Forgiven

Lisa sat on the floor of her old room, staring at the box that lay in front
of her. It was an old shoe box that she had decorated to become a memory box
many years before. Stickers and penciled flowers covered the top and sides. 
It's edges were worn, the corners of the lid taped so as to keep their shape.

    It had been three years since Lisa last opened the box. A sudden move to
Boston had kept her from packing it. But now that she was back home, she took
the time to look again at the memories.

    Fingering the corners of the box and stroking its cover, Lisa pictured in
her mind what was inside.

    There was a photo of the family trip to the Grand Canyon, a note from her
friend telling her that Nick Bicotti liked her, and the Indian arrowhead she
had found while on her senior class trip.

    One by one, she remembered the items in the box, lingering over the
sweetest, until she came to the last and only painful memory. She knew what
it looked like--a single sheet of paper upon which lines had been drawn to
form boxes, 490 of them to be exact.  And each box contained a check mark,
one for each time.
 
    The story behind it..........
 
    "How many times must I forgive my brother?" the disciple Peter had asked
Jesus. "Seven times?" Lisa's Sunday school teacher had read Jesus' surprise
answer to the class. "Seventy times seven."

    Lisa had leaned over to her brother Brent as the teacher continued
reading.  "How many times is that?" she whispered.  Brent, though two years
younger, was smarter than she was.

    "Four hundred and ninety," Brent wrote on the corner of his Sunday school
paper. Lisa saw the message, nodded, and sat back in her chair. She watched
her brother as the lesson continued. He was small for his age, with narrow
shoulders and short arms. His glasses were too large for his face, and his
hair always matted in swirls. He bordered on being a nerd, but his incredible
skills at everything, especially music, made him popular with his classmates.

    Brent had learned to play the piano at age four, the clarinet at age
seven, and had just begun to play oboe.  His music teachers said he'd be a
famous musician someday. There was only one thing at which Lisa was better
than Brent--basketball. They played it almost every afternoon after school. 
Brent could have refused to play, but he knew that it was Lisa's only joy in
the midst of her struggles to get C's and D's at school.

    Lisa's attention came back to her Sunday school teacher as the woman
finished the lesson and closed with prayer.  That same Sunday afternoon found
brother and sister playing basketball in the driveway. It was then that the
counting had begun.  Brent was guarding Lisa as she dribbled toward the
basket. He had tried to bat the ball away, got his face near her elbow, and
took a shot on the chin.  "Ow!", he cried out and turned away.

    Lisa saw her opening and drove to the basket, making an easy lay-up. She
gloated over her success but stopped when she saw Brent. "You okay?" she
asked. 

Brent shrugged his shoulders.

    "Sorry," Lisa said.  "Really. It was a cheap shot."

    "It's all right. I forgive you," he said.  A thin smile then formed on
his face.  "Just 489 more times though."

    "Whaddaya mean?"  Lisa asked.

    "You know...what we learned in Sunday school today.  You're supposed to
forgive someone 490 times. I just forgave you, so now you have 489 left," he
kidded.  The two of them laughed at the thought of keeping track of every
time Lisa had done something to Brent. They were sure she had gone past 490
long ago.

The rain interrupted their game, and the two moved indoors.

"Wanna play Battleship?" Lisa asked.  Brent agreed, and they were soon on the
floor of the living room with their game boards in front of them.  Each took
turns calling out a letter and number combination, hoping to hit each other's
ships.

    Lisa knew she was in trouble as the game went on. Brent had only lost one
ship out of five. Lisa had lost three. Desperate to win, she found herself
leaning over the edge of Brent's barrier ever so slightly.  She was thus able
to see where Brent had placed two of his ships. She quickly evened the score.

    Pleased, Lisa searched once more for the location of the last two ships. 
She peered over the barrier again, but this time Brent caught her in the act.
 "Hey, you're cheating!" He stared at her in disbelief.

    Lisa's face turned red. Her lips quivered. "I'm sorry," she said, staring
at the carpet.  There was not much Brent could say. He knew Lisa sometimes
did things like this.  He felt sorry that Lisa found so few things she could
do well.  It was wrong for her to cheat, but he knew the temptation was hard
for her.

    "Okay, I forgive you," Brent said. Then he added with a small laugh, "I
guess it's down to 488 now, huh?"

    "Yeah, I guess so."  She returned his kindness with a weak smile and
added, "Thanks for being my brother, Brent."

    Brent's forgiving spirit gripped Lisa, and she wanted him to know how
sorry she was. It was that evening that she had made the chart with the 490
boxes. She showed it to him before he went to bed.

    "We can keep track of every time I mess up and you forgive me," she said.
 "See, I'll put a check in each box--like this." She placed two marks in the
upper left-hand boxes.  "These are for today."

    Brent raised his hands to protest. "You don't need to keep--"

    "Yes I do!" Lisa interrupted. "You're always forgiving me, and I want to
keep track. Just let me do this!" She went back to her room and tacked the
chart to her bulletin board.

    There were many opportunities to fill in the chart in the years that
followed. She once told the kids at school that Brent talked in his sleep and
called out Rhonda Hill's name, even though it wasn't true. The teasing caused
Brent days and days of misery.  When she realized how cruel she had been,
Lisa apologized sincerely. That night she marked box number 96. Forgiveness
number 211 came in the tenth grade when Lisa failed to bring home his English
book. Brent had stayed home sick that day and had asked her to bring it so he
could study for a quiz. She forgot and he got a C.

    Number 393 was for lost keys...418 for the extra bleach she put in the
washer, which ruined his favorite polo shirt...449, the dent she had put in
his car when she had borrowed it.

    There was a small ceremony when Lisa checked number 490.  She used a gold
pen for the check mark, had Brent sign the chart, and then placed it in her
memory box.

    "I guess that's the end," Lisa said.  "No more screw-ups from me anymore!"

    Brent just laughed.  "Yeah, right."

    Number 491 was just another one of Lisa's careless mistakes, but its hurt
lasted a lifetime. Brent had become all that his music teachers said he
would. Few could play the oboe better than he.  In his fourth year at the
best music school in the United States, he received the opportunity of a
lifetime--a chance to try out for New York City's great orchestra.

    The tryout would be held sometime during the following two weeks.  It
would be the fulfillment of his young dreams.  But he never got the chance. 
Brent had been out when the call about the tryout came to the house.  Lisa
was the only one home and on her way out the door, eager to get to work on
time.

    "Two-thirty on the tenth," the secretary said on the phone. 

Lisa did not have a pen, but she told herself that she could remember it. 
"Got it. Thanks." I can remember that, she thought. But she did not. It was a
week later around the dinner table that Lisa realized her mistake.

    "So, Brent," his mom asked him, "When do you try out?"

    "Don't know yet. They're supposed to call." Lisa froze in her seat.

    "Oh, no!" she blurted out loud. "What's today's date? Quick!"

    "It's the twelfth," her dad answered. "Why?"

    A terrible pain ripped through Lisa's heart. She buried her face in her
hands, crying.  "Lisa, what's the matter?" her mother asked.

    Through sobs Lisa explained what had happened. "It was two days ago...the
tryout...two-thirty...the call came...last week." 

Brent sat back in his chair, not believing Lisa.

    "Is this one of your jokes, sis?" he asked, though he could tell her
misery was real.  She shook her head, still unable to look at him.

    "Then I really missed it?"  She nodded.

    Brent ran out of the kitchen without a word. He did not come out of his
room the rest of the evening. Lisa tried once to knock on the door, but she
could not face him. She went to her room where she cried bitterly.

    Suddenly she knew that she had to do. She had ruined Brent's life.  He
could never forgive her for that. She had failed her family, and there was
nothing to do but to leave home.  Lisa packed her pickup truck in the middle
of the night and left a note behind, telling her folks she'd be all right.
She began writing a note to Brent, but her words sounded empty to her.
Nothing I say could make a difference anyway, she thought.

    Two days later she got a job as a waitress in Boston. She found an
apartment not too far from the restaurant.  Her parents tried many times to
reach her, but Lisa ignored their letters.

    "It's too late," she wrote them once. "I've ruined Brent's life, and I'm
not coming back."

    Lisa did not think she would ever see home again. But one day in the
restaurant where she worked she saw a face she knew. "Lisa!" said Mrs.
Nelson, looking up from her plate. "What a surprise."

    The woman was a friend of Lisa's family from back home.  "I was so sorry
to hear about your brother," Mrs. Nelson said softly.  "Such a terrible
accident. But we can be thankful that he died quickly.  He didn't suffer." 

Lisa stared at the woman in shock.

    "Wh-hat," she finally stammered.  It couldn't be! Her brother? Dead?  The
woman quickly saw that Lisa did not know about the accident.  She told the
girl the sad story of the speeding car, the rush to the hospital, the doctors
working over Brent.  But all they could do was not enough to save him.

    Lisa returned home that afternoon.

    Now she found herself in her room thinking about her brother as she held
the small box that held some of her memories of him. Sadly, she opened the
box and peered inside. It was as she remembered, except for one item--Brent's
chart. It was not there.  In its place, at the bottom of the box, was an
envelope. Her hands shook as she tore it open and removed a letter.

    The first page read:
 
 Dear Lisa,
 
    It was you who kept count, not me.  But if you're stubborn enough to keep
count, use the new chart I've made for you.
 
 Love,
    Brent
 
    Lisa turned to the second page where she found a chart just like the one
she had made as a child, but on this one the lines were drawn in perfect
precision. And unlike the chart she had kept, there was but one check mark in
the upper left-hand corner.
 
    Written in red felt tip pen over the entire page were the words: "Number
491.  Forgiven, forever."
 

 From the desk of Starfire

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