The shell-stealing incident

August 17, 2014
Day 109

It wasn't a real crime; I should start with that.  No one was really hurt, and the value of the piece was hardly irreplaceable.  In fact, it was quite the opposite.  The theft was, however, very scarring to me at the time.  And because I've chosen to write about it here, it's obviously stayed with me my whole life.

I stole a shell.  Maybe two.  It or they were in my grandmother's neighbor's garden, creating a sort of design, so removing even just one was messing up the beauty of the look she'd artfully created.  It wasn't as if I thought this through of course, because it happened when I was just a child.  9?  10?  I'm not sure now.  I was young enough to not yet understand that what I had done was very wrong, but old enough where I ought to have known better.

My crime was quickly discovered in a series of events that would impress any great inspector throughout history.  Miss Marple, Columbo, Jessica Fletcher, Inspector Gadget--they'd all have admired the process that must have occurred leading up to my identification as the thief, and my subsequent punishment as the villain in question.  I don't know how the neighbor and my aunt (who lived with my grandmother) identified me so quickly, but they did.  Once I was found and I confessed for my sin, within mere minutes I was judged, sentenced, and fully guilted for my crime.

And it was this guilt, and the lesson overall, that mattered most.  I needed to be taught that what I did was morally wrong, so that as I grew up, I'd have a better understanding of how the world worked.  When something is not yours, leave it alone.  Respect other people's property.  And, oh yeah, don't even think about lying to get away with something!  Just come clean, and the truth will set you free...eventually.

The incident is a tiny one, as tiny as the shell or shells I snatched that day, but the beauty of the lesson was huge.  It has stayed with me so strongly over the years because I still feel very badly about it.  Guilt is powerful, but fully understanding morality in general is much more important than any temporary scolding can teach us.  And so I'm grateful to that neighbor, my grandmother, and my aunt for teaching me more than they know in one random moment one random day many years ago, when I was still just a boy.