One rainy afternoon, after playing indoors with my siblings, I lay down across my parent’s bed for a nap. It was no sooner than I had reached that "good sleep" stage, when my late day siesta was interrupted by the smell of burning hair. As I jerked upright, wiping sleep out of my eyes, I saw my little sister leaning over me. In her hands she held a book of matches and across her cherub face, she held the smug satisfaction of an evil act realized; fait accompli. Coming to terms with the dastardly deed, I realized that the burning hair was well,…my own. As I began to pat the top of my head I felt the large choppy patch of singed locks that, just moments before, had been beautiful strands of recently hot-comb pressed thick dark brown hair. I was stunned. I was mad. I was murderous. "I am going to killllllll you!" I hissed, as my sister slowly, but smartly, inched back from the bed.

Ok – a confession. Earlier that day our older brother and I played a trick on her. We decided, in abject sibling cruelty, to allow her to believe that my brother had accidentally stabbed me…to death. Faking a crime scene even the most knowledgeable CSI fans would find credible, I lay sprawled out on the kitchen floor while my brother poured ketchup on and around me -- fashioning a pretty realistic scene to the eight-year old naked eye. Our baby sister came rushing to the kitchen in response to my brother’s grief-stricken, yet feigned, cries. "I’ve killed her!!" he hollered. "I didn’t mean to, but Gigi is dead! I killed her!" Only a kid, (8, afraid and panicked), my sister wept bitterly for our parents. Just as her terror heightened to a pitch, my brother -who could no longer contain his laughter, told me to get up as he yelled, "Sikkkkkeee! She’s alive. See, see she’s OK – get up Gigi!" But my sister was not to be consoled. And so, since the entire ruse was my idea – surely I deserved to have my hair set ablaze.

Aside from the fact that she could have burned the house down, our Dad used these unfortunate set of events as an opportunity to teach us our first real-life lesson about forgiveness. First he asked whether I had even thought to apologize to my sister. "Had I asked her to forgive me for faking my own death?" he wondered. I hung my head in disgrace. I had not. He then asked my sister would she have forgiven me had I asked. Unapologetically, she said "No." Eight year olds are a trip. She told him that under no terms would she have accepted my apology or my request for forgiveness. And so the lecture began. He explained that when people wrong us – when someone commits an act (or acts) against us (whether innocent or deliberate) it is only natural to have a reaction. We may feel rightfully angry, disappointed, confused, betrayed or worse – deeply hurt. It is what we do with these emotions that determine how out of control one foolish or insensitive act can get. One unforgiven offense has the "potential power of poison" he said. It can lead to retaliation – as in my sister’s act of hair scorching vengeance – or a lifetime of misery as we hold someone to an act that they may now be genuinely repentant of.

My father then asked my sister who she thought her unforgiveness hurt more. "Well…it hurt Gigi more because now she’s bald on top. Good for her." He shook his head and said, "No sweetie, no – you’re wrong." He explained that while my brother and I were "rotten to the core" for scaring her, she went away and allowed her anger to burn. Because she stewed in her hurt and pain, she hatched a plot even worse than the original. In her anger, she waited. The wait provided sinister time for her to "think up an evil" and then strike. He explained that when we don’t pardon offenses committed against us, we grant the ugliness of the wrong the permission to occupy our hearts and build a foundation for resentment and hostility…even revenge. He taught us that forgiveness is less an exercise about loving other people by "letting them off the hook," but rather an exercise in loving ourselves. By ensuring that we "forgive those who trespass against us," we protect ourselves as we refuse to let our hearts fill up with bitterness. My sister, simple in her eight year old mind replied, "But Dad – sometimes people do things that are hard to forgive even if they say that they’re sorry." He agreed. But he then asked what would happen if the person suddenly passed away or if you never had the chance to see them again? Would the wrong-doing really matter as much at all then?

"Life is too short," he warned. "Life is just too short."

The patch of hair on the top of my head has never really grown back. Over the years I have cleverly hid it with headbands and other Black-Woman-Hair-Trickery. But on another rainy afternoon, some 20-plus years after the hair burning incident, my sister, brother and I rode together in a limousine. The rest of our immediate family rode with us, and except for the hum of the limo, we rode in silence. Finally, after blowing her nose, my baby sister looked over and said to me, "I like your black headband." She, my brother and I shared a knowing smile as the limo followed closely behind the black hearse in front of us. As we laid Daddy to rest in his very early grave that day, all offenses, large and small, were dismissed from our minds. Life had taught us that while certainly some "wrongs" are harder to overlook – there are some things, for our own good, we really must let go. Life had also proven to be way too short that day. Way, way too short.