How to Annoy Your Enemies
As I write this tale on
St. Patrick’s day, all the world (except Ireland) is celebrating my own ancestral Irish culture … and there’s nothing more Irish than our most cherished tradition of holding a grudge.
Yes we descendants of the hardscrabble island delight to keep generations-long resentments over obscure and trivial conflicts as the 2022 black tragicomedy film “Banshees of Inisherin” movie shows so well.
I discovered this myself at age 24 (four decades ago) whilst visiting my Aunt Ellen in Killarney. A prim, scowling woman, she lived with her gentle-mannered husband in a compact, spotlessly clean apartment Their only son Thomas resided with his own family in a big new home nearby.
It was week three of my lifelong dream solo international trip. I started in north Ireland, a grand time hosted by so many friendly cousins--who in turn were awed by
The Yankee Lass. I was delighted to meet so many Peggys, Patricks, Marys and Barrys, with sparkling eyes and lively manners, so like my own Bay Area mother, aunts, uncles, cousins.
But my time down south with dour Aunt Ellen was not so jolly… until I discovered her secret.
On our fourth day, after church Bingo night, and numerous pots of tea at all the cousins’ homes, she drove us through a leafy green neighborhood near the historic Muckross Abbey.
A big sigh escaped her lungs. “Well, I supposed it’s about time you meet them.”
“Who?”
“You’ll see.” She pulled the car over, parked in front of a small, ancient cottage. A stone pathway wended through the yard up to the wooden front door.
She pointed her strong finger toward the path. “There. Go knock on that door.”
I pulled the chrome handle of the passenger door down to get out, then realized she was remaining stiff in her driver’s seat. “You’re not coming with me?”
She took a slow breath. “This is cousin Donal’s home.”
Her thin lips tightened into a grim line. “I haven’t spoken to THEM ever since they refused to visit our son Thomas when he was ill in the hospital.” “Oh. I’m sorry for that,” I offered diplomatically, “Thomas looks quite healthy now.”
I was puzzled. On our visit the day before, Thomas looked to be a vigorous 30-ish year old man, with a lucrative engineering job, lovely wife and baby son.
“When was he ill?” “Twenty years ago— gravely ill. Nearly died.” She stared coldly straight ahead as if seeing little Thomas in his hospital bed all over, and over, and over again.
“The others paid their respects.” She lifted her chin toward the house. “But not Donal. We’ve not spoken since.”
Her eyes avoided the cottage that her extended finger ordered me toward. “But go now. Go knock on that door. I’ll wait here until I see if anyone answers.”
It took me a moment to realized what she was doing. Due to her long family feud, she had been hiding this whole branch of our family from me. Now she was pushing me, the stranger from America, into the no man’s land between them—telling me to walk up that stone pathway, as an emissary? I suddenly felt the weight of a 20-year feud on my shoulders.
Now I was slightly terrified. Who was this villainous Donal that I was being ordered to visit? Also, might he be prone to warding off unwelcome strangers to his home?
I stepped gingerly up the stone path across the green grass up to the door, alert for booby traps, growling dogs. I wondered if any eyes were looking back at me through the dark windows near the door.
I raised my hand, curling my fingers into a fist to knock. It hovered it above the wood planks a moment. All remained silent. I was poised to sprint back to the car at the first hint of a warning voice.
Before my knuckles on their door disturbed the tranquility, I rehearsed my greeting. “Hello I’m your cousin, the Yankee Lass from America.”
I looked back at the car again. Aunt Ellen’s head was turned away from the house, arms crossed.
I let my knuckles rap on the wooden door. Footsteps sounded inside, approaching. The door swung halfway open.
“Always forgive your enemies, because nothing annoys them so much,” advised cheeky Irish poet Oscar Wilde. Growing up in Dublin, he likely had plenty of Irish relatives to learn from.
But even better than smirky revenge, or spiritual virtue, science is now affirming that forgiveness also makes our brain and bodies healthier and stronger, reports Harvard Women’s Health Watch this month.
“Whether we’re bitter after an argument with a partner, a misunderstanding with a family member, or a spat with a friend, holding on to anger and resentment can do more than tax our souls — it can harm our health,” writes Maureen Salamon, HWHM Executive Editor.
“A new Harvard-led study indicates that forgiveness boosts our mental well-being by reducing anxiety and depression,” she reports. Other studies indicate the practice of forgiveness also eases stress, improve sleep, lowers blood pressure and heart rate.
Forgiveness is simply “replacing ill will toward an offender with goodwill,” says Tyler VanderWeele, co-author of the new Harvard study and co-director of the Initiative on Health, Spirituality, and Religion at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Our all-too-common tendency to deeply hold on to resentment for offenses done to ourselves can perpetuate a cycle of evil.
But forgiveness breaks that cycle. “Forgiveness acknowledges the wrong and helps you be free from it,” says VanderWeele. “It frees you from the offender” and “can lead to restored relationships, bringing happiness, satisfaction, and social support — which evidence also links to better health.”
I didn’t know all this when I knocked on that feuding cottage door. But when it opened from within, I discovered a wonderful family who welcomed me with open arms. I spent a most marvelous day with them.
The oldest daughter
Rose answered the door. She was my age and who worked at the Abbey Tea house. Her mother sat in a rocking chair with a newborn baby, youngest of their 21 children. (Perhaps managing their own children was the reason they neglected visiting their ill cousin so long ago?)
Father Donal himself arrived soon. He was a gardener and jaunting cart driver on The Abbey grounds and treated me to a free ride—a most delightful visit.
Years later I heard that Aunt Ellen did, soon after my visit, begin talking with them again. Perhaps my unwitting knock on the door was the first crack that began a tumbling down of that wall. I hope so.
So this spring as you are cleaning your home, spring clean your soul also. Dust off long smoldering embers of past offenses. Choose the better path.Let go of your dark cycle of resentment. Find ways to forgive.
Worst case, it may reward you with Wilde’s perverse sense of forgiveness-as-annoyance revenge.
But even better, you will experience the soul-strengthening power of reconciled relationships.
Life is too short to miss out on any beautiful love between cousins.