Forgive is something you do for others. Forget is something you do for yourself
Years ago, my daughter and one of her friends were planning a playdate/sleepover. They’d been thinking about it all week. On the day of, the friend cancelled and opted to have a sleepover with a different friend. My daughter knew both of the girls and the playdate trade-up knocked her off stride. She was made to feel like a third-wheel and it bruised her ego, badly. She recovered. But the friendship never did. She was seven years old at that time.
I asked her if she held a grudge with either of them. She says, “No. I’ll play with them, but I won’t make plans with them anymore. Besides, one never says no and the other always cancels.” Over the years, each of those two girls had asked my daughter to go over to their place. But they never played like they used to or for as long. Now, they don’t even call on each other anymore.
As adults, if an event was an act of betrayal and caused emotional injury, it’s natural to deal first with the hurt and rejection and then evaluate if we can move on. We put our ego and our pride into focus before we consider whether to even hear, much less accept an apology—if one was forthcoming. We may even delay our response to give the offense more gravity as we contemplate whether the deed is worthy of forgiving. Finally, we hold out and let the transgressor stew before we finally feel good enough to move forward. This is a lot of drama.
While forgiving is renewing for both sides, forgetting is situational. Certainly it’s pointless to be resentful for trivial things, but urging someone to forget as a condition for moving on could be an act of defeatism.
Recently, I had an opportunity to reconnect with the dad of one of those girls. They have since moved away and a recent trip brings us into their town so I thought we might have lunch. I asked my daughter if she was fine to have lunch with them or whether it would be too weird. On the ride up, my daughter told me that she had actually forgiven her friends years ago. I was curious at how vivid her memory was still, almost 3 years later. She told me that her two friends are remarkably consistent to other people: non-committal. She decided that she can’t rely on that. She also told me that neither apologized to her; she felt that neither thought they had done anything wrong. Nevertheless, she didn’t let it bother her or felt she needed redress from them. In the end, my daughter gave these two girls a remarkable gesture. For my daughter, forgiving the girls was an act she’d had done for them, but the emotion released her from being trapped in the consequences of their actions. How they receive this gesture is almost irrelevant. It only matters in the way it was given.
I looked at my daughter in stunned silence and nearly veered off the road. I will say again that children without the many rose-colored glasses have astonishing clarity. I thought to myself, I’d better not piss-off this little one! As we near our destination, we met our hosts and had a beautiful lunch together. Our daughters sat next to each other and chatted. Tentatively at first and by the end of lunch, they were talking and laughing as though no time had passed. On the ride home that evening, I asked my daughter if she’d be interested in coming out more often or even invite her friend over. This time, it was my daughter who was non-committal. I left it there. Clearly she has not forgotten.
Kids are generally pretty resilient and will survive many quarrels, but crossing some boundaries will jeopardize friendship in such a way that it may never recover. This is not a statement of grudge holding but holding friends to one’s values. Having a healthy sense of this self-respect is important in defining what acceptable, recoverable and intolerable deeds are. While forgiving is renewing for both sides, forgetting is situational. Certainly it’s pointless to be resentful for trivial things, but urging someone to forget as a condition for moving on could be an act of defeatism. Not forgetting could be a conscious and personal choice. It’s an enviable quality when a child feels they are under no obligation to accept other people’s standard of behavior.
