A friend and I were dining at a sidewalk cafe in New York earlier this year when a couple of women squeezed into the next table and ordered a bottle of wine. After their glasses had been filled, and their chatter had ebbed, one raised her glass to the other's and said softly, "I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry, too," replied her friend.
The rules of etiquette say you shouldn't eavesdrop. But the gossip and journalist in me wanted to know more.
There is a particular art form to saying you're sorry that some people seem more skilled at than others. In a couple of minutes, these two had done something it takes years - if ever - for others to muster the strength to do. And they'd done it without rehashing or blaming.
As it happened, my dining companion had just finished apologizing to me for something that had plagued her for years - not attending two family funerals of mine. I hadn't taken offense, knowing she would have come if she could have. So I was touched and surprised by her tearful apology. In other cases, I've waited long for apologies that never came.
Saying you're sorry takes courage. What if you're rejected or scolded? What if you're sure the other person was to blame? But too many friendships crash and burn because no one would.
I recently had to apologize to a dear friend I'd fallen out with, though I wasn't sure I'd done anything wrong. I hadn't been in touch while she was going through a rough patch. I'd been angry at her. But after she called me on it, and I started to get self-righteous, I realized her pain outweighed my right to be.
That sappy line made famous by that sappy movie has it all wrong. Love does not mean never having to say you're sorry. It demands that if you hurt someone, you acknowledge the offense. And if someone has hurt you, unless it was so egregious you can't bear to see her again, you accept an apology and forgive.
After much of the wine had been drunk, the next table got shoved against ours and my neighbor joked about our sudden intimacy. We got to talking about their spat, which had happened the night before. As her friend put it, "She was being an a------ and I was being a b----."
That woman had to work the next day while the other had all day to obsess about it. So it was she who made the first call, suggesting they meet for drinks instead of dinner in case it didn't go well. But by the time we got to talking, they were dining.
Lawyers aren't big on apologies because they might compromise an accused's case in court. That's a shame because sometimes all the wronged party really wants is a genuine show of remorse.
When former South African President Nelson Mandela created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he felt the post-apartheid nation could only heal with a forthright accounting of atrocities. Since they were so immense, there was no way to prosecute everyone. But hearing people take responsibility and apologize, he believed, could help move the nation forward. It was a revolutionary thought.
I bring this up now because a new year is approaching and many of us are carrying around anger and hurt we'd be better off without. Now is the time to set egos aside, and call an amnesty on grudges. If you have a fence to mend with someone you care about, don't drag the bad blood into next year. Fix it this week - then go celebrate.
