The Burying of the Hatchets

One of my favorite television shows when I was a kid was The Lone Ranger. The show told the story of the lone surviving Texas Ranger who was nursed back to health by Tonto, a Native American who becomes The Lone Ranger's comrade and best friend as they ride throughout the west, doing good and catching bad guys. Those of us who grew up during the era of The Lone Ranger learned to speak Native American from Tonto ... or so we thought anyway. The truth is that "white man speak with forked tongue" and many other words and phrases had absolutely nothing to do with Native American language or speech and everything to do with the television writers who made them up. In all fairness to the writers, some of the words and sayings were legit ... like "burying the hatchet," for example. That particular expression did actually originate from American Indian tradition ... hatchets were buried by the chiefs of opposing tribes when they reached a peace agreement. Hence the meaning of the figuratively used phrase in today's world ... burying the hatchet means to settle your differences with an adversary, to put an end to fighting, to reach a peace agreement. I've never buried a real hatchet in the ground ... though I think it would be a super powerful symbolic experience ... but I've sure buried more than a few of those figurative ones over the years.

Before I continue, I need to restate something I've written previously ... I don't write about my marriage or my divorce, and tonight's post doesn't change my stance in regard to those two subjects. Enough said. 

The first evening I was in Canada, Matt and Becca shared the news with me that they are expecting their second child. They had sent Matt's dad and other family members cards to tell them about the pregnancy, so when the phone rang that evening, I wasn't surprised to hear Matt say, "Hi, Dad," when he answered the phone. I wanted to give Matt and Becca their privacy as they chatted with Matt's dad, so I went downstairs to the guest room and began unpacking. About a half-hour later, Becca came to the top of the stairs and asked if I could come upstairs. It was as I stepped on the first step that I noticed Becca was holding the phone to her chest, and I remember thinking it was weird that she still had the phone in her hands. And within a split second, my daughter-in-law said, "He wants to talk to you."

"Who wants to talk to me?" I asked.

"Matt's dad ... he wants to talk to you, Terrie," Becca replied.

"Why in the world does he want to talk to me?" I questioned, my words laden with doubt and skepticism.

"I have no idea, but he wants to talk to you," she answered. "If you don't want to talk, I'll tell him you don't want to. It's okay if you don't want to talk to him."

"No ... I'll talk to him," I said as I climbed up the stairs to take the phone from Becca's outstretched hand, my heart beating so hard I thought for sure it was going to pound right out of my chest.

What followed that evening was without a doubt one of the most surreal experiences of my entire life. For 45 minutes, I sat on a couch in my son and daughter-in-law's living room in Canada and talked to my ex-husband on the phone. I'm not sharing the details of our conversation, but I will tell you there were heartfelt tears shed by both of us, and there were sincere apologies spoken by both of us. Hatchets were buried that night after many, many years of animosity ... hatchets were buried ... and it was good and it was right and it was long overdue. 

Needless to say, I've thought a lot about that conversation ... about how unexpected it was ... about how many times I had tried to initiate such a conversation over the years ... about how I never anticipated that it would spark such deep emotion within me. There were many things my ex-husband said that evening that touched me, but none so much as what he said as our conversation drew to a close. He said I needed to hold my head high and be proud of who I am ... that I was a person of great worth and honor and integrity ... that I had done a wonderful job raising our children. 

I know I've said it a gazillion times, but life really, really, really is short ... too, too short for anger or hatred or contempt or grudge-holding or judgment. My hope is that you'll look for the hatchets in your own life ... hatchets you've been using to beat the crap out of someone ... hatchets that you'll eventually come to find out are hurting you as much or more than they are the person you're swinging them at. My hope is that you'll search out your hatchets and bury them once and for all. 

Hatchets were buried that night in Canada, friends, not only for me and my ex-husband, but for our children and our grandchildren as well. See that's the thing about those kinds of hatchets ... they cut a wide swath ... they cut a really wide swath. Hatchets were buried that cold, cold night in Canada ... hatchets were buried that night indeed ... and it was good and it was right and it was long overdue.