My family was recently rocked by a secret that my grandmother took to her grave. I won't go into details publicly because God knows enough people are already licking wounds, but suffice it to say there is hurt, confusion and maybe a little bit of anger. At some point, a secret becomes a lie. I don't know exactly when that invisible line is crossed, but keeping a big secret inevitably requires a series of half-truths and lies of omission, just laying in wait for someone to slip up.
When you learn the people you love and trust the most have lied to you, you're left with hurt over whatever the lie was about AND feelings of betrayal. It adds insult to injury. I'm not talking about keeping someone's birthday surprise a secret, I mean BFDs. Big secrets and the lies they eventually become.
I choose to live out loud, even when it's hard because of my hatred of those secrets that become lies. I choose to tell my daughter that her great-grandmother died rather than telling her she went to sleep or she's gone away and will see her another day. Yes, it's probably more difficult than lying, but only in the short term. And who said being the grown up was supposed to be easy, anyway?
The next time you're faced with decision, tell a lie because it's easy or tell the truth even though it's hard, pick truth. It's always the better choice in the long run.
This post is written as part of GBE2 - Week #29 word prompt: Truth. For more info about GBE, click here.
6 comments:
Family secrets are the worst! I remember a little boy who didn't know that his great aunt was not his mother. Everyone else in the world knew, so why not tell him? Finding out years later, like I'm sure he did, must have been awful.
Joyce
http://joycelansky.blogspot.com/2011/12/gbe2-truth.html
I have learned from years of hanging out in this world that lies do always come out. And secrets are lies. Not in and of themselves, but they require lies to stay hidden. Eventually, truth does win. I think the pain is ALWAYS less when it is the result of someone caring enough to tell the truth. Love is truth, pain and all.
Why is it the hard thing to do is always the right think to do? :(
i depend on me, mostly.....
thanks for sharing...
every family has a secret, the mistakes, transgressions of our parents and grandparents are nothing to be ashamed for but we learn from them. Sometimes secrets and lies happen because the time was not right and so I do not judge the person. When I was younger, I thought everything should come out in the open...now that I am older, I find that it is not always the best thing to do at the moment. Still, keeping a secret and telling a lie to keep it will be more difficult in time...and will only get the person tell more lies to keep the secret. I am sharing two of my own posts on family secrets (there are more ;)).
http://www.iamhangingtough.com/2011/11/secret-revealed.html
http://www.iamhangingtough.com/2010/08/family-secretsand-why-truth-has-to-be.html
Stay happy.
Oh, I SO agree with you! Family secrets are destined to become hurtful things...better to just speak the truth, gently, always.
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