No Apology Required

When to remember, when to forget, and why making amends isn’t always a good step

When my brother was deep into his mental illness and high on meth, he picked up my phone one night in the middle of the night and wrote sexually explicit messages to many of my contacts. The consequences were dire.

Our cousin, a beautiful young woman, decided she never wanted to see him again. She let it be known that she wanted to be informed if he was going to show up at any family functions, because if he was coming then she would stay away. That marked the last time he came to Thanksgiving or Christmas, or showed up at the beach house where we gather every summer.

I was hurt, at first. I wanted her to be more forgiving of his disability. But he was so far gone I could scarcely advocate for him — homeless and aggressive, often locked up in a psych ward or jail. When I moved, I didn’t give him my new address. And over time, I came to see our cousin’s edict as a reasonable setting of boundaries.

But he was so far gone I could scarcely advocate for him — homeless and aggressive, often locked up in a psych ward or jail. When I moved, I didn’t give him my new address.

It wasn’t always a hellscape with my brother. Sometimes — when I was visiting him in a hospital or meeting him at a restaurant to buy him a meal — he seemed sane. Then I’d remind him that he needed to apologize to our cousin. I don’t even remember doing that! he would answer. I said that didn’t matter. The fact was, he had.

Things went along like that for many years: up and down, in and out, in a mostly hopeless misery-go-round of defeat and dysfunction. Then about six months ago, something happened after a particularly gnarly hospitalization. My brother decided he was done using meth. “I’ve learned all I can from using meth,” was how he put it.

Other blessings dropped near the same time. The county government assigned a team to assist him: a social worker, therapist, and psychiatrist. The federal government subsidized a place for him to live. Our cousin sent me a text: “I want you to know that I’ve managed to move past what happened with Nick. I love him with all my heart and want only the best for him.” She invited him over to look at her furniture and see if he wanted to take something for his new apartment…

That’s how his recovery has been unfolding. That’s how he’s taken a few chary steps back into the fold.

The fold: a group of people that share a common faith, belief, activity or enthusiasm

To fold: to lay one part over another; to clasp or enwrap closely: EMBRACE; to incorporate (a food ingredient) into a mixture by repeated gentle overturnings without stirring or beating

Unfold: develop, evolve

Now my brother and I hang out on the regular. He’s charming and fun to be with. We went swimming at China Beach in August. (I tried to ride a wave and took a tumble for the first time in 20 years!) In November, he came to Thanksgiving and hung out with his daughter, who’s just now getting to know him at age five. Yesterday, we went to a “detox cafe” to eat zucchini noodles for breakfast. And Sunday, we’re going to hear a singer-songwriter downtown.

He’s planning to come to two family celebrations at Christmas. And when I saw a party on Facebook put on by old friends, I asked the hostess if I could come and bring my brother. At first, she was delighted. But then I got a second call. Some of the guests wouldn’t be happy to see him.

“Nick needs to make amends,” she told me. “And I don’t know if this is the right venue to do that.”

“By amends, I’m guessing you mean these people want him to apologize for something he did?”

“Yes.”

Okay. But, here’s the thing: I don’t.

I don’t want my brother to apologize. I don’t want him to feel regret or shame. I don’t want him to ask himself, “What have I been doing for the past 15 years?” I’m glad he doesn’t know.

I don’t want my brother to apologize. I don’t want him to feel regret or shame. I don’t want him to ask himself, “What have I been doing for the past 15 years?” I’m glad he doesn’t know.

I understand why making amends is important. I get the transformative power of apology. I was struck by Eve Ensler’s assertion that the inability to apologize for sexual violence could be a cornerstone of the current patriarchal system which not only does unfathomable damage to women and children, but is raping our planet to death.

Her latest book, The Apology, is up next on my reading list.

And I get that making amends has worked for countless numbers of addicts seeking to salvage their lives. It’s is a big part of the 12-Step recovery program which originated with Alcoholics Anonymous and spread out to every type of addiction you can name. After admitting you’re powerless over your addiction and asking for help from a power greater than yourself, you’re asked to make a fearless inventory of your sins and shortcomings and to make amends.

Step 8 Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

Step 9 Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

The idea of finding a path forward by making amends has been around as long as humankind— or at least as long as the Catholic Church, which has created a sacrament out of giving confession and doing penance.

But recounting and apologizing for our sins is not the only path to redemption. Forgetting, too, can help us find our way to the light.

Our cousin sent me a text: “I want you to know that I’ve managed to move past what happened with Nick. I love him with all my heart and want only the best for him.”

Forgetting is a key component of many religious experiences. In Buddhist thought, forgetting the ego and the self is the key to enlightenment. And in myriad world myths, souls must cross a threshold of forgetting (like drinking from the River Lethe) before entering heaven or returning to earth.

In fact, the very act of remembering some things involves forgetting others, as Lewis Hyde points out in A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the Past.

When bards of old sang songs of a glorious past, they were helping their audience to both remember and forget. “What drops into oblivion under the bardic spell is the fatigue, wretchedness, and anxiety of the present moment, its unrefined particularity, and what rises into consciousness is knowledge of the better world that lies hidden beyond this one,” Hyde writes.

Unrefined particularity? That sounds too familiar. In this age we live in, when every meal must be photographed and shared on social media, every moment of beauty recorded and toted up, I am longing to escape the particular details of existence — to be released to the boundless realms of ideals, to the realm of Mercy. Of Forgiveness.

It doesn’t matter exactly what words my brother wrote, whom he intimidated, or how he broke the rules when he was in the grip of mania or meth.

What matters is that now he finds some soft and safe footing. Reclaims a few friendships. Nurtures a creative outlet. Cobbles together a way to live.

A friend of mine had a brother the same age as mine, with the same diagnosis. And earlier this year, he stepped in front of a train.

So, no. I don’t want Nick to remember what he did wrong and to make amends to the injured parties. I want him to forget. To look forward. To find people willing to love him. To be incorporated into the mixture by repeated gentle overturnings without stirring or beating…

To lay this new life over the old one.

To fold it in.

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