I'll See Your Apology and Raise You Some Forgiveness

In circle today one of the rounds asked us to share a time when someone had apologized to us. The only things that came into my head were times when I hadn't received an apology where I felt one was deserved on a few big bad things in my life. The question made me feel like giving an example of an apology that meant something to me would somehow diminish the importance of the apologies that I didn't get. This feeling leads me to think and question on two points:

1) Did not acknowledging the apologies I have received diminish their importance? and
2) Do those who have harmed me still have power over me because I have not received an apology?

On the first point, I guess there are lots of small hurts in life that I don't even remember, and probably meaningful apologies have come with a few of those, but I part of me doesn't even remember them. I've moved on. I don't really feel like too many bad things have happened to me that would require grand apologies. And the small ones happen in the course of life. I have no memory for those details in general, so I've probably forgotten many apologies that were important to me at the time.

On the second point, this came as a bit of a shock to me, actually. I was surprised to find how the lack of an apology had left...[searching for the words]...an absence in my life, maybe like a blank space. Just when you think you've moved on from some of these big hurts, when you think someone can't hurt you anymore...I don't know.

There is debate, discussion, around the role of apology and forgiveness. I was caught by something Pumla Cobodo-Madikizela wrote about forgiveness:

the decision to forgive can paradoxically elevate a victim to a position of strength as the one who holds the key to the perpetrator's wish...In this sense, then, forgiveness is a kind of revenge, but revenge enacted at a rarefied level. Forgiving may appear to condone the offense, thus further disempowering the victim. But forgiveness does not overlook the deed: it rises above it. 'This is what it means to be human," it says. "I cannot and will not return the evil you inflicted on me." And that is the victim's triumph.

I like this view. I think it gives victims power. But will there always be a space when no apology is forthcoming?

I don't know, and I don't know if I like that.