Happily Ever After

pm I had a thought last night - When our GC was a baby we bought our ED and SIL a top of the line video camera to record all her cute baby moments. Since we lived 350 miles apart - We thought it would be great to see how she was growing and learning. I realized that in all those years we NEVER received a video tape of her - not in all those years - in fact, we rarely received a photograph of her unless it was the official school photo and we had to wait a LONG time for that one! So that got me started thinking about how many little slights and indifferences went on over the years and how it wasn't just one thing that made up our particular estrangement - it wasn't just one blow up - not one Cecil B DeMille - Rather, it was a conglomerate of the big issues peppered with minute actions that bruised and hurt - a million little things - all painful, all difficult, and all contributing to the reasons to remove oneself from the chaos and unhappiness.. Someone on the forum talked about how forgetting the past and forgiving is the key to reconcilliation with our estranged children - but forgiving so many transgressions - where would one begin? Which would I concern myself with first? The indifference? The emotional detachment? The slights? The lying and deceptions? The exclusions? The ingratitude? The lack of caring? The creation of alienation within our family? The alliances assembed against us? Or would it be not sending those tapes and photos, or not talking about things our baby grandchild would do - (When asked what our little granddaughter was doing or learning or saying, our daughter would say "Oh, NOTHING" - can you imagine have a one or two year old child that learned or did "NOTHING" new all day?) So here is my question - if I ever had the religion or spirituality or whatever it takes to get that element of forgiveness firmly in my grip - where would l start? - what part - if any - would I forgive first? How much patience would I need? How much hope? How much love? And when forgiveness was at last complete - after the interminable list of hurts and wrongdoings finally came to an end, How long would it take for another ugly incident to emerge and start the cycle all over again. But now for the bad news folks, My husband and I already experienced the treatment described above and went through this entire process of putting things in the past and trying to forgive. Only problem was, once the past incidents had been forgotten and forgiven, there were new incidents to deal with. It never ended.- there was always fresh (or repeat) bullsh_t. So for us, happily ever after was a theoretically etheral concept at best. It never really lasted very long at all. 38 years is a long time- I guess stuff adds up.