A few days ago, I write about the unexpected death of my friend Tommy. I decided that maybe forgiveness had a place in all this. I unblocked all the people I had blocked on my vanilla Facebook page. I had no idea of they would even bother to contact me, but I had opened my heart to that possibility.
When I did that, I noticed someone who was a former neighbor of mine from when I was married to the father of my children. For reference, I left him 21 years ago. About 10 years ago, this person found me on Facebook, and we would sometimes message back and forth, but this friend got upset because I neglected to put a birthday greeting on their wall in 2011. I had a good reason, but this person went ballistic, so I blocked them. When I unblocked this person, I checked out their page. I was happy to see that my former friend was doing well.
Today, I went to an inactive social network page of mine, and I found a message request. It was from that former friend I mentioned above. The message was from 2 years ago, apologizing for their actions. There was a phone number attached, so I called from Shilo's phone (blocked) The first time, the person hung up on me. The second time, it went to voicemail, so I left a message,saying I would call back soon. I waited 15 minutes and tried again, but it went to voicemail, so I replied to the message online. This person apologized again, and I could tell it was sincere. We agreed that I would call sometime over the weekend. I'm happy it turned out this way.
I could leave with that story, but I have another related to forgiving. On early March, I went back on OKC after a 8+ month hiatus. A slightly older gentleman messaged me (In fact, several people messaged me, but this is about this one) His wife had recently died, and he just wanted someone to talk to. We talked on the phone and emailed each other, but I was still having problems with my frozen shoulder, and we (Shilo, Stitch, and Myself) were still trying to find somewhere to move. I told him that I'd be a few weeks with limited internet, but I would call him on a regular basis, but by the end of March, he stopped calling or replying. I was sad that he didn't bother ending things and just left me hanging, even though I acknowledged to myself that the timing was off. I like closure.
Anyway he called me this afternoon and apologized for disappearing without a goodbye. It turns out he met someone, and they're pretty serious. I guess he thought I'd be upset or disappointed, but I'm happy for him. I even acknowledged that the timing was wrong for me.
I guess I'm two for two, and I feel pretty good about it.
Great outcome, Merry! It's nice when things like that work out. Unfortunately, no matter how nice Rosa and I try to be, situations like that never seem to work out for either of us.
ReplyDeleteHmmmm... Maybe it's in the timing
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