One Wednesday, Emily asked a question while painting a wooden birdhouse.
“Grandma?”
“Yes?”
“Are you still mad about Hawaii?”
Children rarely approach difficult subjects with warning.
I put down my paintbrush.
“I was hurt about Hawaii.”
“That’s what Mom said.”
“What else did she say?”
“That grown-ups made a bad decision.”
I smiled slightly.
“That sounds accurate.”
“Do you forgive them?”
I looked at my granddaughter.
Forgiveness.
Adults make the word complicated.
We imagine it as a door that is either open or shut.
But mine had been more like sunrise.
Slow.
Uneven.
Light reaching one corner before another.
“Yes,” I said.
“Completely?”
I laughed.
“Where did you learn to ask questions like that?”
“Mom.”
“That also sounds accurate.”
I considered my answer.
“I forgive them. But forgiveness doesn’t mean pretending nothing happened.”
“What does it mean?”
“It means you stop wanting the past to become different.”
Emily frowned.
“The past can’t become different.”
“Exactly.”
Satisfied, she returned to the birdhouse.
I sat there thinking that perhaps eight-year-olds should be assigned to simplify most human problems.
In May, Daniel invited me to lunch.
Just the two of us.
We went to a Mexican restaurant Arthur had loved during visits to Arizona.
