Can someone answer my question?
In the movie Moonstruck, Olympia Dukakis’s character, Rose, spends the movie seeking an answer to the question of why her elder husband is having an affair. She suspects it’s rooted in her husband’s fear of death, and her suspicion is confirmed late in the movie by another character’s response. Vindicated and relieved, she exclaims, “THANK YOU! Thank you for answering my question!”
I live with a deep question that festers in the pit of my emotions – How to resolve my anger at my father? And while I have no answer now, I believe it will eventually come. Then I too will exclaim, “THANK YOU FOR ANSWERING MY QUESTION!” even if it is just to myself. In the meantime, I keep searching for that wisdom.
So when I spotted the podcast title — “Evil People Don’t Go To Hell. Here’s What Actually Happens to Them,” — it immediately had my attention.
It was a conversation between Dr. Mayim Bialik and an older woman, a retired Navy commander, who evolved through her meditation practice to become a spiritual teacher and a spirit medium.
I knew of Mayim Bialik as an accomplished actress, including on the popular TV show, “The Big Bang Theory.” She was also a game show host on Jeopardy, is a director, and has a PhD in neuroscience. So, no “lightweight” there.
Still…she was interviewing a “spirit medium?” Yet that medium had been a former Naval Intelligence officer who survived the 911 attack on the Pentagon. No lightweight there, either.
Admittedly, I am not sure what to think about angels, spirit mediums, or the afterlife, and I view hell as something we can be in right here on earth during our life. Yet there is that line from Shakespeare – “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” – a reminder that just because we don’t understand something right now, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
So given my deep question, I am always interested in hearing anyone’s thoughts on the subject of “what happens to people after they die,” even if from a spirit medium. And especially, if they are discussing what happens after death to those who did evil things during their life.”
I did not curse my father on his death bed, nor do I curse him now and have no wish to. I can’t say I pray FOR him, but, I don’t ask God to exclude him. I just leave him to God. But I am rightfully ENRAGED at him for what he did to me, what he took from me…and what he did to my mother.
As I’ve gone through my years of therapy, I had to first rebuild and learn how to live. And before Mom’s decline and death, I was not yet in touch with all my trapped emotions. They were still pretty locked down and flat. That was especially needed all the years Dad was alive, so that I could either fight him or help care for him as he grew fragile with dementia and cancer. But now, I need answers to my questions.
Regarding my feelings about my father, I know I refuse to stuff down my anger anymore. That genie is out of the bottle, as it should be. You can’t make peace with something you refuse to release or face. At the same time, I have no wish to stoke the fires of hatred with bitterness. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life ruled by anger or hate. But I also have to be honest and admit to what I feel right now. Healing cannot be forced. And it does not take place on the intellectual level. It is most definitely an “affair of the heart.”
I read, constantly, about the nature of justice and forgiveness, thoughts by everyone from psychologists to Concentration Camp survivors to spiritual leaders. The subject of forgiveness is especially complicated for me yet. I don’t want to hear those trite and common platitudes about “forgiveness helps me” or “holding anger only hurts me.” They ring hollow and are like a slap in the face.
Right now, what I know I need is to feel that fury, hold it with compassion, let it run its own course, carefully, and organically. I have to process it, write it, and see where the path takes me. As it’s been said – you change as you write. You go back to the past to reframe your present, which changes your future. And in that future, I would like to reach a place of peace… or peaceful indifference…where he is concerned.
Given all of this, I am always open to anyone’s wisdom on these topics. And it doesn’t matter where the wisdom comes from — religion, ancient philosophy, a movie line, a song lyric, or… a spirit medium.
The medium’s thoughts
In the podcast, the medium refuted the idea that “hell” was a place of eternal punishment. She explained that this idea comes from humans seeking to satisfy their desire for vengeance or justice. Instead, she felt hell was a state of consciousness. So far, I agreed with her.
Even more interesting to me was her explanation that the souls go into a state where they are shown exactly how their life’s deeds affected others, AND that they had to go through a stage of fully feeling that pain that they caused. Their work was to realize, and to learn. She added that those who inflicted large harm or did heinous things were not allowed to roam freely, or sometimes even speak. They were instead accompanied by loving beings whose job was to help these spirits accept responsibility for the harm they did and to seek ways to heal it. It was all about an approach of compassionate and loving correction, not punishment. Those loving beings understood that the harm done by those spirits was due to their own pain because “hurt people, hurt people.” Again, I found this description an interesting and possibly reasonable idea.
Ed’s gentle observations….and my fury
While there have been times I wished that Dad’s punishment was to be reincarnated in a new life as a woman married to a man like him, I never actually wanted that. That was wishing for a whole new generation of abuse, which even in my rage I knew was not the answer.
My husband picked up on the “hurt people, hurt people,” comment. He noted that if he stepped back and looked at my father, of course my father was a hurt person.
Intellectually, I hear it. And I get it. But something in me immediately flared, and I exploded:
“I don’t care if he was in pain! And I KNOW from things he said that he was harmed. But you know what? I don’t CARE! I was harmed too, and I didn’t abuse anyone! He took NO responsibility for his actions but blamed everyone else around him! He worked so hard in life professionally to be a success and overcome his problems. But where it counted the most – his family – HE WOULDN’T GET HELP!!!! I BEGGED HIM…GAVE HIM CHANCES!!!! HE WOULDN’T DO IT! AND HE KNEW IT!! HE ADMITTED IT TO ME DURING THAT NOVA SCOTIA TRIP IN MY 20s!”
I was furious. It flared instantaneously from a small spark to an inferno, like when a match hits dry straw.
Ed looked at me calmly. “I don’t think he could do it. He was so empty inside, so self-loathing, I don’t think he could face what he was.”
“I don’t CARE!! He played the victim. But as an adult, he had the chance to fix it. To do something about it. To take RESPONSIBILITY for himself!!!! But what did he do?! NOTHING!! Just kept on taking for himself and his own gratification!!!!!”
I suddenly felt like this was some mental masturbation, an intellectual logic exercise. See it with compassion, instead of what it was….my father’s absolute cowardice and unwillingness to seek help. It felt like giving him a pass.
Ed noted how quickly I flamed into rage and hate.
I felt judged and got angrier. “I know I do! And I have every right to!”
Yet even as I proclaimed that, and believed it, I also knew deep down that he was right, and that I didn’t really want to react that way.
Gently, he said, “Understand that I am not judging you. I am making an observation. You absolutely DO have every right to be angry. I was simply noting that someone like your father HAD to be totally empty and in pain to do the things he did to you. And I know that when you encounter people like him in life, you go right to fury and hate.”
When he said that, I immediately thought back to a podcast I’d seen a couple of days ago. The man being interviewed had endured tremendous abuse when he was a child. The person interviewing him made a mention of how a particular child could be taken advantage of in a certain situation. The interviewer didn’t say the child WAS taken advantage of, just a hypothetical example. But this podcast guest instantly flared into a furious response…then realized his hasty mistake and regretted it.
I know that response. When I hear of anyone being treated unfairly – friend, husband, stranger – I immediately want to take on the world and fight the injustice of it all. I want to both protect them and demolish the offending party. I know it. And I don’t deny it.
And I come back to – at least right now, I have every right to rage at my father and what he did and what he took.
What I actually want
But…Do I REALLY want to live this way, with a hair-trigger response of “Fight to the death right now,” over anything I see wrong in the world?
For one, I would drive myself crazy. The world is FULL of things that are wrong. I cannot fight them all. Nor should I. It’s not my life’s purpose.
Second, the world is full of people doing amazing and loving things…and when I am drowning in anger, I miss that. And last – do I want to spend the rest of my life fighting “proxy battles” with everyone because I never got to fight the full-blown fair fight with my father, adult to adult? By the time I was strong enough for that, he was frail and sick. And there was no way I would fight someone weaker than me. That would have made me just like him, and I wasn’t going to do it.
But in my fantasies – I wished for a chance to have my adult meet 31-year-old Richard Phillip and tell him, “Okay, big man, bring it on now! Let’s see how brave you are when faced with an adult!” I know it’s a useless waste of time and psychic energy. I’m not proud of it. And while I can’t deny wishing for that moment, I also know in my heart…I don’t really want it.
Deep down, I know that wishing for a vengeance-fight isn’t who I am. Yet the unvarnished truth, the one Ed gently observes, is that I am doing just that when I hold the fury toward him…or the world.
But there is hope.
I also know emotions are not “realities,” and they are not cast in concrete. They change. And I change. I have already changed as I write this book. And I know that if I keep writing, doing my therapy, and facing my truths, I will continue to change. And so will my rage. I have total trust in that.
In fact, faith in my ability to change is one of the driving forces behind my continuing to write this story. I continue to slog through my own personal swamp because I know I will eventually end up somewhere else, somewhere better.
I am eager to see who I will be by the end of this book as I “write through my rage.” I know there is a peaceful person under this fury. So I will keep on writing…
Up next
Now, having marked where I am right at this moment, I will go back to 2018-2019 and write my way forward through rage and nightmares, and EMDR breakthroughs… to an understanding of just what is operating under the fury, so I can grow.
Note:
I am seeking financial support to complete my memoir, work with an editor, and make a visit to my home state for fact-checking. Your help would mean the world to me as I take this step toward healing and giving voice to my journey.
Please like, comment, and share this post to help spread the word. The link for my fundraiser is on GoFundMe. Thank you for your support.
Soul Mosaic 
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