Have you ever wanted to see someone get their “just desserts”? In other words, they get what they deserve because of the way they treated you? I must surely have felt some of that because of a classmate who bullied me in junior high school. Well, in a rare circumstance, I got to see it happen and I didn't have to do a thing. It started when I was in ninth grade. I was a good student in subjects like English and history, but not so much in math. Freshman year was when you took algebra one. It went all wrong for me that year. Right at the beginning of school I had pneumonia and then a couple of weeks later I had major surgery. Out of the first nine weeks, I missed five of them. Having missed the basics, I never caught up in algebra class. Even with some extra tutoring, I just couldn't figure it out.
My math teacher was not the nicest person (and in retrospect not the best teacher for me), and seemed to have little tolerance for me struggling to learn the subject. She had a daughter that was a classmate in the same grade. Up until this year I had never had any trouble with Helen.* We were by no means acquaintances let alone friends. I simply knew her on sight. But now she started making fun of me, what today we call bullying. I had no way to really fight back. I didn't know why she started doing it. It would be years later that I would figure out what probably went on. I cannot, of course, prove it, but it is the only thing that really makes sense.
It is possible that the algebra teacher, Helen's mother, may have gone home and talked about her students, and quite possibly in a not so pleasant way. Was she talking in front of her family and saying unkind things about students? I have no way of knowing just what may have been happening. I do know that the Bible says, be sure your sin will find you out (Numbers 32:23). It wasn't the thing for me to exact revenge on Helen for her unkindness to me. Not at all. And after all these decades, it is forgiven. Hopefully, she grew up to be a productive adult.
That's not the end of the story, however. It was what happened a couple of years later that completes the story. We were now in high school. Most of those kids who had given me grief in junior high now mainly ignored me, which was really a relief. Much easier that being mocked, belittled, and laughed at. I don't recall that Helen was giving me trouble either.
The last few days of the school year arrived with awards day in the auditorium. The sophomore class was seated in the balcony, the seniors in the center section, and the juniors in the two sections on either side of the center section. As a junior, I was seated about half way back in the assigned seats with my home room class. Students were being called up on stage to receive their various awards. I wasn't receiving any awards. Such a thing for me was extremely rare to nonexistent. I wasn't an outstanding anything, largely due to what is now called social anxiety. I simply didn't get involved in school activities.
The time period was the late 1960's, a time of some crazy fashion fads that quickly came and went. I have to explain this for you to understand what happened to Helen on awards day. I should also add that this was a small town high school. I'll do my best to describe a particular fashion I had seen on some girls that spring in the school. It started with a mini dress which was cut and fashioned in baby doll style. Like the kind of dress you would see on a baby girl. But that was only part of the outfit. The dress had matching bloomers, or shorts, cute little bloomers with ruffles around the gathered legs. Imagine a baby girl wearing a cute little dress with a matching diaper cover that had ruffles around the leg. Now picture that same outfit in adult size on a teenage girl. You're getting the picture. And I think you have probably begun to figure out where this is going.
Helen's name was called to go up on stage to receive her award (whatever it was as I have no recollection). Her choice of outfit that day is one she probably still blushes to think about. Her baby doll outfit was pink, and oh, those cute ruffled bloomers peeking out from under the mini dress was so cute. So cute, that, as Helen made her way down the aisle to the stage, we began to hear a twitter of laughter. The closer she got to the stage the more the laughter increased. By the time she was on stage, her face was red, and the whole student body was laughing. Poor Helen. I wouldn't have blamed her if she went home that day, tore off the outfit and burned it.
As I sat in my seat taking it in, I thought, I got my revenge, and I didn't have to do a thing. By her clothing choice of the day, she suffered a huge humiliation. She now understood how it felt to be the subject of mocking and being laughed at. The fact that she stood there on stage without running off in tears showed she had some fortitude, something I don't think I'd have had.
Did I revel in her discomfort? No, I don't recall that I did. I felt a bit sorry for her. She got what she deserved, and no one did it to her. She did it to herself. I never want to reach a place where the misery of others brings me delight, even if it is someone who mistreated me. I have no place in my life for bitterness and grudges against those who are unkind to me. The adage is so true that says bitterness is poison you drink and then waiting for the other person to die. As I said, I hope that Helen has had a healthy, happy, productive life. I haven't to my knowledge seen her since that day decades ago. (I attended a different school for my senior year.)
How do you handle the difficult situations when you are the object of someone's bullying? Do you respond in kind? Do you seek revenge? Do you become bitter and wish the worst for your enemy? What do you do?
FYI for those who want to see what kind of outfit Helen was wearing, here are three links that show the style of garment that she wore.
https://collection.maas.museum/object/366101#&gid=1&pid=1
https://i.pinimg.com/564x/af/72/1f/af721f6ec0f96c57acfc76c0fee72bfe.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/564x/30/00/18/300018cd001fbc39726e0a9f02326a2c.jpg
*After five+ decades and hundreds of miles from where it happened, I have to fear of using her first name.
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