How do you continue to have faith after a tragedy has struck? That is probably the most difficult question a person can ask them self when they have lost something or someone that they hold dear to them.
I believe that every person at some point in their life experiences a tragic event that questions their ability to continue and move on. I was six years old when I had my first encounter with tragedy. I had the unfortunate experience of witnessing the murder of my father in Woodbrook,Trinidad. It was during an armed robbery where my father was shot and killed in full witness of my mother, brother and myself. It was an experience that changed my life and the way I looked at life.
As a catholic I learned that we must forgive, we must have faith and we must love. How can we? How can we do any of these things after such a tragic event? The memory of the night I lost my father is a memory that would be forever embedded in my brain but not in my heart. After many years of anger and grief, after many years of trying to find a way forward from such an experience I have come to the realization that my heart is what needs to open. We cannot allow one incident to define how we see life and how we live our lives.
While we may all endure our separate forms of tragedy, we need to take the time to assess and focus on our goals. Those goals should be finding our way back and redefining the meaning of our lives. Having faith is what brought be back from very dark places. The battles of depression, the losing of willpower and faith are real but only if you allow it to overcome you is when the battle is over.
For a very long time I wished for vengeance on the men that took my father from this earth. Despite never getting justice I wished that these men will one day be arrested and receive the death penalty in accordance with the laws of Trinidad and Tobago. During that period, when I had so much anger and was losing the faith that everything I believed in and held dear was a fraud was the darkest moments of my life. I began to allow this violent event to define me and define my life.
Life is much more than one event! Faith is much more than hoping that everything would be perfect!
It took some years but I was able to find back my faith and realize that I am more than one event. I don’t want my father to be remembered as the man who was murdered and I don’t want to be remembered as the person who lost his father at the hands of violence. I want the memory of my father to be the foundation of change, I want to remind everyone that there is much more to life than meets the eye.
If I could meet the men who murdered my father today, I would like to believe that I would forgive them. While I will never understand why they took the life of one of the most important people in my life I really would like to believe that I can forgive them. My faith and my belief that we can achieve nothing through violence and we can never prosper from causing grief to others is the ideology which I would like to live my life by. I am a strong advocate against the death penalty and I would like to believe that I am also an advocate for human rights. When we as humanity fail to attempt to make a difference and try redefining the way we live our lives is when we no longer seek to be called human beings.
Struggling with our faith is not something that is new. We all struggle with our faith, but it is up to us to regain perspective and continue along our journey.
Don’t ever quit believing! Everyone can find their way it only takes one step to move forward.