Rock Canyon Elementary

February 19, 2010

How important is it to be an honest person?

A few months ago, I went to a store to purchase some items for our school. I discovered one of the store employees was an old friend that I hadn’t seen for probably 40 years.  We talked for a while and reminisced about our old neighborhood memories. It was fun to remind each other of the fun times that occurred years ago as we were growing up .

The next day as I returned to that store to pick up our ordered items, that old friend came up to me and said in a serious tone of voice, “I need to give you something. Years ago, when I was once in your bedroom, I took something that belonged to you. I stole it from you and for some reason, I felt like I needed it, so I took it. I’m sorry that I took it. All these years, I’ve kept it and wondered why I did what I did? But now that I have seen you again, I now have the chance to give it back to you.” .

The friend reached out their hand and set a tiny little pocketknife into my hand. The knife was a souvenir that my parents bought me when we went to Canada on a family trip. I very vaguely remembered the knife. I didn’t even know that it was ever gone. I thought like all kid knives, they have a tendency to easily get lost and fall out of a young boy’s pockets, etc. But now the 40-plus year mystery was solved. More importantly the 40-plus misery and guilt of taking something from someone else had been resolved. The heavy weight of taking a tiny little pocketknife had now been removed.

I keep that little knife in my office at home, on a shelf as a reminder to always be honest. My hope for sharing this story is that you might want to share it with your family and talk about how important it is to do good things each day that would make your parents happy and remembering to be honest towards others might save someone 40 years of grief. Let’s be honest in our dealings with others. Let’s be honest when we do our school assignments. When we take tests, let’s be honest. Let’s be honest every day, all day.

Sincerely,

Dean Nielsen, Principal