My mother told me today about my first experience with theft. My father had a spare watch I had coveted for a few years. It was a fine timepiece. According to my mother, it was an Omega. My father eventually gave it to me when I was twelve. When I returned from school one day, my mother noticed I did not have my watch. “Oh,” I said, “I must have left it in the gym!” My mother was worried: “Would it not be stolen there?” I was appalled: “This could not possibly happen in my school!” I immediately went back to the gym, but the watch was nowhere to be found. Another class was already exercising there. I returned home crestfallen. “This was your first disappointment with your fellow man,” my mother commented quietly with a sad smile.

Addendum (August 30, 2015)

Having bumped into this piece quite by chance, I was delighted by the story my mother had told me a bit more than a year before her last hour, which I had surprisingly forgotten in the meanwhile. Amazingly, I was already twelve when I faced my first disappointment with my fellow man. Nowadays, such experiences must come much, much earlier in life. Besides, theft is the least of problems that today’s youth faces. And I am hardly exaggerating. The news are rife with stories of kidnapping, sexual abuse, violent bullying, forced labor, and ghastly murder involving children not yet in their teens. Indeed, I am glad my mother is spared such stories. Kindly, gentle, and delicate as she was, she passed away just in time.