If Only My Parents Had Known God — Forgiveness, suicide, and the Light of Christ

At eight years old, I stood in a small, dimly lit room with my father and grandfather. A soft yellow light shone over my mother, who had just taken her own life. That room has never left me—it lives deep within my soul.

My father was only twenty-eight. He had made a grave mitake. Eight years later, what became my mother’s final, tragic act was also, perhaps, her inability to forgive him. That final lack of forgiveness cost us our mother.

My heart goes out to all the beautiful souls in this world who, despite their failures, find the strength to get back up, face the pain they’ve caused, and ask to be forgiven. And to those who have been hurt by others but still choose to forgive—I see you. I pray for you. I walk beside you.

To my mother and father, to my family and friends, to those I have let down—I carry a room for each of you in my heart. Even for those who can’t ask for forgiveness—or can’t give it—there is a place. A sacred space where the cold clarity of this world begins to thaw in the presence of Christ.

Because above all, there is God. Through Jesus, we are shown a whole new way to live—with each other, for each other—if we first live in Him. Peace and victory in Jesus are near to every soul. No one should ever give up on life, or on one another, no matter how heavy the burden may feel.

Getting to know the Gospel—getting to know Jesus—opens a colossal door for those in deepest need. If only they’d give Him a chance. If only they’d open that door.

Just as the planets revolve around the sun in perfect harmony, so too can we, as God’s children, learn to live in the light—rotating around Jesus, the true Son, the radiant ray of God.

A Garden, a Grandpa, and Grace

One beautiful spring Sunday morning in rural Sacramento, I was heading to the Mormon Church with my grandmother and brother. I went to find my grandpa—my anchor—to ask him why he wasn’t coming with us.

He was important to me. Not just because he spoke to me when others didn’t, or shared peanuts with me while staring at the stars, but because he and I stood in that room. I remember him putting his arm around me and telling me it was okay to cry. He was crying. My father didn’t say much—what could he say? But even in silence, he was there. And he was welcome.

Sometime after my mother’s death, I found my grandfather in his garden and asked why he didn’t go to church. He replied, “I’m just not good enough, Richy.”

I was stunned. If he wasn’t good enough, then neither was I. So I stopped going. That garden became my church. And my father's love—shining down from heaven—reached me through that man’s tender presence.

When I was sixteen, my grandfather had a stroke. A week later, he asked me to help him into the garden. He pulled just one weed. Then we staggered back to the house. The next day, he was gone.

The Room, the Cross, and Coming Home

Thirty-two years and many struggles later, my new Catholic faith brought me back to that same room where my mother had laid. Over the years, I’ve come to understand: we won’t find a home, a church, or a place on this earth that protects us from sin. The Church is not a sanctuary from imperfection—it is a battlefield. At its core stands the Great Physician. At its heart is forgiveness.

In that room with the soft yellow light—where pain seemed to swallow peace—I’ve come to know true peace.

Because from that room, there is a hallway. It leads to the heart of every home, to the soul of every person. And in that room stands a cross. Our Savior.

At the foot of that cross, you want to bring everyone you've ever loved—or hated. Everyone you've hurt, and who has hurt you. You want to gather them all at the feet of Jesus and take a long, honest look at what He has done—and is still doing—for each of us.

The cross divides heaven and earth. On one side, a crucified Savior pierced by a beam of soft yellow light—a path of hope for the lost. On the other side, the brilliant light of God, exposing the pit from which we are saved.

Original Sin, Original Blessing
Reflection by Fr. Henri J.M. Nouwen

Somehow, original sin—that deep inner anguish and brokenness even beyond our own doing—can become the very place where we encounter our original blessing.

Somehow, our broken father, our limited mother, our neurotic brother, our confused sister, and our own inner struggles give birth to a hunger for something beyond the pain. "My soul is restless," St. Augustine writes, "until it rests in You, O Lord."

When we begin to know God’s intimacy, and to accept others—and ourselves—as we are, we begin to speak of "happy guilt" or "happy brokenness." Our struggles become the very path to truth, to light, to life.

How could we ever become children of God—embraced by the love of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—if God had not shown us compassion in our very brokenness?

It is through Jesus’ incarnation that we learn of God’s inner life. And it is in our fragile, mortal flesh that God's original blessing is revealed.