Vantage Point

Listening With the Heart

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It’s strange the way events from the past that have lain dormant for decades can come crashing into the present without warning. But when they do, good things can happen.

Recently I reconnected with some former classmates from elementary school. It started, as these things often do, with a chance meeting. I was chatting with a fellow churchgoer one Sunday, and I mentioned that I’d attended the parish elementary school. So had his wife, he said. It turned out that his wife and I had been in the same class and had graduated from the eighth grade together.

That contact led to another, with a classmate who lives out of state. I’ll call her Marie. She e-mailed me, I e-mailed back, and we started an online correspondence. Then we talked on the phone. We have things in common, including writing. She has written a book. We have much to talk about.

What I did not tell her is that my years in elementary school had not been entirely happy.

One day Marie asked me if I remembered another girl from our class. I’ll call her Linda. Instantly my body tensed.

“Yes,” I said.

“I connected with her on Facebook,” Marie said. Her voice was happy.

“Marie, there’s something I have to tell you,” I said. I told her that many of the girls in my class were unkind to me, and that they teased and tormented me. In today’s term, I was bullied, and the worst of the bullies was Linda.

Marie knew about the problem, although she didn’t know the extent of it. She apologized for any part she’d had in it. I told her that I do not remember her as saying or doing anything unkind to me, although she was one of “them,” the clique of girls who tormented me. I was not seeking an apology from her, but I said, “I remember you as a snippy kid.”

“I was,” she said.

Marie encouraged me to keep talking, and she listened with compassion. I talked about the hurt of being mocked by classmates. I talked about a particular incident, and how my father, enraged when he found out about it, had called the nun who was my teacher. She spoke to the girls involved, and apparently told them to apologize. One did. I still remember her with respect and gratitude.

But forgiveness does not always come easily to me, and when Marie said that she had connected with Linda, my gut reaction was, “I don’t wish her ill, but I don’t care how she is or what she’s doing.”

Marie’s next words made me reconsider. It turns out that at the time Linda was mocking me, she was enduring severe mistreatment at home. Her life as an adult also has been difficult. That doesn’t change what she did to me, but it certainly changes the way I look at it. Things have gone well for me, and I hope they turn around for her. I wish her only good.

I felt relief at being able to confide my story to Marie. During the few months we’ve been in touch, I was holding something back, and—this amazed me—she sensed it. When we ended our conversation, I felt immense peace and relief. She had listened with the ears of her heart, and that brought me healing, consolation and a feeling of renewal, of being able to leave the past in the past and start over, because of a friend’s loving compassion.

It was a moment of grace, and it strengthened a new friendship that had begun in grace.

With the school year soon to begin, I have a message for parents: If you see or suspect that your child is being bullied, speak up. Address the problem. Bullying can do long-lasting damage. I also have a message for everyone: If you know or suspect that someone close to you is carrying a painful burden, encourage him or her to talk. It is the first step toward healing, and it can do immeasurable good.