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I want to tell a story about grace and forgiveness
When is was 17 my mother was being terrorized by my step dad. A lot of psychological abuse. 1/
When is was 17 my mother was being terrorized by my step dad. A lot of psychological abuse. 1/
He used my mother’s green card status against her and started a campaign of control and fear that was leading to violence /2
I ended up having to protect her from him. One day while she was gone, he came upstairs (he’d been staying in the basement) to take her belongings. He didn’t know I was home and waiting guard. He thought we were gone /3
I confronted him, and he stabbed me (I have a tattoo around that scar to this day that says “mom”)
The cops came and put us both on the ground with guns on us (even though I’m the one who called) /4
The cops came and put us both on the ground with guns on us (even though I’m the one who called) /4
My came, hysterical and explained I was the victim. He was arrested. I got stictched up. We moved in with a friend. My mom bought me a ton of dope Karl Kani stuff I wanted out of guilt /5
The next time I saw him was at trial where I testified against him. He couldn’t make eye contact, my mom had to testify as well. He had raised me since 5 years old and had been her husband for 12 years so it was hard /6
Only in the previous 5 years did he really lose it and switch from a decent step dad to a psychopath. So what happened to the nice guy who treated me like his own for so many years before flipping out? Where did the animal come from? /7
Well, his father had disowned him as a baby because he was the first born and out of wedlock, and for a well to do Carribean family this was a no no. He was raised in poverty by his aunt so that his mom and dad could pretend he never happened /8
He tried to reconcile when I was 14 but it didn’t work and this sent him into a tail spin with alcohol. He also had some ubdealt with trauma and pain from Vietnam, which coincidentally he joined the military to spite his father (a different story) /9
Fast forward back to the days after the trial. I am 19 and I am driving down the street and I see a frail looking man, almost looked like a zombie walking on the side of the road. I say to myself, that poor man has been eaten by life /10
As I pass I noticed, it is him, it’s Ralph. My heart sunk and at that moment compassion overtook me. It ate at me and ate me for days on end. I could not shake that. No matter what he had done I still felt like he was a human being suffering /11
A few months go by and someone gives me information of his whereabouts. So I plan to wash my car and go and knock on his door and hug him and tell him that I forgive him and that I love him /12
As I am washing my car to get ready to go the phone rings. It is my sister who works at the local hospital. He had just been rolled in dead from pneumonia. I was devastated /13
My mother and I decide we should call his dad. So we did. When we told his father, he said to us “he loved like a dog so he died like one” and hung up the phone.
I sat. Cold. Motionless /14
I sat. Cold. Motionless /14
I thought, no matter what, no one deserves that. If I can forgive, he should be able to as well and it was at that moment I understood the depth of pain that it must have been to carry being hated by your own father from the day you were born /15
I decided right then that the forgiveness and love he never received in life he was going to get in death. I decided that even though the last time I saw him was at a trial. I was going to bury and eulogize him /16
And so my mother and I did. We also gathered his alcoholic friends. My mother cleaned his filthy trailer out that he was living in. And we did for him in death what we felt he couldn’t receive in life /17
Two stories came of that week
1. The alcoholic friends quit drinking from our example and have stayed sober for 25 years
2. I learned from his neighbor that he died saying my name /18
1. The alcoholic friends quit drinking from our example and have stayed sober for 25 years
2. I learned from his neighbor that he died saying my name /18
Once I heard that I knew that what I felt was right. He didn’t want to be an evil person, his pain was so deep and he had no tools to deal with it that evil had overtaken him. He stumbled outside and to the ground grasping for air and I was on his mind /19
What this taught me is that forgiveness is the grace that WE receive when we give it. We give it to ourselves.
My entire life, people say, man you are a lucky person, good fortune seems to follow yours I say “no, it’s grace”
And it came from Ralph
/end
My entire life, people say, man you are a lucky person, good fortune seems to follow yours I say “no, it’s grace”
And it came from Ralph
/end
PS - forgive, don’t seek vengeance, that’s not justice, and will leave us always empty and thirsty for more. A society that doesn’t allow for redemption will always fail eventually. Let’s dialog before we cancel, before we erase peoples social lives and careers. One love 
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