The power of an apology

Recently, I had two experiences with apologies, one bad, the other good.  The “bad” was one I wasn’t able to give.  My manager at work called to tell me another employee had complained about me.  She wouldn’t tell me who complained or what the complaint was about, which I to some extent understand.  But that robbed me of the opportunity to know how to change and also the chance to apologize to the person who complained.  I couldn’t think of any event that might have caused it and I felt bad for several days.

The second experience was something hurtful said to me, although not about me, in front of a group of friends.  Although I knew the person didn’t mean it to be hurtful, it was a remark that caused everyone else to laugh and me to retreat inside myself for the rest of the meeting and until I went to bed that night.  It’s easy to know I should just let it go, but hard to do!

The difference was that the morning after that second incident, I received an email from the person who’d made the remark, saying he shouldn’t have said what he did and asking for my forgiveness. I emailed back, saying that yes, I’d felt bad, thanking him for the apology, and accepting it.

A sincere apology, although it doesn’t take negate the initial hurt, offers the hurt person the chance to let go of the hurt and the opportunity to heal the relationship.  It may also, in the same way the healed site of a broken bone is stronger than before it broke, make the relationship stronger.  A missed chance can do the opposite.  Of course, an insincere apology adds insult to injury and even a sincere one doesn’t mean the other person will accept it, but don’t pass up the need for a heartfelt apology when you’ve wronged someone.  Even if that person doesn’t forgive you, you’ll be free to move ahead.

Autumn…a haibun

The first leaf fell today,
	lacking even grace of color,
to lie quiescent on the sidewalk
	‘til wind-blown travel claimed it.
Soon millions more will throw themselves
	to willing death,
flaming brightly before reduced to
	crackling beneath feet in futile protest.

Days grow shorter, nights stretch longer,
	nights where passion once flamed brightly,
now passing also into death,
	unwilling on my part,
	kamikaze-like on yours.

The fire that now burns
	devours all the love
	and leaves not even embers
	that soft breath could coax back to life.

Autumn's harbingers
Lie dying before my eyes
Love once green now dead

People or animals?

Today on Facebook I’ve seen a number of posts about animals, many of which advocate treating animals well, a sentiment I heartily share.  The same day also shows me posts and memes vilifying various groups of people or individuals, usually based on their beliefs, and nasty a/o foul-mouthed comments about some of these same groups or causes.  Disclaimer:  please note that I am NOT referring to any specific group or cause!!

It’s a popular notion that the way you treat animals shows how you treat people, but I’m afraid that isn’t true.  As much as I love animals and as much as I believe in their ability to love and help people, they are NOT people.  If you can treat animals well, but you’re full of hatred for humans, especially based on their beliefs, then I think you need to take a good look at yourself.  Here’s what I think is a truism, my own saying about how to treat people and animals.

I’d like to see people treated as well as we think we should treat animals and then animals treated as well as we start treating people.

I think that if we started going this, the world would be a much kinder, gentler place.

Et vous?

Friday Fictioneers–Shattered

Another week.  Daily, the unseen pull grows stronger, until the mid-week mirror lures us Narcissus-like to stare into its smooth surface for our inspiration.

No refuge.  The tentacles of creation wind  ’round us, dragging us inexorably toward the keyboard to satisfy the craving.  Sweet addiction!  Our drug of choice.

Go on; give in. Choose your word-weapon.  Wield it fearlessly.
You are a Fictioneer!

Photo copyright David Stewart


Shattered

I've walked on the edge too long,
    sometimes stumbling
    sometimes content
Enduring times of sorrow,
    loneliness,
    exhaustion,
    fear,
    yearning…
    all sans you;
Occasionally lost
    or stopping for breath,
    but buoyed, knowing you were at the end.

Too many days it seemed as if
    I’d not arrive.
But now
    it won’t be long.

I see you in the distance.

I begin running
    Reaching out.

Almost there.
Careful not to fall.

You open your mouth.
    Your words fly out
    and push me.
I tumble into nothingness.

“Why now?” reverberates inside me.

It won’t matter if my body breaks.

My heart’s already shattered.

Deception

Here’s a short story that I wrote for an online competition.  The prompt was a beautiful photo of a sunset over a lake and the story had to be 194 words (or thereabouts) or less.  I didn’t win.  In fact, I didn’t even place.  But I still like the story and of course I hope you do, too.

Pruning

I mentioned to Bill one day that our three lilac bushes needed pruning, then forgot about it.  One memorable day not long after, I drove home and saw that he had pruned them (was, in fact, just finishing)–to about a third of the original size.  I was appalled.  But fortunately, the lilacs came back strong and every spring we see dark purple, lilac, and white blooms, one large bush of each. 

Friday Fictioneers–Relativity

Flirting fairies. Phantasmagorical forays.  Fabulous photos.  Frazzled folks in foggy fields.
Fearsome fellows and fearful filles. Frantic feelings fueling furtive fumblings.  Frenzied freaks.
Friction and fury.  Freezing flesh and phalanges.  Fair friends and foul fiends.  Funky fungus.  Frightening funiculars.
Phony philologists and flippant phantasms.  Frankenstein festival.
Farcical foursomes.  Fossilized fanatics.

Philosophical fracking.

Friday Fictioneers.

Fantabulous!

…..

(I’ll be traveling Thursday but know that I look forward to reading every story when I get off the road.)

Relativity

Dubbed “Flower Power” (he mentally prefaced “flower” with “de”), the car was staged in the garage as if at the drive-in: theater-sized TV, food, plenty of booze, popcorn.  Girls loved it…and he looooooved lovin’ the girls!

Reaching toward tonight’s conquest-in-waiting, he slipped smoothly into his practiced routine. Lust turned to shock when the steering wheel shot out, trapping him, the seat belt snaking around him.  Her kiss left him, literally, speechless.  Starting the car as she climbed out, she cocked an eyebrow and queried, “Ever hear of Morgan le Fay?  Distant relative.”

The garage door rolled inexorably down behind her.

(To read all the stories, click on the little guy above and then on the individual links you’ll find.)

Some things are best left unsaid…or unread. Or are they?

Admit it.  Don’t you think diaries are, if not a little creepy, often a little too revealing, too much like watching daytime television?  Don’t we all sound a bit deranged and in need of treatment when we go back and read about our emotional excesses and maybe even actual excesses?

Write on

Although there’s always been power in the written word, I think there’s more power now in the age of
the internet, emails, cell phones and texting, because so few people actual write on paper. “In the old day”, people wrote letters; literally wrote them. They kept diaries, not blogs, and many diaries, even from hundreds of years ago, are still around. (That may be a good or bad thing, depending on what the person wrote, but we’ll leave that for now.) There are undoubtedly quite a few people of my generation who still have letters or cards from friends in a scrapbook or, more likely, a box in the attic, where these missives might be taken out periodically and re-read.

There’s power in that. There are memories. There’s the distinctive script of the writer, maybe even a drawing or doodle added. Things that bring that person to mind and to life.

When I started “writing” this, though, my thoughts were on the lost art of the thank-you note. Maybe it has more to do with gratitude, as exemplified in the title of Alexander McCall Smith’s book, “The Lost Art of Gratitude”. But let me ask you. How often have you gotten a thank-you note from someone to whom you sent a gift? How did it make you feel? And when you haven’t gotten one, how did that make you feel?

I’m not putting down any other form of thanks. Thank-you’s in person are fine, easy, and inexcusable to miss. We’ll agree that sending an email or thank-you e-card, or making a phone call all work, too. Also, let’s make it clear that not thanking the gift-giver in some way is completely unacceptable. We’ve given substantial weddings gifts and never had an acknowledgement of that fact. We’ve sent gifts to relatives and not heard a peep in return. Sorry. Not OK!! It’s not so much for me as for the person who received the gift; that person should realize the thought and sentiment that went into picking the gift or signing the check and respond with gratitude. That’s it. End of story.

But I think that in these days of communication by technology and despite the fact the US Postal Service keeps raising the price of stamps for less and less service, and sometimes not even polite service when it’s there, there’s something special about a hand-written note or letter. It shows you care. It indicates you took the time to respond, to show your thanks, appreciation and, yes, love. It says that even if you didn’t really like the gift or it wasn’t very much (but all that was affordable), whether it was handmade or from an expensive store, you appreciate what lay behind the gift as much or more than the gift itself. And it shows you, in return, took that little extra time to indicate your understanding and your love and affection.

It doesn’t matter if you bought a card (Half Price Books has cute, inexpensive boxes of thank-you cards), made a card, wrote note, sent a postcard or wrote the note for your child who can’t yet write, wrote it right below the thing that’s an unrecognizable picture of something, something you thoughtfully labeled. What matters is the thought, brought into tactile form by the written communication. What matters is the love. And the gratitude. And it matters for your sake; you, the person who received the gift and now are giving a little something in return.

So say thank-you. And if you want it to be a little more special, consider writing a thank-you note