Open Writing

“Compassion,” the glamorous Sue Wilkie said, drawing her feet in their pretty long-pointed-toed shoes under her chair, “is after all a skill.”

The five ladies who were attending their weekly Positive Thinking class listened most interestedly. Mrs. Redman leaned on her large hips, forward slightly, to take in what was to follow. “It is a skill which you can acquire, or you can improve what you already have,” said the pretty woman conducting the class.

Mrs. Redman was thinking of Malcolm, her younger. “One should show compassion by being kind, sympathetic and helpful to others…,” the voice continued. Mrs. Redman was thinking bitterly of her neighbour ¾ always complaining about Malkie. The speaker’s voice went up a decibel. “Compassion, my dear friends, is not something you feel only for others, but it should inspire you to be kind, sympathetic and helpful to yourself.”

“I wish,” thought Mrs. Redman bitterly, “that that hag next door could come to these classes.” She was feeling hot. “That woman’s complaints are never ending. Poor Malkie…”

“There are three basic components to the skill of compassion: understanding, accepting and forgiving…,” Miss Wilkie continued.

“I’ll tell her a thing or two,” Mrs. Redman fumed silently. She was no longer listening. She felt herself outside the neighbour’s door, her finger on the doorbell. She wouldn’t raise her voice of course. She would tell her that Malkie’s ‘inconsideration’, as she had put it, should be understood.

He was perhaps trying to escape feelings of pressure or inadequacy. A young man of thirty, he had never really had a chance, what with his father leaving them in the lurch when he was only twelve. and he had just been dismissed from a job in that music salon, and after only a month. Of course he was feeling unsure. And this old woman next door, how dare she be so unkind?”

Mrs. Redman’s concentration was once more fixed on the talk. The topic had gone on to Acceptance. Miss Wilkie was speaking in her soft fruity voice, “This is perhaps the most difficult aspect of compassion. Acceptance is the acknowledgement of the FACTS with all value judgements suspended. You neither approve nor disapprove. You accept.”

She wished the session would end now. She wished that Sue Wilkie had spoken about compassion before. It was something she hadn’t thought about.

“True forgiveness of others,” the voice continued, “means that the accounts are balanced. The person who harmed you no longer owes you anything. You face the future with a clean slate between you.”

“I have to act now!” Mrs. Redman thought bitterly. The class had ended and the other members had all begun to leave. She hastily gathered her things, Miss Wilkie watching her. “You seem to be disturbed,” she said, picking up her bag and briefcase. “Is there something bothering you?”

This is just what she had needed, to be able to talk to someone. As she spoke she felt all the anguish and inner turmoil in her mind of the last few weeks, after receiving that first awful letter of complaint, being released. Malkie’s habit of tuning in to the TV at 1, 2 or 3 am with only the thin wall between the two flats separating the Redmans’ lounge from the neighbour’s bedroom. The harsh movement of the sliding door of the balcony, where he slept adjoining the lounge, shoved open and closed with all his force and frustration.

Miss Wilkie sat patiently listening to this angry woman pouring our her disgust and contempt of her neighbour. She thought of the three big words which had featured in her talk and which had had this effect on Mrs. Redman ¾ understanding, acceptance and forgiveness. They were almost platitudes. No one becomes more understanding or forgiving because you’ve heard that this is a good way to be.

“Poor Mrs. Redman,” she thought, “what on earth am I going to tell her?”