Don’t hurt the ones you love by mistake

I JUST finished one of the best novels about a marriage I’ve ever read — The Next Step In The Dance, by Louisiana novelist Tim Gautreaux. This warm, intelligent read gets five stars from me and I marked one sentence, perhaps to use in the column.

Mechanic Paul has been thrown out by his wife and doesn’t understand why (the reader does). His grandfather, ‘a simple old Frenchman’, tells him: ‘Sometimes a man can make a mistake and not know he did that.’ How much human woe is caused by a simple misunderstanding which then escalates? If, for example, a man realised how much heartache could be caused by his silly texts to a woman at work, would he continue?

Anyway, I’d just noted the sentence above when, by coincidence, this strange, heart-rending note from D popped into my inbox with a message for us all: ‘Dear Bel, Sometimes people do the wrong thing without meaning to. They try to avoid an argument and end up causing one.

‘It causes problems that were meant to be avoided, and suddenly it’s too late, everyone is angry, everyone is upset and nothing can be done to change it.

‘Please try to avoid this in your lives. I can’t tell you how to avoid it, I just wish I could. It happens so quickly but so unintentionally, and before you know it the damage is done.

‘The rights and wrongs of it all mean nothing, for you have lost something important. You have lost your family, your peace of mind and your contentment. Nothing you do in the future will ever impact your life as much, and no matter what happens in the future, your life will never be the same.

‘You can’t regain lost time; time is precious, so please, please be careful. Tell them you love them while you can, don’t be afraid to tell them what you are feeling, but when you do also explain that you love them and don’t want to hurt them.’

Such sadness; such wisdom.