This One Thing Can Transform Your Life

And Heal Our Most Significant Heartbreaks

I was desperate for answers. She was the only one who could know how I felt. “How did you keep going? How did you find the strength?”

Those were the questions I asked my Aunt Carmen; I was kneeling next to her bed, which was now in a room just off her kitchen in the family home in Colt’s Neck, New Jersey. She was dying of cancer.

You never picture yourself having to feed your children after a certain age.

I never imagined having to potty train my son a second time in his life or teach him to talk and walk again.

I’m guessing my Aunt Carm never thought she would have to change her child’s diaper as an adult or bathe my cousin Sandra, still from eighteen to forty years of age.

I traveled East to visit friends in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut for the Thanksgiving holiday in 2008. While the timing of the visit appeared to work out, I felt anxious in the days leading up to it my travels. A couple of months earlier, my Aunt had been diagnosed with cancer.

In the few short months since the diagnosis, my Aunt’s body became riddled with cancer. The two weeks before I visited, things had gotten much worse. Yet everyone was still hopeful that there would be a miracle.

I desperately wanted to see her. We both had children who were neurologically devastated by a Traumatic Brain Injury due to a car collision. The two of us belonged to a club that neither wanted to be a part of.

It was the beginning of the fourth year of caring for my son. My Aunt Carm was in her twenty-sixth year caring for her daughter Sandra.

Josh was hurt at the age of three years and eight months. Sandra was eighteen at the time of her injury. Just one month after graduation from high school.

Regardless, she did it. And she did it with a grace and smile that many days would be difficult at best to conjure up.

Josh’s injury was devastating, for sure. He will never be the same and will always need somebody to help him live life.

My cousin Sandra’s condition was far worse. Arguably bad enough that anybody in that same condition would have been taken to a long-term care facility for good and never gone home.

That wasn’t going to happen on my Aunt Carm’s watch. She wouldn’t hear of it. Sandra went home with my Aunt when she left the hospital, and my Aunt spent the next twenty-six years of her life caring for Sandra 24/7.

Aunt Carm prayed over Sandra every day. Feeding her, talking to her, and putting her in the adaptive van she and my Uncle Sam fought the insurance company for so my Aunt could take Sandra everywhere with her. Whether the grocery store or to Ohio to see family.

We had many conversations over the three years since Josh was injured. Some technical about brain injuries and others about putting one foot in front of the other

This conversation was going to be different. I would tell Aunt Carm what I dared not share with anyone else.

I was scared.

I was scared for my son’s future, and I was scared for mine. I didn’t know how to get through this. I was uncertain if I could do it myself.

I spent part of two days in Colt’s Neck at my Aunt’s house. Usually, we were packed together in the kitchen with cousins, their children, my mother, and my Aunt Carol, my Aunt Carm’s twin sister. The fourth sister, my Aunt Norma, couldn’t be there that week.

The kitchen was always the gathering place in all of our homes. Four full-blooded Italian sisters who are all fantastic cook’s taught you never to be too far from it. The tantalizing aromas drew you in, and then the food and conversations kept you from leaving. That’s where all the action was.

While my cousin Sam sliced fresh fennel to be sautéed (yes, we men cook, too), I took a moment while there was lots of activity around the table to see my Aunt. Somebody had come out and said she was awake.

As I walked into the room, she looked over, smiled, and quietly said, “Ohhhh, Mark… it’s so good to see you.” I said, “Hi, Aunt Carm.”

As I walked towards the chair next to the bed, my body filled with emotion. In those few short steps, all that emotion found its way into my chest.

By the time I sat in the chair next to her bed, I could hardly get another word out for fear of falling apart. The thought that this would likely be the last time I saw her alive weighed heavy on me.

I leaned forward and rested my hands on the bed so I could get closer and she wouldn’t have to speak too loudly. She was already weak. My Aunt could see I was having a hard time, and she reached for my hands.

Always the giver. Always the comforter. She tried to make our visit easy on me, yet she was the one dying.

We made small talk. Doctor questions, Cancer Questions. Pain questions. There were also pauses where we were silent. Sometimes there’s not much you can say.

Finally, I asked her what I wanted to know.

“How did you do it, Aunt Carm?” How did you do it all these years?” How did you keep going?” “I don’t know if I can do this!”

There was a pause, and then she responded, “You must forgive Mark. You have to forgive everybody for everything. It’s the only way we can go on. It’s the only way you can live. And you have to keep forgiving. You can never stop. There’s no other way that I know of.”

I didn’t know how to respond. I thought the answer would be something else. Something different.

I said to her, “That’s what you did? That’s how you have gotten through this?”

She said, “Yes.”

We visited for a few minutes more, but she was tired, and I had to get to the airport for my return flight.

I told her I loved her and hoped she would get better soon. I also told her that I would miss her. I leaned in and gave her a hug and a kiss.

She smiled, told me she loved me, and closed her eyes to rest. I turned around to leave but paused at the doorway to get one last look and wipe the tears from my eyes.

On the flight home, I pondered her answer, as it still didn’t quite fit. Then something dawned on me. I asked her how to get through this thing with a brain-injured son, and she answered a different question for me. She was telling me how to get through life. And the key was forgiveness.

My Aunt Carmen could have said so many things that day, but she only left me with those few words.

Forgive everybody.

Forgive everything.

Keep forgiving.

Never stop.

This thought. Forgiveness. The act of Forgiveness transformed my life. Not only in an instant once I understood it but in an ongoing and daily effort. Like so many things in life, forgiveness is too big a concept to absorb in a moment or a day.

I’ve tried to honor that wisdom. And I’ve been successful. To a degree. But unfortunately, I have also fallen short — many times.

Various reasons for that. Self-righteousness in my condemnation of another’s behavior toward me. Perceived misdeeds by others to me. Other times, I pushed aside forgiveness in favor of bitterness or because I felt justified in my anger. The unforgiveness kept me in bondage regardless of why I didn’t do it.

My Aunt Carmen took her advice very seriously. That was how she could bear the pressure and the heartbreak of seeing her daughter severely injured. It was how Aunt Carm could continue to believe that Sandra would heal miraculously someday. It was how she could keep that beautiful smile on her face her whole life.

You’ve likely heard it before; “Forgiveness is a gift you give to yourself.”

Do what my Aunt Carmen did.

Do what she told me to do.

Forgive. Then keep forgiving.

Keep the Faith. Love Wins.

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