Who's Hurt More?

There's a dear young boy, wearing the yellow shirt in the photo here, one of my favorite people I met in Haiti. He was quite taken with the pennywhistle I brought there. He couldn't really figure out how to play more than one note, but that was enough. I loved him, so I left the instrument in his hands more than once as I left the house to go do the things that we adults do during the day.

About the second time this happened, he said he lost it. One of his relatives found him with it a few days later and gave it back to me, and it was fairly clear that he had in fact taken it because he wanted to keep it.

At this point, who was hurt more? Keri looked really uncomfortable around me. But as far as I was concerned, there was nothing wrong with this child; children make mistakes. And I still loved him. I continued to treat him as the dear little boy he is, and our relationship was better.

But, honestly, here's the part where I didn't live quite as the person I'd like to be. There were plenty of easy excuses to avoid talking to him about the situation, so I made them. But instead, I'd like to have told him that I understood how much he would want a pennywhistle, and that he took it away from me. And that, knowing that, I forgive him and I love him anyway.

So here's the deal. I'm going to call Haiti, ask to talk to him, and explain just that.

I'll let you know how it goes.