HONESTY IS, WELL, HONEST

My 97-year-old mother-in-law: you have to love her. She is as honest as the day is long and speaks her mind whenever her minds says she should speak up. She needs no defense. When you get to be her age, you basically have free rein to say what you believe whether the hearers likes it or not. She’s earned that freedom. For instance:

As a back ground, she has been widowed twice, both husbands WWII veterans and both suffering from PTSD when it was called “battle fatigue” back then and you were just supposed to shake it off and get on with life. Some did. Many did not, at least not a life one would want to life. When Pappy (husband Number 1) came home, he was a different man. The marriage lasted to his early death but was, to say the least, often confrontational and not easy for either of them or, at times, for their children.

That’s the background. Recently, we were sitting around the kitchen table talking about old times when the subject of the eldest son’s birth came up. Pappy was in the Pacific on a supply ship while Nanny was pregnant. Word came to her [first time hearing this] that his ship was lost at sea. Her comment, tongue in cheek and probably with a shred of truth: “Shame they found it”. We almost fell off our chairs we were laughing so hard.

Well, she was honest. Of course, if Pappy had been lost as sea, I wouldn’t be writing this as my wife would not have been my wife nor would she have been, period. We’re still laughing and Pappy probably is as well. The truth is the truth and sometimes the only response we have to the truth, as much as it might sometimes hurt, is a hardy and even heartfelt roar of laughter.

Yes, the truth hurts and sometimes being honest can seem and even be very brutal. But it beats living with a lie because the lie eventually comes back to bite us and that pain can be even worse, and usually is. We often refrain from being honest with others because we know the hurt that our words will bring. But do we have a choice? Jesus never minced words of honest criticism because those whom he chastised needed to hear what he had to say even as they did not like it one bit.

Even more, when the shoe is on the other foot, when we are the ones who are being told the truth, a truth we would rather not hear but need to, the response and how that response is made is up to us. We can lash out. We can try to retaliate in some way or another, usually finding fault with the other. Or we might laugh and admit that the other person was right on and give thanks that he or she had the courage to say what needed to be said as difficult as it was to say it.

Honesty is often hard to come by, as we all know from experience. But when others have been honest with us or we with them, we have all been the better for it. It hurts at the beginning; but it the end we will be thankful and may even have a good laugh.