An Unforgettable Sandwich

An Unforgettable Sandwich

From the desk of Rev.Diannia Baty © 2008

It is said that revenge is sweet but I am here to tell you that it isn’t. My mother used to say that I didn’t get mad I got even and this was certainly true when I was a young girl. Since there were five kids in our family and my parents had to scrape by to feed and clothe us, everything was precious to me. I didn’t take anything for granted. If we wanted anything other than the standards of living we had to work for it.

We would clean out garages, mow lawns, baby sit, bathe dogs and weed gardens to make some extra money to buy what our parents could not afford.
When I was ten there was a doll that I wanted Santa to bring me that Christmas. She was exquisitely beautiful. I wanted her because she was so perfect and dressed like an angel. The white dress was decorated with lace and seed pearls. Her hair was styled in a French twist and was as black and shiny as the oil that came out of the car after my father changed it.

She had pearl drop ear rings and even had stockings on with lace tops. With cherry red lips and blue eyes shadowed with long black lashes, she was everything I wanted to be. I was plain, skinny and wore second hand clothes. I desired this doll with as much passion and need as a ten year old can muster.
I don’t know how my parents did it but under the tree on Christmas morning was my doll. I was giddy with happiness. I gave her a name befitting an angel. I called her Angel.

The family that lived next door was a bunch of mean ill behaved kids. One put a broom handle through the fence and almost put out my brother’s eye. Another threw a brick at me one day and I still have a moon shaped scar on my hand from that incident. The only girl of that family was called Mary. We had an on off relationship. She would steal something or use words that a little girl shouldn’t use and my mother would call off the playing together for a while. In fact all the kids were thieves and if it wasn’t nailed down, they would take it.

About one month after Christmas my doll went missing. Mary and I had just been swinging in the back yard. I had gone into the house to get a drink of water and when I came back out Mary and Angel were gone. I saw Mary later in her yard with Angel in her hand. I told my mother what had happened and she went to Mary’s house to talk to her mother. To my mother’s amazement Mary was defended and told that I had given the doll to her daughter. It was a lie of course.

The woman refused to tell Mary to give my doll back to me. My mother was helpless and explained that sometimes people do bad things and there is nothing to do but just accept it. I was heartbroken and very angry. I started planning my revenge.

Behind our house was a pepper bush. It was not just any pepper bush. My mother would put on rubber gloves whenever she picked them and pickled them. I pretended that everything was fine and invited her over for kool-aid and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I had previously used my mother’s rubber gloves to pick some peppers and carefully squeezed juice on Mary’s sandwich. It took a few bites for the special sandwich to hit her taste buds. She couldn’t talk and her face turned red and she ran home.
In about fifteen minutes her mother came to our door with Mary in tow. Mary had butter smeared all over her red mouth and blistered lips. She was crying and still unable to say much.
After telling my mother I needed to be whipped within an inch of my life they left in a heated rush. Mary’s mother was shooting daggers at me with her eyes.
I thought I would feel good. I didn’t. Despite what she had done to me, I shouldn’t have retaliated the way I did. I felt horrible. My mother said that was punishment enough. I have thought of that day since then when I am full of anger and want to strike back at someone who has betrayed me, lied to me or hurt me in some manner.
I know that my spiritual quandary is “two wrongs do not make a right.” If I know I have been wronged the best course of action is to forgive and walk away. No one ever told me that the world is a fair place. What I fed Mary that day was anger and revenge. It wasn’t sweet to her and believe me it wasn’t sweet to me. If anything I only perpetuated the negativity of this world. Spiritually, I am called to spread peace and be peace personified. I work on that every day. To have peace you must become peace. To retaliate only carries all the bad stuff forward. I get it.

Mary, wherever you are…I am sorry. I really am.