Shell Shock

I followed a link on Facebook one day to listen to Patrick Stewart talking about domestic violence.  He was answering a question at a star trek convention when a woman broke down thanking him.  He talked a bit about how abusive his father had been to his mother.  At the end, he mentioned that he was coming to realize that his father potentially had some residual affects from war.  Back then, it was called shell shock.  I instantly knew what he was talking about.  He was talking about all of the families who had been severely affected upon a father's return from war.  I know this first hand.
More recently, he did a segment on "Who do you think you are?" in the UK.  They had historians walk Mr. Stewart through many of his father's experiences.  In one segment, his voice cracks and he says something that has stuck with me.  He wondered what it would have meant to his family for his father to be honest with them about his experiences.  What if his father had just tried to explain the unexplainable?  In his voice, I found an ache.  I think it is the ache of any child who really wants to love his parent.  Perhaps, he had found a way to do it decades after his death.
My favorite local author, Pat Conroy, talks about his father's death in his latest book:  "Death of Santini."  I think Mr. Conroy had some of the privilege of trying to work out some things with his father before he died.  However, Pat Conroy's father never seems to relent in his book.  Even on his death bed, he taunts his daughter.  He seemed to refuse any opportunity to explain the unexplainable.
This brings me to some of my deepest questions.  Is it possible to find true Healing in this world?  Or does it usually wait until one of us dies?  Is it just easier to make our peace with someone after they are gone?
Once, I heard a story of a woman.  Her husband of 55 and half years had just died after a long battle with Alzheimer's.  She had very rarely been affectionate to him.  Most of the time she was verbally assaulting him.  She rose one morning to find he had passed over in the night.  After things settled down, she asked her son and daughter in law to leave her to have one last conversation.  She sat at his bedside and told him all of the things that she loved about him and thanked him for being so good to her.  These were the words she could never say to him on earth, but somehow she could after he had left.  It was just her way.
Sometimes, I think it doesn't matter when we say things.  It doesn't matter when we realize, when we forgive. Hopefully, we keep getting led towards finding peace, maybe even reconciliation.  I think some people might insist that his happen after a death.  I think that maybe I am starting to come to terms with that.  I wonder if there really is only so much work we can do in these bodies and these stories of our lives.  I guess all things must come in their own time and own way.