Importance of Forgiveness

I once picked up a woman from a garbage dump and she was burning with fever;
she was in her last days and her only lament was: ‘My son did this to me.’
I begged her: You must forgive your son. In a moment of madness, when he was not himself, he did a thing he regrets. Be a mother to him, forgive him.
It took me a long time to make her say: ‘I forgive my son.’ Just before she died in my arms, she was able to say that with a real forgiveness.
She was not concerned that she was dying. The breaking of the heart was that her son did not want her.
This is something you and I can understand.

--Words by Mother Teresa