Vachon Imagined

When my son and I talk, I’ll often ask him if I’ve done something to offend him.

He’s not shy about telling me all the ways I’ve hurt his feelings.

Sometimes it strikes a chord in me.

And I let it move.

Those chords are life, all of them. Life moving into individual experience, taking on a body, a memory, a feeling, a story.

But they aren’t life itself.

Life has no name, though we’ve certainly tried to give it one. Explosion. God. Anger. Grief. Fear. Love.

Sometimes there is so much moving through us that the body can’t contain it, and it spills over.

Anger becomes destruction.

Discomfort becomes violence.

But it begins in us.

Always in us.

I’ve had the privilege of working among people who committed terrible acts, including people who killed their own children. I’ve watched remorse become palpable.

I remember a young man who killed his baby. He said the ceaseless crying had driven him crazy, and all he wanted was for her to be quiet.

Of course, I had to do my job. I had to analyze the facts and help those investigating reveal what happened.

But something inside me hurt for that young man.

And I have prayed for him ever since.

Instead of immediately rushing toward punishment, I found myself asking:

Where has life caused me to harm someone?

Just last night, my dog wouldn’t stop panting during a storm while I was trying to sleep.

I became angry.

Really angry.

How dare this dog interfere with my sleep?

And then I caught it.

It wasn’t about the dog.

It was me.

That’s the uncomfortable truth about what other people reveal.

The person who irritates you is revealing you.

The person who enrages is revealing you.

The person who hurts is revealing you.

Everything reveals.

And here’s the harder truth: you are doing it to yourself.

The feeling.

The story.

The person you’re trying to praise or punish because of it.

You are doing it to yourself.

And still, life is allowing you.

Loving you.

Moving through you.

We think justice will heal us.

We think acknowledgment will heal us.

We think hearing “I’m sorry” will return us to who we were before the hurt.

But an apology can’t do that.

It can acknowledge what happened.

It can say, “I see your pain.”

And that matters.

When my son tells me I hurt him, I can say:

“Yes. I said that.”

“I understand why that hurt you.”

“I see you.”

His story was hurt.

His body felt it.

His emotions moved through it.

But underneath all of that, life remained.

That’s what love does.

It doesn’t abandon what is happening.

People want to punish.

They want to blame.

We imagine that if we remove the person who caused the harm, harmony will return.

But punishment cannot reach backward and undo what happened.

It can establish consequences.

It can protect people.

But it cannot heal the person who was hurt.

That happens inside us.

The apology may come—or never come.

The story may hurt.

The feeling may burn.

But underneath it all:

Life itself.

And I don’t want to abandon it.

Not in my son.

Not in the person who hurt me.

Not in myself.

I don’t want to abandon life itself.