Chapter 26
Grace was five years old when Hope and Ethan had their second child.
A boy.
They named him Liam.
Gabriel and Maya had gotten married the year before.
They were expecting their first child.
Our family was growing.
And I was happy.
Truly, deeply happy.
I spent my days with my grandchildren.
I volunteered at the foundation a few hours a week.
I wrote another book.
This one about forgiveness.
Not the kind that requires you to reconcile with the people who hurt you.
But the kind that sets you free.
The kind that means you stop carrying the anger.
That you stop letting the past poison your present.
I called it "The Freedom of Letting Go."
It was my most personal book yet.
And it resonated with people.
All over the world, people wrote to tell me that it had helped them let go of their own pain.
Their own anger.
Their own need for revenge.
I had learned that forgiveness wasn't about the other person.
It wasn't about saying what they did was okay.
It was about you.
About freeing yourself from the burden of carrying that hatred.
About choosing to live your life instead of spending it reliving the past.
I had forgiven my parents.
In my own way.
Not because they deserved it.
But because I deserved to be free.
I had even forgiven Megan.
Not because she deserved it.
But because carrying that hatred around was weighing me down.
And I was tired of carrying it.
Forgiveness didn't mean I wanted a relationship with them.
It didn't mean I excused what they had done.
It just meant I was no longer going to let them live in my head.
I was no longer going to let them steal another moment of my happiness.
And that freedom was the greatest gift I could ever give myself.
That summer, we took the whole family on a trip to Italy.
Nathan and I.
Hope and Ethan and Grace and Liam.
Gabriel and Maya, who was now seven months pregnant.
We went to all the places Nathan and I had visited years before.
Rome.
Florence.
Venice.
We made new memories.
We laughed until our sides hurt.
We ate too much pasta.
We drank too much wine.
We loved each other deeply.
One night, in Venice, we were sitting at an outdoor café.
The sun was setting over the canals.
Grace was chasing pigeons.
Liam was asleep in his stroller.
Hope and Ethan were holding hands, talking quietly.
Gabriel was rubbing Maya's belly, talking to his unborn child.
Nathan squeezed my hand.
"Look at this," he said. "Look at what we built."
I looked.
At my beautiful family.
At the life we had created.
Out of so much pain.
So much loss.
So much betrayal.
"We built something good," I said.
"We built something great," he corrected.
He kissed me.
And in that moment, surrounded by the people I loved most in the world, in one of the most beautiful places on earth, I felt complete.
Whole.
At peace.
The war was long over.
May you like
The scars had healed into something beautiful.
And the stars were shining brighter than ever.
