Making Amends

The auction sale had been heartbreaking. Bob and Pauline had been married for forty years, during which time they had been through many struggles, and had finally divorced. Unravelling the fibres of their long years together had been desperately painful.

Now their home and all its contents had been sold off and they were going their separate ways. The auction sale was almost over when the final item came up for sale – a little wooden box of no obvious intrinsic value. But Bob held up his hand. “No, that’s not for sale,” he said, and he took the tin box away. The sale was over. Bob went off in one direction and Pauline in another. Years passed.

The day came when Bob and Pauline’s granddaughter was to be married. They both came to the wedding, seeing each other again for the first time in years. Time had softened the anger, lessened the hurt, and dissolved any remaining bitterness.

Soon after the wedding, Bob invited Pauline back to his place and they had a cup of tea together. Pauline looked round the room, and remarked, “You’ve still got that old wooden box.” Bob got the box down from the shelf and opened it. There was nothing in it, and there was everything in it.

“It’s my box of memories,” he said. “When I feel sad, I open the box and take out a memory, and it helps. Of course no one else can see my memories… And then he paused… “…except you,” he added. “You would recognize them all.” There was a pause. And they sat together in the kind of company only created out of generosity. And then the memories began to flow out of the old wooden box.

“Do you remember when we first took the children to see the ocean? When we moved into our first home? What about that time when we lost the keys? When we couldn’t get the car to start? And can you remember how thrilled we were when our granddaughter was born?” And so it continued. The day wore on. Evening fell. They were still sitting there in the twilight, taking out their memories, savoring them together, so grateful to find that they had remained intact in the old wooden box.

And the strange thing was, the old wooden box seemed to keep only the happy memories. The unhappy memories had faded away. They had no real substance. No real weight. And Bob – as well as Pauline – had stopped feeding them so they got smaller and eventually just dissolved.

When it came time to say goodbye, Pauline smiled and took Bob’s hand in hers. “You know what,” she said. “I think today we finally finished a chapter of our life together.” “Yes,” smiled Bob. “And even wrote the first few lines of a new chapter.” “Maybe a whole new story,” she said.