As participants were faced with the impending death of their loved ones, many spoke
(and sometimes the courage) to do so in an explicit way. For Sarah, Heather, and Jack, death made them confront a conflict that happened many years ago – even decades. These conflicts were either never confronted before, or at least were never resolved. Simon and Pearl, while having explicit communication about forgiveness during EOL, either didn’t forgive (Pearl) or felt that forgiveness was unnecessary (Simon). This pattern of how people communicated during EOL will also highlight the contrast between explicit and implicit ways of communicating, as participants also described how forgiveness – and other positive messages – were communicated implicitly at times. As Keeley and Yingling (2007) state, “a long-time intimate couple are so familiar with each other than they can frame their love messages to be easily received and understood” (p. 14).
In Sarah’s (FP_2) case, for most of her life – more than 25 years – she and her brother
never once spoke about what he did to her, until her brother was on his deathbed. Their story highlights how death can function as a context for explicit communication about forgiveness. As Sarah explained, she was “compelled [to confront him] because of the situation. Because I saw
him actually dying before my eyes.”Sarah said that when faced with death, “it’s important to be
real,” and that her brother’s death encouraged her “more and more to be real and honest with people. Not like to argue, but to just get shit, get stuff out in the open you know, hash it out.” Sarah directly brought up the past to her brother a few days before he died, and his initial
reaction to her confrontation was to cry and not give any verbal response. However, the next day, he asked for forgiveness directly and explicitly. Sarah recalled: “He asked directly. He said, he didn’t ask, I remember his exact words at some point, at some point he said, ‘I hope you can forgive me, but I can’t expect it.’”
him (or anyone in her family) to explicitly say certain words like “‘I’m sorry” or “Will you forgive me?” She said: “That’s just not, it’s not really the way we talk to each other. We usually say things implicitly, whether it’s affection or apology or conflict.” But when her brother
explicitly asked for her forgiveness, she explicitly granted forgiveness, saying: “I told him that of course I forgive him.” After avoiding this topic her whole life, her brother’s nearing death
catalyzed direct communication about it, and ultimately, she was able to forgive her brother, and noted the significance of explicit forgiveness-communication as a sign of genuine remorse.
Heather (FP_1) and her mother also explicitly spoke about forgiveness more than 20
years after their relational issue occurred. She said they both wanted “to just be out in the open and breathe this sigh of relief, and stop ignoring the elephant in the room.” When she sat with her dying mother during a chemotherapy session, Heather directly confronted the topic of the past, and of forgiveness. She recalled her mother’s response: “I remember what she looked like, she looked at me and said, ‘Sweetheart, tell me what you think and feel about it’…she was so open and allowed me to just pour myself out.” For Heather and her mother, what seemed to really work was the way they both explicitly asked each other how they felt, and invited the other to speak. When they finally gave each other permission to talk about the past, they were able to also express forgiveness. As Keeley and Yingling (2007) argue, EOL conversations are critical
because they can facilitate the communication through which forgiveness and reconciliation may be enacted.
Interestingly, though they were very open and explicit about their past conflict, Heather
said that forgiveness itself was communicated in a more implicit way, though she knows now and knew for certain at the time that “forgiveness happened.” She explained:
I don’t remember ever saying the words, “Will you forgive me?” It’s almost like, that’s not part of...our human language, really, right? So that’s why I’m trying to figure out-
people obviously communicate that, without actually saying the words “Please forgive me.” Like, who does that? “Please forgive me!” Who does that?
As is evident from Heather’s experience, forgiveness is often communicated and understood implicitly, even in the absence of such explicit statements as “I forgive you.” As Heather stated, “it was there, but not in so many words.”
Jack (MP_3) and his father also spoke explicitly about conflict and forgiveness at the end
of his father’s life – a way of communication that was very different than usual for them. Jack described the conversation as a “special moment” that happened while he was helping his father get comfortable in his hospital bed, just days before he passed. He recalled and emphasized his
father’s “exact words:” “He looked at me and he reached over and grabbed my hand and he said,
‘Jack, I don't know how to say I'm sorry, but I am.’” Jack initially reacted by explicitly telling his father that “he didn’t need to apologize,” because he didn’t want his father to feel guilty or
stressed. Nonetheless, his father insisted, asking Jack to “forgive him, for everything.” Jack summarized his father’s explicit communication:
I was just such an ass, I didn’t know how to help you, and I really, really wanted to, but I
just didn’t know how, and so I just shut down and watched you suffer from a distance. I
am so sorry for that. I wish that I could have been better, could have known better, and could have had the courage to find out what I needed to know to help you.
As his father explicitly listed specific transgressions he wanted Jack to forgive him for, Jack explained that “it was more like he was telling a story, and I was listening.” Researchers
Hovey and Paul (2007) argue that during EOL, people often use stories to explicitly make meaning:
Sometimes we have an opportunity to tell of that something that has gnawed at us or hurt us or confused us or invited us, but now, as it is revealed or unconcealed, we use a story, often outwardly and often beautifully, to ask for meaning-making assistance with what were previously internalized feelings and thinking. (p. 58)
Similarly, Keeley (2007) argues that peacefully concluding a painful past often becomes a priority during the EOL, and in this context, stories create the possibility for forgiveness and reconciliation to occur. As was the case with Jack and his father:
Storytelling holds the possibility for a person to review his actions or inactions,
considerations or non-considerations, joy or pain, what has happened as well as what has or could have been. At the core of narrating storied experiences is a way to get at the meaning of that “something” that has been held as a promise of a release. (Hovey & Paul, 2007, p. 58)
Hovey and Paul (2007) add that attending to a dying person’s story creates the “possibility of co-understanding” (p. 58), and Jack experienced this as he explained that his father’s story helped him understand his father – and who he was as a person – better. He
explained: “I was able to re-frame how and who he was, and understand his actions, or his lack
of actions, from a different perspective.” Jack remarked how surprised he was that one simple
conversation – and explicit communication about the past – could have such a profound effect on him and his relationship with his father. He said:
Just that one conversation. I mean, I guess that’s really all we needed. You know, just to
communicate. To do so in a way that let me know who he was. I mean, that was all it really came down to. Like I think he could have even just told me all those stories, and
told me he felt bad, but he could have not asked for forgiveness and it wouldn’t have
mattered because I would have had enough just from hearing him speak, telling me things, to know who he was, and understand things better and not feel so hurt by things. I
felt he didn’t know my heart, and I didn’t know his. And it’s crazy but… how
communication can, you know, just like really change that. Just talk. Communicate. It’s
not that hard. Or I guess it is.
Jack (MP_3) also explained that while his father’s forgiveness-communication was clear, it was not necessarily explicit. He said:
He didn’t ask. Not like, ‘Will you forgive me?’ But he expressed that he really wanted
me to. It was not really in his character. Well, I mean this was all already very much out
of character for him, but even so, like going so far as to ask the words, “Will you forgive me?” No.
Thus, even though his father didn’t directly ask, “Will you forgive me?” Jack knew his father
was sorry and was implicitly seeking forgiveness by saying he was sorry.