Is she dead?

 Yes, she is dead.                                                                                                                 

       Did you forgive her?

 No, I didn’t forgive her.                                                                                                   

      Did she forgive you?

No, she didn’t forgive me.                                                                                               

     What did you have to forgive?

She was never mean, or willfully
cruel, or unloving.

When I was eleven, she converted to Christ—

she began to simplify her life, denied
herself, and said that she and I must struggle

“to divest ourselves
of the love of CREATED BEINGS,”—

and to help me to do that,

one day

         she hanged my cat.

I came home from school, and in the doorway
of my room,

my cat was hanging strangled.

She was in the bathroom; I could hear
the water running.

— I shouted at her;

                           she wouldn’t

come out.

                   She was in there
for hours, with the water running . . .

Finally, late that night,
she unlocked the door.

                                    She wouldn’t look at me.

She said that we must learn to rest
in the LORD,—

and not in His CREATION . . .

            Did you forgive her?

Soon, she had a breakdown;
when she got out of the hospital.

she was SORRY . . .

For years she dreamed the cat
had dug
its claws into her thumbs:—

in the dream, she knew, somehow,
that it was dying; she tried

to help it,—

                      TO PUT IT OUT OF ITS MISERY, -

so she had her hands around its
neck, strangling it . . .

              Bewildered,

it looked at her,

                        KNOWING SHE LOVED IT—;

and she DID love it, which was
what was
                  so awful . . .

All it could do was
hold on,—
                   . . . AS
SHE HELD ON.

Did you forgive her?

I was the center of her life,—
and therefore,
of her fears and obsessions. They changed;

one was money.

. . . DO I HAVE TO GO INTO IT?

        Did you forgive her?

Standing next to her coffin, looking down
at her body, I suddenly
knew I hadn’t—;

over and over

I said to her,

I didn’t forgive you!
I didn’t forgive you!

I did love her . . . Otherwise,

would I feel so guilty?

What did she have to forgive?

She was SORRY. She tried
to change . . .

She loved me. She was generous.

I pretended
that I had forgiven her—;

                                      and she pretended
to believe it,—

she needed desperately to believe it . . .

SHE KNEW I COULD BARELY STAND TO BE AROUND HER.

Did you forgive her?

I tried—;
                     for years I almost
convinced myself I did . . .

But no, I didn’t.

—Now, after I have said it all, so I can
rest,

will you give me ABSOLUTION,—

. . . and grant this
                                      “created being”

FORGIVENESS? . . .

             Did she forgive you?

I think she tried—;
                                          but no,—
she couldn’t forgive me . . .

WHY COULDN’T SHE FORGIVE ME?

Don’t you understand even now?

No! Not—not really . . .

Forgiveness doesn’t exist.