The following Sunday, when we gathered with my family to celebrate all the seasonal birthdays, including my father’s seventieth birthday, I knew it was time to share what Stefan had been up to. After my father, with Phoebe’s youngest on his lap, blew out the candles and everyone accepted “just a sliver” of Amelia’s magnificent coconut cake, I jumped in and described Stefan’s idea for The Healing Project. I knew that he wouldn’t do it himself; my family was too cherished an audience to risk their disapproval. I would need to open the curtains and then let him take the stage.
“So if there’s anyone you know who might know someone who’d like to be involved, that person could volunteer, especially as an intermediary. He already has a representative from the clergy giving the project support.”
“Where will the money for all this come from?” my father said.
“Stefan got a very generous start-up grant,” I told him. “From an anonymous donor.”
“Miss Moneybags,” my father said, guessing rightly that Julie was indeed the bank behind the plan. But he smiled. The first year Julie had offered to divert a small portion of the foundation she had set up with her husband, Hal, and one of her brothers. It was now being fully used to fund Global Smiles, a dental version of Doctors Without Borders, which sent teams of dentists and hygienists to impoverished sites to do emergency services and train locals to run small clinics for routine care.
“So what do people get out of this? A certificate or something?” my dad went on. “What if a person has a plan and it doesn’t work? Doesn’t it make doing this like those participation trophies? What’s the meaning of it?”
“You have to believe in it for it to have meaning,” I told him. I pointed out that marriage, for example, was symbolic, just a few words and a piece of paper, but that it changed people’s status. And it didn’t always work out.
“Everybody who participates has to create a plan that could work out,” Stefan said. “The variable will be how much the person is committed to making it work out. And sure, it could still fail.”
“And someone like a minister or a social worker will be the go-between? Those are busy people,” my dad said. He sighed and I could feel that sigh run right down my spine. I wanted to break a window.
Meaning to joke, I pointed out, “Merry is a Unitarian minister. So she has plenty of time. And she’s also a prison chaplain part-time. And they don’t have to be clergy or a social worker.”
“So, Stefan. What is your plan?” Dad sighed again.
After a moment during which anyone with eyes could see him gather up his dignity, Stefan said, “Well, Papu, getting The Healing Project up and running is actually my plan.”
Mostly everyone nodded.
“And how will you find people who would want to be part of that sort of thing?” my mother asked. “I don’t think anyone in our family knows anyone like that. Or my friends.”
“You’d be surprised,” my sister Amelia said then. “Now, is this just for people who’ve been through the justice system, like they’re in jail or they used to be in jail, or could it be for people who want to express remorse for something nobody knows about?”
Stefan said, “Something nobody knows about? That’s pretty wild, Tia Amelia. That’s a good idea, though. I think it could be.”
Then Amelia told us about a woman she knew who’d been tormented for years because when she was a teenager, she and her friends were on a family vacation in the north woods and they trashed a beautiful cabin that belonged to some neighbors down the lakeshore. They vandalized it when no one was there; they threw paint and ketchup on the newly-papered walls; they ate whatever food they found, although they didn’t break or remove anything. When the other family arrived, though, Amelia’s friend was brokenhearted. She saw the people’s despair and wanted to confess. She was fifteen. She thought juvenile detention would wreck her life and break her parents’ hearts. She had written them letter after letter and torn them all up. “It’s not just her peace of mind,” Amelia said. “Those people were freaked out. They were scared for years after that it would happen again. They felt like they’d been assaulted.”
Another woman she knew, Amelia added, had shoplifted tons of makeup over the years, all from a little mom-and-pop drugstore. “I always wanted to apologize and give it back,” Amelia said, and then blushed. “I mean, this woman I know wanted to apologize, not me! Could she be part of The Healing Project? Does the crime have to be big?”