Apologize

It was one of the first lessons I learned in preschool.

If you do something bad, if you hurt someone, say you’re sorry.  Then the other person forgives you, and it’s like nothing ever happened.  You can start again; the paper’s clean, as if you’ve never written anything at all.

As a child, I used to believe in this wholeheartedly.  Back then, my wrongs were simple ones, a careless word, a lie told to avoid a scolding.  My faults were only lightly penciled in.  Once I apologized, the marks against me were erased away, and unless you looked closely, you’d never notice they were there.

Growing older, life became more complicated.  The writings on the page became darker, more reluctant to fade.  Some of them leave scars, no matter how hard I try to scrub them off.  

There’s one that I cannot make disappear.  It’s a dark gash of ink, spilling across, bleeding into old wounds, turning them black again.  No matter how hard I try, no matter how much I wish to make amends, no matter how many apologies I offer, it won’t be enough.

I cannot wash the past clean.  There are some wrongs I cannot be forgiven,  even with the most heartfelt apology.  

There are some wrongs that can never be forgiven.  

There are some wrongs where no apology, no amount of atonement can heal what’s been broken.