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.
(Mother Teresa)