A reader/follower of my Twitter feed found Ellyn. I wasn’t able to find her because, well, I spelled her name incorrectly all of these years. Becky is also Becca. This shows how faulty our memories can be, or at least mine can be. I’ve always been terrible with names, but maybe I should learn how to get better at remembering people.
So yeah, I called Ellyn and left her a voicemail. She returned my call and we spoke for about half an hour. She didn’t remember the missing $20 bills, but I reminded her until she did remember them. It was hard to gauge how she was processing my call, but I let her know that I am ok. I turned out ok and in huge part because of her. She’s 72 now and full of fire, just how I remembered her.
Now I need to make this situation whole. I apologized, I thanked her, but I need to reimburse her. I have some ideas of what I’m going to do, but if you have any as well, feel free to message me. What would wow her?
What if you paid off her house? Maybe it is already paid off. Or Becca's? Some kind of gift of financial scale that stuns them. Obvs I throw this out with no knowledge of your magnitude of wealth, so, grain of salt. But, just from a pure story-arc beauty, considering the tangibles of their showing up for you all those years back: providing a home, and those dollars you swiped? Circling back on those tangibles seems pretty profound.
She might want to just hug you more than anything.