A Grade School Apology

Wow. I am truly blown away right now. I know that facebook is usually not about anything deep, but today I was so surprised to get an email from an acquaintance from grade school. What is even cooler, is that this wasn't the first one of this type. I received another one like this a few months back. What kind of email was it? An apology.

To give you all a little background about me you may or may not know, I lost my hair when I was in kindergarten and we were living in Seattle area. I didn't get it back fully until around the 4th grade. When I say 'lost my hair', I mean all of it. Everywhere( ie.- no hair on my arms, legs, eyebrows....)! It stemmed from an auto-immune disease that I got called Alopeica and it just means 'hair loss'. Most people who have Alopecia, don't ever get their hair back, so that was my reality. Honestly though, for me and my family, despite the diagnosis, we all hoped and prayed and believed it would be different.

Soon after I lost my hair, we moved back to the Chicago suburbs and we ended up living there for over 20 years. We moved into a community that we had already lived in a couple years back and our church family was definitely what I attribute, along with my family, my confidence, hope, self-worth and that God didn't 'mess up' with me(the story of how I have my hair now will be for another day).

You see, when you move into a new school during 1st grade with no hair, no eyebrows, and wearing a Snoopy baseball hat, you aren't the 'cool new girl!' I was always jealous of those ones in the years to come; they seemed to have it so easy! Ha! Anyway...I remember being teased, having kids either knock my hat off purposely, or stealing it until the recess aides would help. I did find friends in a couple girls, but usually in boys(they thought I was pretty good at kickball, chase, and riding our dirt bikes), so they would stick up for me when they were around. But of course, I got teased and so did they for playing together with the opposite gender. I laugh now, but I remember getting some Valentine's cards from my boy 'friends'in my mailbox that said, "I love you,"and it was obvious they weren't from them. Of course, the ones that wrote them were right there and laughing-gosh, kids sure get a kick out of being mean! Ugh...one of the worst cases though(because an adult did it) was a substitute teacher that would NOT let up about me taking my hat off since kids weren't allowed to wear hats in school. I remember some kids stuck up for me and others didn't and it eventually came down to the teacher sending me down to the Principal's office since I wouldn't take it off! Needless to say, the principal was definitely behind me, but it was humiliating to me as I was a straight and narrow kid(for the most part-at THAT age)!

This gets me back to the two facebook messages I have received from two classmates during those years. The first one said that he remembered first meeting me and drawing attention to the fact that I was wearing a hat and telling me that I couldn't wear it in school. I have no recollection of that incident, but he remembered it in detail, down to what hat I was wearing! He said he carried it with him throughout high school, and every time he passed me in the halls, he felt bad about not apologizing for drawing attention to me that day. Wow, I was so impressed with him! Isn't it crazy how long we carry things if we push them aside and not deal with them? I was so thankful that he did finally say something and was able to find out that I either don't remember it or it wasn't that big of a deal. I just thought it took a lot of guts!

Today, I got another email apologizing for being a bully to me and others in grade school (again, I remember incidents, but not the people involved, which I think is good!). He said he remembers teasing me and trying to embarrass me. He wanted to apologize after all these years, but didn't want to sound weird. Weird? I was so humbled! I wrote back that I honestly don't remember him as being mean to me, just a 'tough guy' on the outside, but could tell that he was a teddy bear on the inside(I actually didn't say teddy bear for fear of embarrassing him, but said I could tell he was different on the inside-ha!)

How cool is that though? I was so happy to get these emails. I do remember the hurt, but not the people, and it felt good to have the apologies. What was even better was find out that even those that are considered the 'bullies' chose a different path as an adult. These are also good lessons for my kids to learn and I am definitely going to share them. I am honestly thankful that I lost my hair when I was younger for a variety of reasons, but in regards to this discussion, it has given me a heart to seek out those who are outcast and also look deep into the hearts of the bullies. And the piece of asking for forgiveness...that is hard, but it is healing for both parties!

P.S. My scanner is on the fritz, but when it is up again, I will post a picture of my grade school years in case you are curious.