Patrick was raised by a single mum owing to his parents parting ways only seven years after his birth. The mother did all she could to take her child through school. Along the way, there came a man who won her heart over and from this union, Patrick got three other siblings. Unfortunately this father passed on after a few years and now the mother had more mouths to feed.

Being the first child meant Patrick had to step in and help mum to fend for the family. When it called for him to stay home in order for his mother to go earn some bread, he did so gladly, they never lacked and all went through school up to university. With the income earned from her small business and proper planning, the mother was able to save and acquire a piece of land in the city where she eventually built a few rental units. This meant that though her children were in employment she did not depend on them. 

From nowhere, things started changing; the once close knit family was obviously degenerating. The siblings were now fighting and going for days without talking to each other. Then out of the blue, Patrick, the first born who was also his mother’s favourite, suddenly stopped visiting home, he did not look for his siblings on phone either! As years went by he got his own family and as the children grew there was a clear line separating them from their extended family. Friends sought to know what the problem was but there never seemed to be a clear explanation as to why people were behaving weirdly. The church tried to intervene without luck. 

For 10 years, Patrick, who did not live far from his mother, never visited her home neither did his children. Maybe he would have been forgiven if he lived far off but that was not the case, he walked or drove by her home each time he visited from the city, and even when he finally retired and came back home permanently, he did not care to mend fences. Nobody has ever known what happened. But assuming there was something, what could that be that is so grave to separate mother and son for life? What on earth would be so hard to forgive?

When news broke that Patrick’s mother had died I wondered how he was going to mourn her. It was no secret that they were foes; was he going to stand in front of mourners and feign sadness or remorse, for once was he going to reveal what actually went wrong, was he going to be honest about how much he hated her? 

No matter how badly we have been hurt there is nothing as liberating as forgiving and seeking forgiveness. It may seem hard at first but where there’s a will there’s a way. You could have been hurt by a colleague, a friend, a sibling or a parent, please find it in your heart to forgive them and where necessary, seek forgiveness from them too because none of us is a saint. We should not wait until it is too late for forgiveness and reconciliation to take place.