How to forgive a father if he committed a crime?
“My father killed a man and is serving time. I don’t want to know anything about him, and at the same time, my hand does not rise to throw away the letters that he writes to me … “
Svetlana, 19 years
Ekaterina Mikhailova, Leading Fellow of the Institute of Group and Family Psychotherapy
“It is difficult for you, Sveta, very difficult. And it’s good that you didn’t throw away your father’s letters, even though you don’t read them. You are torn apart by an internal conflict: an understandable human horror before a crime, prudent and deliberate, and a desire to see a human in your father. You do not want “this person” to have anything to do with you – and at the same time you cannot completely refuse, renounce him. And believe me, this is good for you and for your future children. There are probably no words of support and consolation that could cover everything that you have experienced – but survived! – and you can even talk about it. This load is no longer so unbearable, the soul hurts, but it works. Any clan, any family consists of more than just the righteous. Someone forgave, and someone cruelly took revenge. Someone shared the latter, and someone let their own relatives around the world. And they saved, and destroyed, and prayed, and wrote denunciations, and they refused parents, and children … Sometimes the same people did the beautiful and the terrible, and nothing can be done about it. You are tormented by the fact that you cannot yet decide what is worse and more painful for you, what is the greater evil – the complete renunciation of your father or the recognition that that beloved dad and this one, in the zone, are one face, one soul. I also know for sure: family secrets in themselves can cause trouble. They say that everything that is hushed up in the first generation, the second one wears in its body. And maybe just your torments and doubts lead you to the right choice for you when there is peace in your soul. I wish you this with all my heart.”