I confess that I took money – money that was not mine.
An open letter to a former employer.
Dear Lisa,
It’s been ages since we have seen or spoken to each other. Almost twenty-five years by my best guesstimation. Like mine, I’m sure that your life has made many transitions in that intervening quarter-century. Ups and downs, as they say. I hope overall that you are happy and that your triumphs have far outnumbered the inevitable setbacks that we all encounter along the way.
My recollection is that we never really had any proper closure when I left my job. That oversight is all on me. I was the one who up and quit one day without a proper goodbye after more than a decade of employment. In retrospect, I think that not engaging with you back then may have been a deferred blessing. For me anyway. I know that any farewell at that time would have been fraught – on my end – with an immature mix of misdirected blame and convoluted anger. 
Think Melanie Griffith in Working Girl. Although I would have loved the opportunity back then to take a turn as a slightly more masculine and possibly less teased version of Tess McGill, I much prefer this somewhat delayed opportunity to wrap things up with a more developed perspective. A more grownup heart. And more relaxed hair. These days, when I consider the experience that I had working for you, what I feel mostly is grateful. Mostly. There is, however, a little something else mixed in with the abundance of gratitude. Something troublesome. A guilt. A burden that I have carried with me for the past twenty-five years. To be truthful, it is specifically this burden that has prompted me to reach out to you in this particular way after so many years.
You see, I have a young son. In my life’s many transitions since you and I parted ways, he is by far my greatest triumph. I knew at the very onset of fatherhood that I had been blessed beyond my ability to ever comprehend such divine generosity. Nevertheless, I instinctively reached out and wrapped my wanting arms around the surprising, purplish, squished and squalling miracle. And in that moment, I sensed that God had tasked me with something formidable. In return for the sacred gift of a child, I accepted the celestial charge to become the best version of me that I could possibly be. To that end, I began to write. In addition to the goal of self-improvement, I have a couple of additional objectives that continue to push me through this often challenging process of reflective manuscription. First, I want my son to have a clear understanding of who his father is. Also, and perhaps more critically, I pray that all of this chronicled, psychological purging will somehow afford him a greater insight into the whole of us. His entire human family. So, I have been documenting for my son the story of my life’s circumstances. Focusing principally on the specific events that I believe have most made me into the man that he calls daddy. The good, the bad, and the ugly. And in the timeline of my autobiographical regurgitation, I have come to a defining event that involves you.
When I worked for you, I stole some money. Two thousand dollars to be exact.
(Author exhales.)
After all of this time it is impossible to accurately contextualize what it was that may have motivated me in that moment way back then to take money that was not mine. I was struggling financially to be sure, but that was certainly not a unique circumstance for me. I remember trying to ease my conscience by reasoning to myself that it was just a loan. And the truth is that I fully intended to return the money long before I ever moved on to another job. The reality, however, is that I did not. Before I had the opportunity to pay you back, some of the disagreeable realities in our shared working environment got the better of me and I quit.
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At the time, I did confess the transgression to my partner, Will. He suggested a Program related proposal. By Program, I mean Alcoholics Anonymous. I was not involved in A.A. directly, but Will was a few years sober and he was kind enough to offer up some Big Book counsel. Will called my attention to steps 8 and 9 of the Program’s 12-step directive.
- Make a list of all persons we have harmed and become willing to make amends to them all.
- Make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
It was specifically in step 9 where Will helped me to carve out a rather subjective loophole. He suggested that the caveats “whenever possible” and “except when to do so would injure” might offer me an option for some kind of circumventive atonement. He said that rather than adding to everyone’s emotional stress by unburdening myself to you directly, I could make recompense by donating money or equitable good works to others in need. Arguably, Will may have been playing a little fast and loose with his interpretations of Bill W. and Dr. Bob’s text. In his defense, Will loved me. Deeply. And who wants to stand by and watch someone that they care for slowly drown themselves in a homemade pot of shame soup?
As wobbly as it was, I held on to Will’s theory of equitable recompense. To this day, however, every donation that I make or good work that I do is laced with some regret. And I am never sure where I stand. There is always a little question in my soul. Like, “Yo, God, are we good yet?” No matter how much I do, my conscience is not settled. And so I come to you. To make amends. To strengthen my peace. In addition, I hope to help my son understand, or, in the very least, consider these few things: honor the place of right above wrong; respect the often complex ramifications related to the choices that we make; and accept that mistakes are inevitable. Also, I want to show him by example that we should not define ourselves or allow others to define us by our transgressions, but rather we should strive to take responsibility for all that we do and then cherish the richness of a spiritual wisdom that is gained from embracing the flawed totality of who we are. The unique and glorious entirety of who God made us to be. And if we are to be defined, let it be by our willingness to forgive ourselves and to forgive each other.
This lesson is not wholly new for me. I learned something similar when I was very young. There was my Catholic upbringing, of course, but much more educationally impactful than all of that dysfunctional dogma was an experience that I had around the age of six or seven – about the same age that my son is now. I was at the beach with my best friend and our moms. At some point in the day, my friend and I walked over to use the restrooms near the snack bar. While in the vicinity, we spied a very tempting gumball machine. Unfortunately, neither of us had any change. Somehow we came up with a scheme. Perhaps inspired by my worship of I Love Lucy. We decided to tell the snack bar cashier that the gumball machine had stolen our money. It worked like a charm. Without much question, the nice man popped opened his register and handed us each a nickel. We went back over to the machine, put the coins in the slot, turned the handle, and then scampered off across the beach with the ill-gotten gumballs clutched in our little hands. When we arrived back at the towels where our moms were lounging in the shade of two brightly colored umbrellas, we were immediately grilled about how we had gotten gumballs with no money. D’oh! There was a little bit of nonsensical stammering on our part before we pathetically caved and confessed the whole mischievous, madcap caper. Our mothers demanded that we march back to the snack bar, apologize to the gullible cashier, and give him back the gumballs. Let me tell you, that was a long slow walk on some hot summer sand. We explained what we had done and handed back the gumballs. The man was very gracious, but we were humiliated nonetheless.
My lesson in honesty was well learned that day at the beach. And the harsh, but well-intended guidance that I received stayed with me, unfailingly, until that one moment of weakness, many years later, when I was working for you. I am so very sorry. Enclosed with this letter is the money that I wrongfully took. I am giving it back. A two thousand dollar gumball. Cue the humiliation. And I will keep with me a priceless lesson relearned. My wish is that this money, along with the sincerity of spirit with which it is returned, will somehow serve to strengthen a belief – in you, in me, in my son – that there exists in all of us a basic human desire to do the right thing.
Before I close, I would like to circle back around to grateful. You see, when I send this letter off to you, I am hoping that the burden that I have carried will somehow go with it. And moving forward, when I recall my time working for you, all that I will feel is an immense gratitude. Free of guilt and shame. If that proves to be true, I certainly do not want to give that gratitude short shrift. When you hired me, I was a young, insecure, cater-waiter, who was flunking out of college. I was desperately trying to reconcile my dream of being an actor with the reality of being gay. Heap on top of all of that the fact that I had recently tested positive for HIV. Working for you gave me a safe place to be day in and day out while I worked to sort out a myriad of my life’s challenges. It was far from my dream career. And I confess that I have sometimes referred to that job as a kind of dead-end, retail monotony. A job that I desperately clung to out of fear. The truth is that I stayed working for you through the absolute worst years of the AIDS pandemic largely because you offered medical insurance to your employees. That was not an insignificant thing. You were running a small, West Hollywood based business, and you employed mostly homosexual men. Back then, health benefits were certainly not something that you were required to provide. But you did. You gave me and others a safe harbor when those were very hard to come by. For that, I am forever and immeasurably grateful.
Finally, just a little more gratitude food for thought. If I had not quit that job when I did, I would not have been encouraged to enroll in a Sign Language Interpreter Training Program. It was in that program where I met a dynamic young woman who would someday ask me to father a child. Our life journeys. Like someone is playing a massive, cosmic pachinko machine, right? Or perhaps something more deliberate. More intended, maybe? I believe, maybe yes. In any case. Thank the universe. Thank God. Thank you.
All my love and best wishes always,
Jim