An Apology
Who is it for? What does it do?
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He called me the other day to say I’m sorry
for what happened over a decade ago.
We had not spoken since then, but now, all these years later, he wanted to apologize.
For how he acted.
For the contempt with which he held me in his heart.
For the ways he spoke ill of me to others.
For a long time, he said, he stubbornly refused to examine himself or take any responsibility. This carried him down a dark path, becoming less and less of himself.
I forgive you, I said.
In fact, I had forgiven him already many years ago.
I was not haunted by how he treated me.
I sometimes thought of him and wondered where he was and how he was doing.
And so I told him what was true: that I have held him in my heart with kindness.
I continued, reflecting on the past, saying it was a hard season and I wasn’t in a great place and there are things I wish I would have done differently.
But then I caught myself. Because I was drifting in the direction of making my own apology. Which in and of itself is not a problem—more than one party can bear responsibility and carry regrets and make apologies.
To offer an apology in this moment, however, would not only mean repeating things I already acknowledged back then, but would also, in some way, make this sacred moment—his apology—about me.
But the apology wasn’t about me.
It wasn’t something that I required.
No.
It was something he needed to do.
Yes, it would make complete our restoration to one another, but more than that,
this apology was about him setting himself free.
Thank you for your apology, I said. It took a lot of courage for you to call me. Not only that, it took immense courage for you to go on the inner journey it sounds like you’ve been on, and to do the work on yourself that you’ve been doing.
It is a lot of work, he replied.
I could hear the wisdom in his voice.
And the freedom too.
Hate never yet dispelled hate.
Only love dispels hate.
This is the law,
Ancient and inexhaustible.
—The Buddha, The Dhammapada 1:3-5
