The enemy of my enemy is my friend, so the saying goes.
Sometimes the enemy of one's enemy is simply ... one's matured and reformed enemy.
This was driven home to me at a recent social event I covered for the Democrat-Gazette's society section, High Profile.
Through the years, this column has borne recurring mentions of my having been a childhood and adolescent victim of bullying ... or, as the older folks in my family called it, meddlin'. It was the classic scenario. I didn't look like a duck (overweight), quack like a duck (talked too "proper") or walk like a duck (prim, shy, bookworm-y behavior). So the other ducks were pretty merciless.
One duck in particular, during my elementary-school days, I'd considered to be one of the meanest kids in school.
He wasn't my primary tormentor, but he was a memorable one. My worst memory of him was having been soundly slapped on the school playground one day when -- just goofing off -- I pointed and laughed at some dropped ice cream. I had no idea who'd owned the ice cream, and had unfortunately lacked the wisdom to a) find out and b) ascertain whether that person was still in the vicinity. I didn't report the assault and in fact begged my friend to keep quiet about it. I feared that there'd be worse to come if it got reported.
Other encounters with this fellow were not as severe, and actually few in number compared to encounters with the bullies who dished out verbal abuse on a regular basis. But just the menacing vibes I got from the guy made me sure he was going to one day grow up and take out a small country just for the heck of it.
Throughout adulthood, this fellow's name has come up a few times. I even had a brief, across-the-room, greetings-only encounter with him at a friend of a friend's home. He has had his struggles and stumbles, stumbles that seemed to be in line with my childhood impression of the fellow. But no small country went missing. Subconsciously, I kept waiting.
Until this particular day at this particular social event.
As I either fiddled with my camera or jotted down names of the people I'd just photographed, I was hailed.
"Say, isn't your name Helaine Palmer?" asked the gentleman, a fellow middle-ager wearing church clothes.
"Well, that's what it was originally," I replied, eyes still on my task.
"You remember who I am? Take a good look at me," he urged.
Uh-oh. Somebody whose face I'll probably recognize but whose name I won't remember, I thought, looking up.
Into a pair of dark eyes.
Recognition dawned. I remembered the face. Remembered the name.
Certainly remembered the eyes, although now they were friendly.
Now he was friendly. Talkative. Full of warmth and hugs. Full of mentions of and thank-yous for the God I was shocked to hear him mention.
At one time, when I was still in unforgiveness mode and wanting my enemies to come to a bad end, I might not have been so happy that he was doing so well.
"Bullying is violence, and it often leads to more violent behavior as the bully grows up," according to the website kidshealth.org. "It's estimated that one out of four elementary-school bullies will have a criminal record by the time they are 30. Some teen bullies end up being rejected by their peers and lose friendships as they grow older. Bullies may also fail in school and not have the career or relationship success that other people enjoy."
What wasn't said: Somewhere along the line, the bully may just have a come-to-Jesus meeting with himself, and perhaps even, well, come to Jesus. Which will be great news to his victims, if they have properly matured. And properly forgiven.
The former bully and I chatted a bit. He briefly acknowledged that he'd once been a mean one. Now things seemed to be going decently for him, and he was not only thankful, but downright joyful. The more we chatted, the more joyful I became.
And I realized that the good Lord had been doing remodeling jobs on both of us.
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Style on 06/29/2014