Best You Can Do Is Forgive

"Well it's all right, remember to live and let live;
Well it's all right, the best you can do is forgive."
 -The Traveling Wilburys, "End of the Line"

Currently, I travel up to Layton a couple of times a week. It's not personal; it's business.

While driving up there along I-15, I always pass under the Burton Lane Bridge in Kaysville. This is one landmark I always look forward to seeing in my travels because, much of the time, someone has spelled out a message with plastic cups in the holes of the chain-link fence.

It's a thing we do here in Utah, often to welcome home returning missionaries, to ask/answer requests for local high school dances, and such.

The Burton Lane Bridge reminds me a little bit of the movie L.A. Story, in which Steve Martin's character receives a number of messages with advice particular to his own life from a roadside sign on the L.A. Expressway. The sign ends up playing something of a major supporting role in the film.

Anyway, the message spelled out across the bridge last week consisted of only one word, but it is nevertheless a very important word:

"Forgive."

It would turn out that I would really need that specific message on this specific day. My family would, anyway.

At work, I received a phone call from Dad in which he informed me that Mom had, unfortunately, tripped over a piece of twine or string that was left hanging over the sidewalk at a neighbor's while out for a walk. She had been hurt very badly in the process. It turned out to be not one but two broken elbows, leaving Mom wearing a cast on each arm for the next several weeks. Said injury will also require her to be attended by someone else at nearly every waking hour, as she now needs help eating, scratching itches, and doing several other ordinary tasks that you and I often take for granted on a daily basis.

"Mommy is a mummy," Dad said.

This is the kind of accident that can turn some neighbors from friends into mortal enemies. Again, it was all a result of a neighbor carelessly leaving string or twine hanging over a public sidewalk.

Mom decided to take the high road. (Like moms do.) She visited this neighbor, a member of the parents' LDS ward, upon returning home from the hospital to let the neighbor know what had happened, one intent being to hopefully help prevent additional injury to other neighbors. Another intent was to forgive, to not hold any kind of a grudge. (Of course, it also doesn't mean said neighbor's insurance might not still have to cover some medical expenses.)

Neighbor lady's husband was away on a business trip, but neighbor lady took full responsibility, burst into tears, and apologized profusely. I think we may be able to save this friendship after all.

Forgiveness is always a good option. It's really the best one.