This is a story of something that should happen often but in fact too rarely does. The names have been changed along with some other details, but the story is true and comes from one of the women involved, with the other woman’s approval.

The narrator, Sheila, had been living in the house owned by her friend Jane. Sheila had always paid rent to Jane but, through the years, the two also considered themselves good friends. One day, however, thirteen years ago, Sheila received a call from her friend suddenly announcing that Jane was going to buy a condominium and that Sheila would have to move out as soon as possible.

Sheila, feeling under great duress, did move out in June of that year. “It was horrendous, horrible,” she says about the event. It was emotionally devastating to her, not only because she had no place of her own to move to, but because her friend was treating her so coldly. That was clear from Jane’s activity during the move: she remained in the house, sitting at her desk working at her high-tech job, without any involvement in Sheila’s labor or distress.

In the time that succeeded this break between friends, Jane experienced a series of harsh events. Both of her parents died, and later, so did her brother in a fire that burned down the family home. And Jane’s health was challenged in a life-threatening heart attack. Also her part in the break with her friend had bothered Jane for the entire 13 years of their separation.

Two Christmases ago Sheila received a letter of apology from Jane, along with a check for 1,000 dollars. This represented money that Jane felt she owed her friend. What had moved Jane to make this gesture of reconciliation was watching “A Christmas Carol” on television and how Scrooge his miserly ways affected other people.

Responding to a suggestion made by Jane, Sheila went out to dinner with her. During the dinner Jane “flat out apologized” to her friend for all that she had done. Sheila felt deeply touched by this turn of events, in part because “I had the most in common with her of any of my friends.”

Ironically, Jane revealed during this reconciliation that, on the very evening of the day her friend had moved out, she had left on Sheila’s pillow a note changing her mind. Unfortunately, Sheila never saw the note and the expulsion went through. Jane had also made other early efforts to contact her former friend, even sending a birthday card in August after the break, suggesting they get together.

Since the reconciliation, the friendship has regained its old strength and may even have improved because of the shared pain of separation. Sheila has spent time at her friend’s vacation house; they have gone to cultural events together; Sheila has accompanied her new-found old friend to medical appointments.

“We have a great relationship now,” says Sheila in summing up the restoration of the bonds between them.

And about Jane’s initiative, Sheila waxes enthusiastic: “I have to hand it to her –  – it is very seldom that someone apologizes and does not make any excuses.”

Surprisingly, not all of Sheila’s friends have hailed the reconciliation. Some have suggested that she should not have been so forgiving. However, Sheila considers herself fortunate and takes continuing pleasure at her rediscovered friendship. And Jane feels a burden lifted as she resumes the benefits of a relationship that once meant so much to her and now does again.

Jane had the good sense not to wait till old age before taking action to repair a broken relationship. But it is never too late or too early to act this way, as some other people have had the wisdom to realize.

One such person was William Maxwell, a writer and editor at the New Yorker magazine. His friend Alec Wilkinson, in a recent memoir about Maxwell, recalled an action  taken by him in middle age: “When he was in his fifties, Maxwell wrote letters to every person he felt he had harmed, to apologize.”

As it turned out, Maxwell may have been overly scrupulous because, adds Wilkinson, “no one remembered the offense or recalled the incident in the same light that he did.” But this lack of response does not detract from the writer’s noble impulse to attend to the spiritual health of his personal relationships. Like Jane, he was to enjoy the rich benefits  that come with reconciliation.

Richard Griffin