Forget and Forgive : At least forgive for sure

This story has happened in front me since I was a child. I had a friend who was also my neighbor when I was little. Her both parents and grandmother lived in a same house. We used to visit each other pretty often. That's how I know how it happened.

My friend's grandmother had some expectations from her daughter in law, i.e. my friend's mother. I do not know if it was true or not but according to my friend's grandmother, her daughter in law did not fulfill many of her expectations. This cause a deep hurt for grandmother. Not forgiving her daughter in law for her "misdeeds", she never behaved nicely to her. She was always subtly mean to her. My friend's mother was a working mother and needed a lot of support from home like all working moms need. Her grandmother though, did not care about it and instead of supporting, she in fact caused distress to her.

Further, we all grew up and the grandmother turned old. She was suddenly  getting weaker and weaker. After the doctor's examinations, she was diagnosed with the last stage of cancer. Soon she was bed ridden and had a lot of dependency on others even for activities of daily living. Now this time, her daughter in law could not forgive her for her mean behavior towards her in the past and did not support grandmother even a bit. My friend was big enough so she was the one who took care of her grandmother with the help of her father till grandmother's last breath managing her studies and all that teenager stress along with it.

In this whole story, when I look back and try to think about it, I do not see anyone who felt happy about the whole situation. They all suffered in their own ways just because they could not do just a little thing- forgiving!

When I read Mother Teresa's poem which says, "People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.  Forgive them anyway", I first thought forgiving is really good and connects one to the higher frequency, so one should practice forgiving, but as I think deeper, I realize that I do not know about higher frequency but forgiving is definitely necessary for basic peace of mind. Carrying resentment for someone is like taking a slow poison  yourself  and expecting your enemy to die. It does no good to you or any one else. Certain times, the idea that we were treated unfairly comes from our own mind. The reality might be entirely different. The person who you think was unfair might be fighting his/her own battles or might be just unaware of consequences. Having grudges for such people is completely pointless and even harmful for your own mental health and  relationships.  

I am aware that life is not this simple and often there are people who are extremely cruel and can cause serious harms to us. Forgetting these scars and forgiving such people can be really a tough thing to do. In fact in my opinion why to forget such life experiences? Many times we learn the most important life's lessons the hardest possible ways. Instead of forgetting them, we should try and remember what we learnt to save ourselves from future harms. Even then, forgiving shall still be attempted. After all life is like climbing a steep mountain. It has all the beauty offered by the universe on the way as well as many bumpy routes. One can not appreciate it's beauty or overcome obstacles without throwing away the burdens of resentment and hurt deep down in the dumps. So throw that burden away and embrace the brand new life by forgiving.