Truth, Sekhar reflected, is like the sun. I suppose no human being can ever look it straight in the face without blinking or being dazed. – Like the Sun by R.K. Narayan

It can hurt. It can heal and can never completely be concealed.- Lucinda Rose

As idealistic as this may sound, I truly believe that truth is not a matter of perspective,  but is as Obi Wan said somewhere in between.  There can be no doubt that it exists. We just can’t always see it; if we stare to much looking for it we sometimes find only convienant lies. Or worse we go blind when we aren’t prepared to handle it.

I know I did when I learned the truth behind my father’s lies.  We was leaving us, not going on a business trip.  His roommate was not a guy named Murphy, but my stepmother to be.  His lies caused numerous fights between me and my mother immediately following his departure. They left our family divided to this day.

We need the truth to guide our lives. We need to hear the truth most especially when it hurts. Yes, it would have been painful to know that he was leaving; his lies only made it easier on him to walk out the door, not the children left behind to deal with his absence.  As a six year old girl, I don’t know if I would have understood everything that happened.  I do believe that I deserved the chance to try.

Two humorous notes on my father’s lies.  The first was when he took us over to his apartment, I wondered into Murphy’s closet and saw men’s and women’s clothing.  I concluded that my father was living with a transvestite. A “fact” that I concealed.  The second happened a few months after the first, my grandparents took me and my siblings to a church.  As soon as I walked in the door, I was asked if I wanted to help Laura get dressed.  A few moments later I was whisked into a room where I helped (actually stood around watching) a lovely woman get dressed. I was introduced to her sisters. Ten minutes later, she married my father.  No one explained anything to me.

It took a while for everything to sink in and I will admit telling a few lies in the aftermath; all of which I was promptly caught for.  Lies I had been shown were acceptable, thank goodness for my Granny and Mother who instilled some common sense into me.

I sincerely wish that I could count the number of times that I have been wounded when the truth was concealed from me.  Each time, I know it would have hurt knowing up front what was going on; concealing the truth only added betrayal and confusion to the pain.  Those lies caused scars from which I am still healing.

I am grateful for those who tell the truth when it needs to be told.  No one deserves to live a lie or live along side them. Yes, the truth can hurt. We all know this.  Still, it is better to be cut than run through with the sword of truth.

Today is a day that many Americans gather together to give thanks for all they have in life. Many have forgotten the truth of the first Thanksgiving that it was a day when American’s indigenous people saved the Pilgrims by feeding them and showing them how to survive.  Something that many may have regretted later.  It is essential that we remember history as it was not how we would like it to be.

Failure to tell the truth or even see the truth when it concerns Indigenous Americans nearly lead to their cultural extinction.  Even today, they fight for the survival of their culture and the restoration of their native languages admit poverty, alcoholism and drug abuse.  This is not the case for every tribal group. Some have prospered.  Many have  not.

We need truth to help us balance ourselves and to see just what we have to be thankful today.