Meaning:
Re-establish good relations with people one has disagreed with.
Background:
`Good fences make good neighbours' is listed by Oxford Dictionary of
Quotations as a mid 17th century proverb. Robert Frost gave it a boost in the
American consciousness with his 1914 poem Mending Walls:
...
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, `Good fences make good neighbors.'
That poem, and the 1870s coining of the term `mending fences' both appear to
be influenced by the earlier proverb.
In 1879, the American Senator John Sherman returned to his home in Mansfield,
Ohio and made a speech, in which he said:
"I have come home to look after my fences."
...
- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]
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My childhood buddy Jianwei and I met for lunch during my visit to my hometown
last Sep. We hadn't seen each other for eight years but I spotted him right away
in traffic. A balding head and a swarthy deep-lined face made him look older
than his age but he was otherwise nimble and healthy. After the initial
jubilation, we sighed over the fleeting of time.
``How's your family? How's Jianguo?'' I remembered my friend's older brother,
Jianguo, fondly. Three grades above us, he used to protect us from bullies in
elementary school.
``You're getting senile," chuckled Jianwei. ``You forgot we stopped speaking
after our parents passed away.''
His parents sided with Jianguo, according to him, in splitting the family wealth
between the two brothers.
``I thought it was over. Surely you've mended the fences after so many years!''
``Let me ask you something,'' he muttered with a hint of challenge in his voice.
``What's the point of holding a grudge if you don't hold it forever?''
I still don't have an answer to that question.
