What we don’t realise is this
The story below is a huge reminder for us to be careful with people’s hearts.
If an incident that took place over two decades still reduces a grown man to tears whenever he talks about it, it tells me that the pain is coming from somewhere very deep. This is what we don’t realise when we hurt people. Even when they are being nice to you after you have hurt them, it is not the pain that is no longer there. It’s them simply being who they are.
Also, let’s not underestimate the importance of forgiveness, from those we have offended. Sometimes, what you need for a turn-around in your life or for you to experience happiness/peace is forgiveness from someone you have done ugly. If we can see tomorrow from today, I doubt we can afford to be careless in our conduct towards others. Although this was a story that a wife shared with me some time back, I feel it’s full of lessons for every one of us, because we truly don’t realize how much trauma our actions are capable of causing others.
Funnily enough, you are always expected to ‘’forgive and forget’’, especially when they are family. Family or not, just learn to be humane in your dealings with people. It comes home to roost!
So This Happened (221) Reviews Recent Naira Fall, Tuition Fee Hike, Other | Punch
Read our lady…
“There is one incident that still reduces my husband to tears. This story that I am about to tell you happened about twenty years ago but it still makes him very sorrowful when he talks about it. It’s not even something he likes talking about.
According to him, when he finished serving (apprenticeship) one of his elder brothers, that one settled him with one hundred thousand naira and the first thing he did was to contact another of his brothers (their eldest) who lived in Lagos at the time to tell him that he was coming to buy goods in Lagos and he would need him to take him around to the markets where he could find good bargains.
That one was happy to help and on the said day, he was already waiting at the motor park for my husband. They set out straight to the market (without getting to his house for refreshments or a change of clothes…my husband arrived in Lagos via night bus).
Do you know that they got to one of the pedestrian bridges in Lagos and that his brother told him to wait for him there and disappeared with the money (which his younger brother gave him to hold)?
My husband said that after waiting there for over five hours, it dawned on him that his brother had just duped him and that was how he broke down and started wailing in helplessness. He didn’t know anywhere in Lagos!
He said that he wailed so sorrowfully that some passers-by refused to leave his side until they got him safely back to the motor park and contributed money for him to find his way back to Onitsha.
Back to base, when the brother that he had just finished serving heard about his ordeals, he simply told him to still get busy with his former position in the business.
A few months later, he took my husband to Lagos by himself and introduced him around…to dealers in their line of business.
That was how my husband began to flourish in the business.
Today, his business concern has taken him to many Asian countries but mainly China. He has a factory here that is mostly run by the Chinese.
He didn’t set his eyes on his elder brother until a few years later when he heard that the man had relocated to the village with only a nylon bag, after over a decade in Lagos.
Every one of them built houses and left their father’s house except their elder brother, who eventually married a woman who was feeding him from her groundnut business.
My husband said that the man never behaved like anything happened when they eventually met.
Do you know that it’s been over three years since my husband relocated him from the village to town and established their line of business for him?
He has also built a story building on their family land for him.
Another good thing that happened for him is not just that his wife became pregnant (after many years of childlessness), she had twins!
I have told my husband that maybe confronting his brother will lessen how much the memory of that incident affects him.
I believe that my brother-in-law’s lot changed because my husband has truly forgiven him.
The person that he treated badly is the same person that God used to uplift him.
Thank you for the words you put out there. They touch the conscience.’’
