Mulligans

To anyone who plays golf casually, mulligan is about as beautiful a word as any.  For those who aren't familiar with it, it is basically just a fancy way of saying a do-over.  The great part about a mulligan is that you get to take another swing and it doesn't count against you.  A mulligan is the epitome of a second chance, as it basically erases the existence of the previous stroke.  The reason that mulligans are on my mind in the dead of winter is that I was recently watching a TV show and that particular episode was entitled "mulligans".  The show had the golf reference because the episode took place during a golf tournament, but the true reason behind the naming of the episode was that in the end a son forgave his father for having left him and his brother as children, after having sworn that he would never do so.  Essentially he gave his dad a mulligan.  Interestingly enough this got me thinking about a certain friendship with someone that didn't end on great terms.  While watching this show I started to think about how things had ended and about second chances.  Then, later that night, I received an E-mail from that exact same person, apologizing for the way things ended up.  To be honest, had I gotten that message a day earlier I probably would have just dismissed it and been frustrated, thinking to myself that there is no way this person deserved any sort of second chance.  But it didn't come the day before, it came that exact same day, just as this issue was on my mind.  I mean c'mon, there is absolutely no way that something like this happens purely out of coincidence, right?  So I decided that I needed to follow my gut on this one and give my old friend another chance.  What happens in the end, I honestly have no idea, but there is one thing that I do know, such things don't happen by accident, and the best type of do-over is a mulligan, where the first time is completely erased from memory and the record books.  Give it up for second chances.