Despite repeated breaches of trust, Papa found the courage and humility to forgive those who betrayed or hurt him again and again: "I would rather trust and be betrayed, than to live in mistrust." He never tired of preaching forgiveness or pointing out that when people spend their lives harboring grudges, they become crippled by unwittingly binding themselves to the person they cannot forgive. They are imprisoned, yet they refuse to take the key of forgiveness out of their own pocket and unlock the door.
After the service was over, I realized in reviewing my life that I no longer had anything to forgive — no grudges, resentments, memories of pain suffered at the hands of others. When I told my director, she said, "Molly, do you realize what a great grace you've been given?" Well, no, I hadn't, not until she said that, and only as I have reflected on it since. It is a great grace. And it's one that I'm not going to poke around in to try to scare up some lost memory or past injury in order to test its reality.