doling out punishment. When she sees her twenty-five year old daughter stealing a kiss on a train between Monte Carlo and Florence, she responds by silence for three days. We are shunned. Not a word. No explanation. My future husband and I are thrown into an abyss of shame, incomprehension. Mom is teaching us a lesson, in the middle of Tuscany--my husband is fine as a "friend" but should he be something else--a lover, a husband--this will not be permitted. And she will make sure it is so, by the force of her will. Vengeance, anger, emotional abandonment are Mom's tools and she uses them freely. Even now.

Mom's staring at me, as I'm recalling this scene from the train. Saying nothing. I stare right back. We stay like this for several minutes. There's no TV news or Bread Queen to distract us. I'm surprised at how painful this memory is for me, how emblematic for all the other times she decided to "teach" me a lesson, long past her "right" to do so. I feel stuck here, in this room with Mom, with her vengeance exposed. I'm sure I don't want to be here. But how to divert Mom, put an end to this tirade?

"Must be my dirty hair," I say to her finally with a grin, "that's making you stare at me." I stick my tongue out at her then--my grin and this tongue-sticking are not easy to offer. Miraculously, Mom laughs--a reluctant laugh. Lorna and I laugh too, more eagerly then Mom, glad to have a reason for humor. Our laughter feels like medicine, like the thing that could heal us, if we let it.

Forgiveness, a lesson Mom will never learn.

"You must bring him, my dear," Lorna says in a whisper to me, "bring him to your Mom."

I don't know what to say to Lorna, as I have little interest in negotiating yet another hostile party. But I understand what she's saying, about the need for rapprochement, because I have thought of this to, of how Mom and Peter need to forgive each other, even if they don't yet perceive this need for themselves.

Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is a lifewithmom--