I asked and Steinbeck answered
“The poison of loneliness and the gnawing envy of the unlonely had gone out of him, and his person was clean and sweet, and he knew it was. He dredged up an old hatred to test himself, and he found the hatred gone.”
I was reading East of Eden the other night, and I saw a problem that I struggle with. I wanted to know what John Steinbeck had in his omnipotence for writing this book, on what to do about it. I think this section answered that.
I think truly listening in all meanings of the word would fix it. I think if they could just understand, and acknowledge what happened all of the poison would go away.
I sent a text to my mom just now. My eyes are watering a bit. I don't think it was easy for her at all to put away her defenses and accept responsibility for what she did. Imagine hurting your children for years, and facing the consequences for that later. It took my mom's mom committing suicide to get her to change. She told me how they got in a fight, and because her mom was too stubborn she didn't tell my mom to come before she commit suicide. I don't know if I'll be able to forget seeing my mom cry while telling me how much bad her mom did to her. She didn't want to be the villain to us anymore, and she went out of her way to push for a conversation that must rip her apart. She begged me to tell her about the bad things she did from my point of view. Every thing I said was like a dagger in her heart. But she did it for me. She loved me enough to face that pain to make up for her shortcomings.
I don't know if E can do that in this stage of life. I almost pray they haven't had any reason to learn that yet. But I sure wish they did.