A Face Needing Forgiveness
When I woke up early one morning, something seemed to be wrong. A strange feeling flowed through me. I became aware that I was slowly rising, but my body stayed behind on the bed.
My eyes focused on the light bulb in the center of the ceiling. A face glowing in the light looked back at me. It was the face of my mother.
Instantly I began to shake. Was this a nightmare? No, I knew this was real life, not just a dream. Intense fear swept through me.
“But my mother is dead!” I cried out terrified. “Did she come to get me? Am I leaving this earth now? Oh, God, please, I don’t want to go yet. I still have so much to accomplish,” I pleaded.
“You haven’t forgiven your mother,” a quiet voice announced.
“I thought I’d forgiven her,” I answered weakly. “It was only a few months ago, but I did. I forgave her.”
A flash of sorrow and guilt swept through me even as I spoke those words.
When I was thirteen years old, in January 1945, I had left my home in Poland. My father had died when I was three years old and my mother had remarried. Neither my four brothers nor I liked my stepfather. He seemed to be especially cruel to my brothers, beating them while my mother stood by and didn’t even try to stop him.
Didn’t my mother care? I had wondered. Why did she allow this beating when my brothers hadn’t done any wrong? Even though my stepfather did not abuse me physically, my heart ached for my brothers, so I spent a lot of time at my grandmother’s home nearby or with my best friend’s family. They gave me the love I did not get at home.
My two oldest teenage brothers had been drafted into the German army. My third brother had also left home to live at a youth camp. Only my youngest brother, Edmund, was still at home with me. Now there was no way I wanted to stay at home any longer.
“I am leaving too,” I told Edmund. “Please, come with me. Let’s stay together,” I pleaded, but he was afraid.
“Well, then I’m going alone,” I told him. Hatred for my mother filled my heart, and I couldn’t get away fast enough. At first I went to live with a friendly couple I knew in a nearby town. They took me in as their own daughter, and I felt cared for.
Yet I soon realized I could not stay there permanently. Within weeks the Russian army came close to our area, and I could hear heavy artillery. I was afraid of the Russians, so I wanted to get away before they overran our town.
A fifteen-year-old girl next door also wanted to head west to Germany, so we decided to leave immediately. Just the day before, Jack, a seventeen-year-old boy, had arrived at her house. He had been conscripted by the German army but had deserted his post.
“I will help you get to Germany,” he offered. “I know of ways to get you out of here. But please, keep my past a secret, otherwise a Nazi army official will shoot me.”
We helped him bury his army clothes in the back of the garden. Then we packed a change of clothes into a little backpack and walked to the train station. Trains ran only occasionally, and all of them were packed with retreating German soldiers fleeing from the pursuing Russian army. We decided to start walking west, following the train tracks. I was small for my age and tired easily. Jack often carried me on his back.
Jack always listened for a train heading west. When one came along, he showed us how to jump underneath the train cars. We soon became adept at jumping on moving trains. Jack also knew where to find food left behind in homes deserted by their owners.
Three days later we arrived at the main Berlin train station in Germany and parted ways. A Red Cross worker took me to a kind farm family who treated me like a daughter. I often thought of my brothers, but I did not miss my mother. I still felt bitter toward her, put her out of my mind, and lost all contact with her.
Over the years I found each of my four brothers, and we kept in touch. I never tried to find my mother. She didn’t care about me, so why should I care about her? I told myself.
A few years later I married, and in 1955 my new husband and I immigrated to Canada. Years went by. One day, my youngest brother, Edmund, told me how my mother had missed me after I had left.
“She cried herself to sleep many nights, hoping that you would somehow contact her,” he said. “She wanted to know if you were all right. She wanted you to know she was sorry that she had kept her feelings to herself. And she blamed herself for driving you away from home. She wanted to see you so badly, especially before she died.”
The bitter feelings toward my mother began to evaporate somewhat when I heard of my mother’s last days. I finally realized that she did not know how to show love, that she had cared about me, but she had tried to please her new husband.
“Oh, I forgive you, Mom,” I whispered when I passed by her photo I had finally put up on the mantel of my home. The words hadn’t really come from my heart, but they made me feel better.
Now, as I was suspended in midair, the look on my mother’s sad face reflected in the ceiling light sent shivers down my back.
“You have not really forgiven her. You just said the words. You need to forgive her with your heart and soul.” I heard the voice a second time.
Pain shot through me as I realized my forgiveness had not been genuine.
“God, I forgive her. I really do!” I cried. “But, please, let me live to continue my work on earth,” I begged.
I did not hear the voice again, but I instantly felt drawn back into my body and knew I would live. Right away I jumped up from my bed and ran to the mantel to look at my mother’s picture. Suddenly, I saw her in a different light. I remembered what my brother Edmund had told me about my mother.
“Mom, I forgive you. I forgive you with all my heart,” I said over and over. For a few minutes I just stood there looking at her photo, tears pouring down my face, my heart reaching out in love. Then a peace filled my soul, and I felt free, as if a burden had been lifted from my heart.
When I went back to the bedroom, my mother’s face had vanished from the ceiling lamp.
Why did God allow me to see my mother’s face? I wondered. Was it so that I could learn to forgive the way God forgives?
Whatever the reason, today I look forward to seeing my mother again in eternity and spending time with her in a loving relationship.