I called to check on him this morning, and he was licking his wounds, but also feeling badly about what he thought I'd had to endure as a result. While the truth was that my little "task" was a gift sent to me at just the right moment. It allowed me to take the focus off of myself, attend to a simple, clear priority that benefitted someone I cared about, and was the definitive symbolic conclusion to a night I was ready to have concluded.
A sense of peace followed.
So I wanted him to know he deserves not my forgiveness, but my thanks.
Feel better, Buddy.
"You can search the whole universe and not find a single being more worthy of love than yourself."
- Buddha