A Difficult Conversation continued....

I promised in my update that I write more about my difficult conversation with my friend YT. To give you the background, last week I watched in sadness as my neighbors celebrated Ghost Festival. Ghost festival is a time that they ask their dead relatives to come for a visit and celebrate by burning paper boats, cars, money, etc. in hopes that the dead will receive it and be happy.

So I was asking YT about Ghost Festival, her life before being a C, and so on. We talked about what it was like to walk for most of your life in complete darkness and then to have light. YT said that she really didn't know it was darkness because she had never known anything different.

Our conversation then turned to her relatives, non of them are yet C's, but YT has been talking with them and feels they are beginning to open up. To her though she said it felt like every time her mother, specifically, took one step forward, she'd take three back. Returning to the temples and so on. Many times because her friends would pressure her mother into doing so and telling her that her thoughts were stupid.

Then we talked about our grandparents. I shared of mine and she shared of hers. She talked about her grandmother, a lady you could tell she loved dearly, just by her facial expressions. YT only has been a C for about 6 months is still learning and growing. She recently had asked her shepherd to help her understand where her grandmother, now deceased, is for eternity. The shepherd had told YT gracefully but truthful, that because her grandmother wasn't a C, she was not in heaven. As YT began to have tears in her eyes, she told me, "That's a very hard thing for me to understand, my grandmother was a really good person." YT then explained to me that her grandmother had never had the opportunity to hear the story, ever.

As I sat there with tears in my eyes, I had no words for what I could say to YT to comfort or console her. So I simply said, "YT, I"m sorry, I"m so sorry we didn't come." In that moment, I realized that this was the hardest conversation I had ever had. I felt like the weight of generations before was resting on my shoulders. I don't fault my grandparents or my relatives before me for not turning to the nations, many of them really had no knowledge of this stuff. But, I did feel like as an American, as a C, it had been our responsibility to share with the world, and we had failed miserably. Not just a small mistake, but a mistake that was lasting for eternity. I am truly sorry, I'm sorry we didn't come, I'm sorry we didn't get here in time to tell.

I can not change YT grandmother's story, but I'm hoping for the sake of generations that come behind me, I can change someone else's story.

Beautiful Feet