Lifting to Heal

Forgiveness, The Father Wound, and Weightlifting

My dad, Don Jere, was a hurt soul. His life was not easy. That is why as I reflect on what I know about who he was, I forgive him a little bit more every day. He was a man with many scars in his body and soul. Growing up in the Northern Coast of Honduras would hurt anybody. Poverty is rampant, and the heat can be unbearable even for those who have lived there all of their lives.

This is the day Don Jere became an abuelo (2017). My grandmother (on the right) was about 80 at the time.

Don Jere was left with his grandparents when he was a little kid. There, he suffered physical abuse, and he had to work on the field with his abuelo. The harshness of working the land since a very early age gave him a very strong body. He was just about 165 cm (5.4”), but he was as strong as an ox. He had a barrel shaped chest, marked cheekbones, and the mixture of afro-caribean and indigenous blood ran thick through his veins. He was a mestizo through and through. He was also quite athletic and always loved to stay active. He had been a pretty gifted soccer player. He was a remarkable goal-keeper.

He always loved lifting weights, which gave him a great physique for most of his life. Even in his sixties, he would do calisthenics almost every day and run 7-10 kilometers three times a week. I remember having a wonderful relationship with him during my early childhood. He would play with my siblings and I. He made sure we were active and healthy. My sister and I used to ask him to show us his guns, and he would flex his biceps so we could hang from his arms.

I know it’s a cliché, but he was my hero. When I was three-years-old, I got sick with meningitis, thus I had to undergo a lumbar puncture procedure. The pain was unbearable, and I couldn’t walk for several days. I clearly remember the day after I returned from the hospital. Christopher Reeve’s Superman was showing on TV, and I did not want to miss it. My dad carried me to the living room and held me as we watched the movie together. In my mind, Superman’s arms seemed weak compared to the ones that held me in my pain.

However, something happened along the way and Don Jere turned into a distant, angry, and violent father. The years of hiding his affairs with other women ate his soul. there were also deeper wounds that he did not heal. As a result, I became his scapegoat and bore the marks of his beatings for many years.

I don’t know most of his story, and what I know is just superficial. He was very reserved. My guess is that the memories were just too painful to share. What I do know is that in not working through his pain and suffering, he ended up transferring it to my brothers and I.

My reaction to his violence was to become the complete opposite of him. I wanted to be and do everything that he wasn’t. As a result, one of the things that I grew to hate was lifting weights. I could not stand his well defined muscles. I knew his strength quite well, for the hands that held me in my pain turned into my worst nightmare every time he hit me.

The bits and pieces I know of Don Jere’s story have helped me to put together a narrative for healing. He is responsible for his actions, but not for the abuse and suffering he went through. That is why I am able to forgive him a little bit more every day. At the end of his life we had tender and deep conversations. He asked for my forgiveness, and I gave it freely. Though, I am not sure he forgave himself. He passed away on December 2019.

I have had quite a bit of time to think about my dad and forgiveness over the last six months. I underwent ACL reconstruction at the end of last November after a sports injury practicing martial arts. I spent a full week bedridden and a couple of months just recovering my mobility. During that time, he was very present in my mind.

Recently, I was cleared to start strength training for the middle stage of my ACL recovery. And, guess what? The one thing that I can and have to do in order to restore my atrophied leg is lifting weights, one of the things he loved.

The first day of lifting weights at a regular non-martial arts gym was terrifying. I was very self-conscious, for the muscle imbalance in my legs was very evident at the time. As I started my exercise routine, I wanted to call my dad to ask him for weight lifting advice. I know don Jere is long gone, but for some reason, my inner-child just wanted to hang from his strong arms once more. So I started tearing up as I went through the horribly painful exercises that woke up both my atrophied leg and my soul. The pain made me cry, but the tears were connected to the fact that I needed Don Jere and the weights reminded me of him. That day, I forgave him a little bit more. I had to lift the weight of our stories in order to heal. For a few minutes, I did get mad at him for dying just five years after we started to restore our souls together.

Forgiveness is to remember without resentment. It is the one way in which we can join God’s continuous act of creation, for the forgiveness that happens in the resurrection is the beginning of a new creation. As a survivor of physical punishment and abuse, I know that we cannot impose forgiveness on those who have been abused. So don’t take my experience as paradigmatic. take it for what it is, my Human Catechism.