Not dwelling on mistakes

Aunt Ettie and me












People who love one another do not dwell on each other's mistakes. Kenya (Gikuyu)

Dear Zayda,

Your great-grandaunt, my Aunt Ettie, was born on this day in 1904. She lived fully till she was 96 years old. To me, she is an example of someone who did not dwell on mistakes whether made by others or by herself. So she freed herself to love others, and to enjoy life.

She loved to travel, and I learned a lot from the way she responded to when things (that most of us would call ‘bad’) happened to her on her trips. For example, once when she went to Miami, a hit-and-run driver hit her down. The accident left her with a fractured pelvis, and she had to remain with a relative in Miami till she was well enough to return to Jamaica.

Well, if I were waiting to hear Aunt Ettie complain, I would be still waiting. Did she have bad things to say about the driver who injured her? Never. Did she blame herself and decide to stop traveling? No. Did she tell herself that continuing to go on trips at her age (she was then in her eighties) was a mistake? Not at all.

Aunt Ettie loved herself too well to spend time blaming anyone. She just focused on getting better as quickly as she could. She was too upbeat for anyone to even whisper to her that bones of older persons didn’t heal quickly if at all. Her one concern was not seeming like an invalid. So she was relieved that the plane bringing her from Miami arrived at night so no one she knew could see her leave the plane in a stretcher. She always wanted to stand on her own feet.

When she was recovering, Aunt Ettie’s only talk was of the progress she made. So we had a celebration when she could move her toes and when she could bend her knees. The day she made it to the dining table was like Christmas Day for her. The accident took place in September, and by early November, Aunt Ettie was well enough to return to her own home. She lived by herself in a townhouse with stairs to climb, but she tackled those seeming obstacles with the courage that marked her life.

You many find, Zayda, that today many people go to all lengths to pick out and dwell on other persons' mistakes. What that hit-and-run driver did may have gone beyond just a ‘mistake’. The police could have charged him with a crime. At times, people also treat it as a crime if someone doesn’t say a word correctly, or cooks a meal that is not tasty, or wears a colour that is not in fashion. If people are looking for mistakes, they will find them. One of the main reasons is that we are only truly living when we make mistakes. That’s how we learn and grow. Just the same way as you are going to fall down a lot of times before you learn how to balance yourself on your legs.

Aunt Ettie showed how useless it is to blame others, even when bad things happen. Picking on others for their mistakes will make us unhappy. Picking on ourselves for our mistakes will make us even more unhappy. And who wants to be around unhappy people, except for other unhappy people?

So let us love ourselves just as we are, and love others just as they are. Perhaps then, as with Aunt Ettie, how we treat mistakes can make us bless the lives of all who can see us as love in action.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

To Zayda from her Shangazi - freedom to love

Child & Family
Letter to Zayda born April 30, 2010
If I have decided to love somebody, I oblige myself to be patient with him/her. (Tanzania)




Dear Zayda,

I want you to know that I will love you the same tomorrow as I do today. That is so much easier to say than to do, because today you are tiny and vulnerable, lying down where your mom and dad put you, and asking only to be fed and kept clean and dry. You never have to ask for hugs, you never need to wonder whether everybody around loves you and cares for you.

I want you to know that I will love you when you are when you give back chat, when you are sure you know much more about life than I do, when you have decided the thing you most want to do is the thing I least want you to do. I want to show you that no one has to earn love. No one has to be cute enough or bright enough, or obedient enough, or dutiful enough, or rich enough to be loved. Love is. Love is.

In lots of families, the bright and famous ones are talked about and boasted about. But people like my cousin Roy (not his real name) is the invisible person in our family. He is the one you won’t find at family gatherings, or in family photos. Hardly anyone will call him on his birthday, check to see how he is doing, drop his name in conversation (“My cousin Barry says…) or make sure to contact him at Christmas. On his rare appearances, like at the funeral of a parent or a sibling, relatives disappear after a quick greeting and a glance around to see who saw them talk to Roy.

I don’t use his real name because I don’t want to cause him any further hurt or pain. But I want you to grow up loving even those whom people decide are not worthy of love. That, Zayda, is the only way you can truly love yourself with all your imperfections. We all come with imperfections, even though they may take a while to show up. And admitting and overcoming those imperfections makes us as perfect as we are ever going to be.

Roy may think he is alone, but he is not. He is just one of thousands of gay men whose families reject them. About seventy years ago he was a cute baby too. He could vomit and shit all he wanted, keep his parents awake all night as a baby or smash chinaware as a toddler, and he was still precious. Family members might have sympathized with him if, as an adult, he was a drunk, a thief, a woman-beater or even a murderer. But not gay.

Roy didn’t choose to be gay. No one says, “Shall I fall in love with men or women?” If they did, then no one would be gay in Jamaica unless the person was crazy or suicidal. Roy didn’t choose to have his family treat him as if he didn’t exist. I don’t think he left Jamaica because he wanted to, and I don’t think he stays away because he wants to either.

He migrated to Florida in the late sixties or early seventies. The parents of a loving cousin (we discovered each other recently on Facebook)see him sometimes. My cousin wants to meet Roy. She wants to reassure him that he has committed no crime by being who he is, and by loving whichever consenting adult he is minded to love. But Roy may by now have built a wall of anger and resentment to protect him against those who hate him for the way he was created. And who would blame him. My cousin’s parents give different reasons why they have not yet arranged for her to meet Roy. But my cousin and I love Roy, no matter if he thinks he has had all the rejection he can deal with in this lifetime, and won’t risk any more.

So I promise to love you always just as I do today. I want you to feel sufficiently loved that you never run away from love. I want to love you enough that I remind myself to love those whose failings I don't want to see because they remind me of my own. So loving you helps me love myself better, just as I am, just as I was created. We will love each other, Zayda, no matter what we look like, act like, or think like. And no matter whom we decide to love or sleep with.

With unconditional love,

Your shangazi