AN ANONYMOUS APOLOGY

Recently, we went to the number one movie in the world, not just America. There was my wife and I with her sister Joan, her husband George and their grandson Jay O’Neill. It was a comic book summer movie with excellent reviews and we all thought it was just OK. Considering I haven’t read a comic book in over 50 years I guess that’s a pretty good review after all.
Then we went to a State College restaurant where you can eat peanuts and throw the shells on the floor while you wait for a table on a bench in a long side room. It’s always fun to make a mess in someone else’s place.
However, we picked the worst night of the year to eat there because it was both graduation day and prom night. We had to wait over an hour to eat with some very well dressed teenagers and their proud parents.
The meal was delicious and the conversation fun. We parted company to go grocery shopping then we returned home. All in all, it was a grand day. The telephone answering machine in the kitchen flashed a message waiting. So I pushed the button and the mystery began.
The waiting message said, in a stranger’s voice, “Bill, ah (Silent pause) Ah. Can’t even say it. Huh. Sorry buddy.”
It made me stop in my steps and sent a slight shiver down my spine. I played it for my wife and she stopped talking, which is rare. I told her I had no idea who it was and our caller ID just listed it as an Unknown Caller.
I hurried up and called my 92-year-old mother to see if she was alright. She was. I told her about the call and she was worried that someone was apologizing for something he was going to do to me. Then I called my grandson to see if he was OK.
As we put the groceries away we tried to think who in the world made the call. It almost sounded suicidal. An anonymous apology had shaken up the Roddey household like a small tremor.
What’s so odd is that this is not notably an apologetic country. It seems like everybody’s right and nobody’s wrong these days. At times, it’s like one continuous cable news show with everyone shouting at each other. If you do make a mistake and tell the aggrieved person about it they could sue you, if it’s something serious.
Insurance companies warn you not to apologize after an accident because that’s like admitting guilt and then they can’t fight their pay out. Almost nobody apologizes anymore unless it’s a politician whose poll numbers have dropped because of something he or she said somewhere that offended someone.
Drivers cut you off in traffic then make an obscene gesture if you beep in protest. Teenage girls tape themselves beating up on other teenage girls then post it on the internet with pride. Murderers blame their victims for making them kill them. Red states blame the blue states for the state we’re in.
There’s not a lot of apologizing going around, just righteous indignation if you don’t agree with someone. So an anonymous apology can throw you for a loop wondering aimlessly about who apologized and why.
Maybe it’s a remorseful school bully who stole your lunch money and beat you up at recess years ago. Maybe it’s your ex who dumped you then went into bad relationships afterwards and is now having second thoughts. Maybe it’s your former mean boss who’s looking back on his career thru too many shot glasses and feels badly about the way he treated you. Maybe it’s the man who refused to give you his zip code at the store with his purchase and you got in trouble from your boss because you didn’t type it in, like you were told.
Maybe it’s the person who broke up your marriage. Maybe it’s the hit and run driver who put you in the hospital. Maybe it’s a relative who’s on his death bed and is afraid of going to hell for the way he treated you. Maybe it’s the teacher who flunked you because you talked back to him and that stopped you from getting into an Ivy League college. Maybe it’s Earl, from the TV series “My Name is Earl”, trying to make amends on his list.
I think everyone deserves a multitude of apologies over the vagaries of life’s slings, arrows and body blows that come our way. Perhaps it’s best never to know where my anonymous apology came from and just accept it as one of life’s little blessings that blunts the harshness of reality a bit and shows some measure of justice in this world, before my inevitable demise.
I just hope you get your anonymous apology some day so you can apply it to everyone you thought did you wrong.

An edited version of this was published in the Winter ’08 edition of COMMON GROUND magazine.