Forgiveness

Last July, right around my birthday, as I was settling into a new life that includes spending half my time in New York City again, I took one of my shirts to a dry cleaner on 72nd Street. It was the first time I’d brought anything to a dry cleaner in NYC in sixteen years. It was one of my favorite shirts, a shirt I’d worn to Book Expo and to dinner with T. J. Shay and to a Society of Illustrators party. It was a shirt that made me feel a little bit chic. I dropped it off, along with a jump suit a close friend of mine had given me for my birthday—the jumpsuit was just a little big around the top and I needed it tailored. When I left the dry cleaner/ tailor, I looked at my receipt and the shirt wasn’t listed. I thought to go back, but was already on my way with other errands and I believed that the lovely lady who had taken care of me wouldn’t forget.

A week later, I went back to pick up my stuff and there was no record of the shirt. I told the man behind the counter that the shirt had to be in the store somewhere. He started yelling at me, and I yelled at him, because the shirt was more than a shirt to me—it was a symbol of the warmth of friends and the comradery of the publishing world, it was a symbol of what makes me happy . I realized quickly that I had no leverage, no receipt, and I began to let go of the shirt, right in that moment, because I had no proof and it was his word against mine and he owned the shop. I considered the fact that I had worn it at least two dozen times, and I could see that I’d be okay without it, it was still just a shirt.

I let it go. And I never went back to that dry cleaner again . . .

. . . until last Thursday night.

I received a phone call in the afternoon, and it was the lady from the dry cleaner who had tailored the jump suit, asking me why I hadn’t picked up my shirt. She told me that she’d had it for four months. I told her about the man who insisted he had never seen it and that he didn’t have it.

She told me she would be there till 7 and I should come get it. So I stopped there after work and came face to face with the man who had screamed at me about the shirt four months prior.

He used his long extension hook to pull the shirt down. I looked him in the eyes and I asked him if he was sorry.

He looked at me and said, “yes.”

I said, “I forgive you.”

On November 25 I will ask forgiveness of myself and of the world once again. It will be the 39th anniversary of the fatal collision I was in as a 17 year old. The accident that informed my life, where I drove through a stop sign and killed another person, severely injured her husband. I will remember this day by sitting quietly and contemplating what it means to forgive, to forgive oneself, to forgive friends, to forgive strangers . . . forgiveness.

I have begun working on a book about this subject, with someone I love who has her own story of forgiveness. We like to listen to Trevor Hall’s song FORGIVE, in which he says, “And let all of your mistakes become all of your greatest gifts.”

Whatever it is that you regret, whatever accidents have happened, whatever mistakes you’ve made . . . forgive yourself, and maybe something beautiful will come from it.

With much love,

Holly