An Emotion to Overcome S.M. Doshisha International Jr/Sr High School, Kyoto, Japan

To forgive someone is difficult. However, to forgive yourself is even more difficult. The anger that you feel from someone doing something to you will gradually fade away as time passes by, but it is nearly impossible to forget what you have done yourself. A deep regret stays in your heart forever and never fades away. There is a person I cannot forgive. She was my best friend. I was her best friend. No, maybe I was not. I don't know. After all, there is no way for me to find out... How impressed I was at her light blond hair, pink cheeks, and the great big smile on her face when I first met her. She looked straight at me with clear blue eyes that seemed to draw me in. I thought they were beautiful. It being my first time meeting someone of a different country, I could not hide my astonishment. Although I was young and could not understand or speak any English, I was able to feel the kindness she possessed. We became best friends. During summer, we played together almost every day. Our hearts were beating with anxiety while waiting for the arrival of letters that reported our classes for the up-coming year. We jumped for joy on finding out that we were in the same class. In autumn, we made pumpkin pies and ran around on the grass covered with fallen leaves. On Halloween, we went around collecting treats and leaving tricks for stingy people. When winter came, we went sleigh riding together in the park, put up Christmas decorations, and talked about what we would get from Santa Claus. Towards spring, we dyed eggs for Easter, and bought marshmallow sweets that were shaped like bunnies. Fireworks on July 4 informed us of the approaching summer. Every year passed like this, though it was a bit different each year. We never realized how fast the time flew by. We were soon in our final year of elementary school. Compared to the times when we were young running around all day outside, we had started to settle down a bit. There was more time to spend inside than outside, doing our homework and watching movies, but our friendship never changed. However, one day, what was only meant to be a little joke changed our relationship forever. One day, another friend of mine and I thought of playing a little prank on her. We didn't mean to be cruel or anything, we thought it was just a cute little joke. There was a person she had a crush on, or so we thought, and because she never admitted it, we thought we would write a love letter to him from her. It was only a joke. The letter was obviously a prank and anyone could tell by the handwriting that it was not written by her. Even the content of the letter was so stupid that there was no way anyone would think it was a true love letter. We thought it was funny, and thought she would think it was funny too. However, contrary to our expectations, neither she nor her friend thought it was funny. She found out about the letter before we gave it to him. At night, she called me. "Why did you do this?" Her voice was shaking with fury and it sounded as though she was even crying. At first I did not understand what she was talking about and was completely confused. "I know you guys wrote that letter!" I had nothing to say. I was stunned. Her reaction was nothing like what I had expected. I stood there blankly for over a minute after she hung up the phone. The beeping sound of the telephone echoed in my ear. The next day I talked to my friend about what had happened. She said she had received a call too. As we sat there talking, I heard my name being called from behind. I turned around to find her standing there with eyes of anger and sadness, her friend besides her. "Now you've lost two completely perfect friends." She said, and walked away. Again, I didn't know what to say. I did not understand. Why was she so mad? What was such a big deal? It was only a joke... Soon I started to feel anger growing inside me. Why couldn't she take a little joke? Two completely good friends?! Yeah right, how good of a friend are they! I was mad. From that day, we did not say a word to each other. We spent our days completely separately. After a while, I understood why she was so angry. Maybe she really did like him, and that was why she could not take it as a joke. It could have seemed like we were making fun of her. When I realized that I had hurt her feelings, I regretted my thoughtless actions from the bottom of my heart and wanted to apologize to her, but I couldn't. I did not have the courage to go up to her and apologize. My life in the US was coming near to the end since it had been decided that our family were going to move back to Japan when summer break came, but I could not tell this to her. I had told all my other friends, and so maybe she might have heard it from someone else but I never knew if she found out or not. On the last day of school, I gave everyone a good-bye hug and grieved the parting, but finally I could not give an apology to her. I spent most of the early summer vacation packing and getting ready for the move, but there was never a time when the incident with her left my mind. I thought of going over to her house or perhaps calling her to apologize, but I just could not get the chance. Days went by way too quickly. When I sat down to rest, almost everything in the house was cleared out and there were only a few boxes left to be sent. I sat in my empty room thinking back at the memories of the past six years. There were times of hardship but there were many more times of excitement and joy. For the most part of my great years, I found her shadow next to mine. Wherever I heard my laughter, I always heard hers. For the first time after I found out about our move, I cried. I cried in a voice that was unable to be heard by anyone. The keys of our house were returned to the owner, and we packed ourselves into a taxi. I turned around so many times to look back at my house and the scenery of my childhood. It was peaceful and calm but it also looked somehow sad. The taxi rounded the corner and just as I turned around to face the front, I found a letter sticking out of my bag. To my surprise, the letter was from her. I opened the envelope and unfolded the letter. Soon, tears were rolling down my cheeks. The kindness I felt from her when I first met her had not changed even after such a long period of time and after what I had done. I regretted doing such a thing. I regretted not having apologized to her. I regretted not ever thanking her for all those great times. I regretted not ever being able to say good-bye to her. After all those years, the last words we ever exchanged were in anger... But most of all, I regretted not being able to forgive myself. Forever I will blame myself for what I did and what I did not do. Now that it was all over, there was no way for me to go back and fix the mistake unless I invented a way to turn back time. I had made an irretrievable loss. From this story, you might have learned many things; the importance of apologizing, to treasure your friends, etc. However, what I wanted to tell the most was the importance of forgiving. If I had just apologized to her right away, I would not have had to suffer all those times. I could not forgive myself for the things I had done and for not saying one word to her, "sorry". After all, she was not mad. She said in the letter that she was feeling sorry for being so mad and had wanted to make up our friendship again. The last days of my life in the US could have been so much happier if I had just forgiven myself. In the course of a lifetime, we make mistakes, and there will always be things we regret from the bottom of our hearts. However, there will be no end if we keep on blaming ourselves for what we have done. So, if you realize that you have done something bad, just apologize! Forgive yourself! Things will be solved right away. You will definitely find a better future.

Child Research Net would like to thank the Doshisha International Junior/Senior High School and Sayumi Matsunaga, student and author, for permitting reproduction of this article on the CRN web site.

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