What Do You Lose, If You Choose To Forgive?

Recently I met my old friend Ray over coffee. It has been almost 2 years since we caught up. Ray and I have come a long way. We were buddies in college. We had so many memories of brawls and fun with our other friends. Life has changed so much. He is married to Nia and blessed with a son now. A family man! Family….

Ray being a jovial and carefree person, appeared to be unkempt and dull. After the sometime chat, he began to open up.
Ray had lived with his parents in their home after marriage. Soon, Nia, Ray’s wife was pregnant and they were blessed with a baby boy. This added much happiness to the family. Ray has an elder sister, Natalie. She had left the house 3 years ago with her husband and two children on Diwali day over an ego clash with her parents. In 3 years, Natalie hadn’t come back to visit her growing old parents. Ray had been taking care of them all this while. Over time, His parents managed to find peace and accepted the break.

Last year, Natalie made a surprising visit on Diwali day. She reconciled with everyone. It was definitely a moment of happiness when all family members forgive each other and come back together. In time, Natalie started showing her true colours. The fear that Ray might inherit all the family assets started growing. She started finding fault and poking fire about Nia to her mother. The classical tale of the rift between daughter in –law, mother-in-law and is always the matinee show in most families.

What more to say when small play fights between children are taken over by adults. Slowly, Natalie started a cold war with Nia. The silence and gap started increasing. One fine day, Natalie opened up to both he parents. She wanted a will of inheritance written. The reason gives, she doesn’t want Ray to put up a fight over the assets later and it’s best that the parents do the separation. Ray’s mother outwardly disagreed! She came to her senses and realized Natalie’s fishy intention to reconcile.

Ray’s father in a deep affection towards Natalie’s grandchildren and happiness on the reunion of the family, remains silent and tolerant to Natalie’s erratic behaviour. Slowly, he starts giving into Natalie entertaining her demands. He slowly began picking fault on everything around. The peace within the house slowly vanished.

One fine day, the hallmark of the events, Natalie accused Nia of stealing the family jewellery. Without thinking twice, her father demanded Nia to show all her jewellery to the public audience. Humiliated, Ray steps forward and defends Nia. The battle resulted in Ray leaving the house with his family in deep pain and anguish. Feeling betrayed, he has not come out of it even though 1 year has passed.

Now, this is a common theme of an incident that happens in every household. Being a victim, how do we move on? How do we accept the change and come to peace?

There is a saying that goes, Don’t punish yourself for other’s mistakes or in other words, trying to kill someone else by drinking the poison. Both these sayings mean the same. Why should we punish ourselves for the folly that others do?
The only way to come out from this is FORGIVING. Hurt and pain will stop the process of forgiving. But it takes patience and courage to forgive, because that is the only way to come out of this.

Forgive those who hurt us.

Seek Forgiveness from them as well and be thankful for the lesson learnt. That is GRATITUDE.