Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My son lent me a book called "Eating Crow", published in 2004.  It's hilarious.  It's about a British guy who is a nasty restaurant critic until a chef kills himself right after the critic has written a scathing review.  He has an epiphany and apologises to the widow, then goes on a spree of apologizing to everyone he has offended or not been so kind to, including his younger brother.  Eventually, he becomes famous for apologizing and is hired by the UN to be the chief apologist for genocides, attrocities of all sorts and is set up in New York.  I'm not finished reading the novel, but I love the absurdity and the complete relevance to our Western culture.

Not a day goes by that some group is not demanding an apology and reparations.  Yes, they mostly have excellent reasons for the requests.  But the book makes me think about when apologies would have been lovely to have received, and even better to have given myself.  I had two tiffs with women friends that I thought were resolved when we met to discuss the confusion and our points of view.  In the first case, the woman said she'd been upset about her fiance (whom she did not marry) and in the second she said I reminded her of her mother.  They both apologised.  I accepted.  A few years later, after I'd moved back here,  I bumped into them and they both wondered why we'd not been in touch.  When I described the contents of each meeting, neither remembered either the meeting or the admission that something was going on with them and they were unbalanced a bit at the time.  So apologies are evidently erasable and unmemorable to some.  Maybe apologies don't stick.

I've often wished I could apologise to my mother for throwing away all the hand sewn and knit clothes she made for me.  I was an ungrateful wretch.  And I wish I'd kept my fixing others ideas to myself and not opened my big mouth.   I've tried to rectify when possible.  Being Native American, I believe in at least having history be accurate and not a white wash. 

So can you go too far?  Does it become a device to get you off the hook instead of genuine remorse?  Intention takes a lot of examining before you take the plunge.  But it's worth considering.