FORGIVE AND BE FREE

THE 14th Dalai Lama arrived in Ireland for his first visit in 20 years last month.
The 76-year-old exiled Tibetan leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who fled his country in 1959 spoke on universal responsibility and the individual's responsibility to take action for change at sold out events in Dublin, Kildare and Limerick.

One of the underlying themes was on forgiving those who had hurt us. Sitting in the audience was heartbroken Tyrone Gaelic football manager Mickey Harte whose daughter, Michaela McAreavey, 27, was found strangled in her hotel room. She had been on honeymoon on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius.

Judging from the responses from the audience, I could see that no one was spared the agony of carrying grievances, both recent and long past.
Of late, I have decided to take advantage of the sunny weather to plant potatoes. I have the privilege of having strong arms to plough and break up the topsoil.

All I had to do was to arrange potatoes at selected distances from each other.

As the tubers grew, I had to top up the soil until the potatoes were ready for harvesting. If I did not do that the potatoes would not reach optimum growth and would be choked by weeds before they could be harvested for the cooking pot.

Using this potato planting allegory, we have to consciously invest time and energy to see dreams come true. However, many of us are also unconsciously caught up in an intricate web of grievances and nursing them when we continue to playback hurtful memories with dogged insistence.

Just like adding more top soil to the potato tubers, we feed our wounds and increase the pain.

If we can harvest potatoes, we can also pull out the hurt by the roots so that it grows no more.

I was in Derry in Northern Ireland recently and saw first hand the impact of pain and hurt.

A certain enclave still stands with the words "We will not surrender" and the Bogside murals testify to the atrocities of war.

There is one mural named "The Death of Innocence", which commemorates the death of 14-year-old Annette McGavigan who was the 100th victim of the Troubles in Northern Ireland and one of the first children to be killed.

The little coloured stones at the foot of the mural are the objects she was collecting for a school project when she was shot.

As in many wars, the innocent are caught in between just like the Malay proverb Gajah sama gajah berjuang, pelanduk mati di tengah-tengah (When elephants fight, mousedeer die in the middle).

Forgiveness is the first step towards taking action for change, though it is easier said than done.

Being human, forgiving someone who has wronged us is like physically removing a mountain with our bare hands.

When we cannot forgive, it is us who suffer, not the perpetrator. Paradoxical but true.

Yet, when we will ourselves to forgive a person, the release is immense. We can actually feel the shackles falling off, the same shackles that have kept us captive for so long and we wonder why we had not forgiven sooner.

Some say wounds will heal but scars remain to remind.

I think true freedom comes when you see the scar but you no longer feel any animosity towards the person who hurt you in the first place.

A beautiful example is Richard Moore, who was blinded when he was 10 years old in Derry in 1972.

Charles Innes, a British soldier, had fired a rubber bullet at point blank range into his face.

Moore said: "You can take away my sight, but you cannot take away my vision, which is to help impoverished children all over the world."

Moore went on to found Children in Crossfire, an Irish-based international development charity, which envisages a world where every child can realise his rights.

In fact, the Dalai Lama's visit to Ireland was on the personal invitation of Moore.

Innes was also in the audience and Moore had forgiven him.

CHALLENGING JOURNEY OF MOTHERHOOD

Today is Mother’s Day and as we see the shops decorated with gifts we can buy for our mothers, we think of the mothers that we have and the mothers that we are or will be.

What is so often synonymous with the word ‘mother’ are the words ‘comfort, love and sacrifice’. It is not uncommon to see a mother placing her child’s welfare and interests above herself. She gives the best part of her time and her life to her child.

My mother would make sure that there were hot meals on the table. My pleated school uniform was always neatly ironed and my hair plaited. When I was not feeling well, she would walk a mile to my school during break time so I could take the medicine or the herbal concoction. When I had an upcoming Mandarin test, she would be the examiner, making sure I had a few trial sessions at home before the test. There were so many of us with different personalities but she was exemplary to all of us. She was the one person who was always there for us and never betrayed us.

Now that I am a mother myself, I am still learning to be like her. Whether we like it or not, motherhood is a daily learning process. There is no perfect mother and the lessons never end. Every child is unique and just when you think you have learnt how to handle the child, along comes his brother or sister who is completely different in make-up. I am talking of biological children, step children and adopted children.

Cross cultural adoption made famous by the likes of Angelina Jolie and Madonna has its fair share of trials. I went to see the Chinese State Circus at the Limerick University Concert Hall recently and was pleasantly surprised to see Chinese children with Irish parents sitting in the audience. The children bought popcorn, coke and circus paraphernalia like dancing paper dragons and plastic plates that swivel on sticks. Dressed in their smart little coats, they spoke English with an Irish accent. Looking at the faces of both parents and children, I could see that love, respect and understanding were the pillars behind that union. The Dooleys of Kilkenny were one of such and they had brought their daughter Ruth to the circus to help her understand her roots. I thought that it was a great initiative to bond with their child.

Most mothers worry. When children are studying in a different state or country, we wonder whether they are alright and we constantly pray to God to watch over them, to give them wisdom and to protect them. There will come a time when the children will grow up and leave the nest. Even if the child gets married, he is still a child to the mother. Such is the mother’s heart.

Many mothers can share how their hearts bleed when the children snap at them or are disrespectful. Take the story of Peter Rabbit for example.

When Peter Rabbit disobeyed his mother and entered Mr McGregor’s farm, he ended up hiding in a watering can full of water and caught a cold. When he got home, his mother put him to bed after a dose of camomile tea while his siblings had bread, milk and blackberries for supper. I thought Beatrix Potter had captured ever so beautifully the picture of how a loving mother handled an errant son.

Discipline is one of the hardest tasks of a parent and no child should be left to do whatever he wants. It is much easier to say ‘wait till your father gets home’ but many times the mother is the one left with the enviable task of disciplining the child for the obvious reason that the child misbehaves at no specific time and delayed punishment may lose its impact.

It is hard to watch your child leave for days on end when he does not heed correction but it is important that the mother’s pain and his future is not intertwined. Even as my friend tells me she is still waiting for her son to talk to her, I can feel her heartache. But patience is her fortitude as she waits for the prodigal son to return home.

Motherhood is a journey. Even when we become grandmothers, the challenge not to interfere with the upbringing of the little one is very real.