I remember my late mother advising me as a child never to be afraid or too proud to say sorry when I had caused hurt or done some wrong. During my lifetime, I have known so many situations where family relationships that had broken down and stayed broken for many years, Sometimes serious offence had been taken by one family member against another in respect of something done, whether intentional or unintentional, grave or minor, when all that was required to bring back peace and re-establish cordial relationship was three little words, 'I am sorry'.
Indeed, I'd go as far as to say that the failure to say 'I am sorry' has been as responsible for the creation of as much grief in this world as the failure for one person to say to a certain other, 'I love you'.
As a Probation Officer serving in Huddersfield between 1972 and 1995, I recall a woman who hadn't spoken to her father once in over 16 years. A breach in trust had been committed by the father to his daughter, and being of stubborn disposition and filled with false pride, he was not the type of person who could bring himself to apologise, even though he knew that he was clearly in the wrong. He just didn't do 'sorry'. The incident occurred when the woman was 17 years old and lived in the parental abode. She left home and took up lodgings, established an independent lifestyle and frequently met up secretly with her mother in town. Naturally, having divided loyalties, her mother never told her father about these clandestine meetings with their daughter.
Over sixteen years, the young woman got pregnant, married the child's father, had another two children and divorced in her early thirties. Her mother told her husband that she had heard such news on the grapevine, yet the foolish man's misguided pride simply led him to close his ears. Mum attended the Registry Office wedding as a Saturday morning shopper 'who just happened to be passing the Registry Office at the precise moment her daughter and husband left it as a newly married couple'. Mum also visited her estranged daughter in the maternity ward when she was having her third child.
Over the next ten years, mum kept in contact with her daughter, along with two of her sisters after they had left home. All such contact was kept from her father and her own husband, to avoid the outbreak of continuous arguments and rows in both family homes. The woman's marriage eventually broke up, and so did her parent's marriage after her mother decided that she would no longer live life in constant fear of her husband's wrath and disapproval.
Such was a case where a minor slight that caused offence led to an argument between daughter and father, and because her father was a strict man who wouldn't be bettered in dispute or back down, he made matters infinitely worse by getting too angry and calling his daughter names that no man should ever call a female; let alone his own daughter! Although his daughter's feelings were hurt, she would have allowed peace to be restored between them had he apologised for his crude and vulgar remarks. However, her dad was one of those men with old-fashioned values who saw the making of apologies as a weakness of character and from every word in the English language he would have found 'sorry to be the hardest word'.
What a waste of so many occasions of potential family happiness by allowing relationship wounds to fester and rot until the family sore becomes putrefied with the puss of downright stubbornness, obstinacy, and false pride.
I will end with a piece of advice I once heard a Catholic priest gave his Sunday morning congregation during his weekly sermon. He said, 'If there is anyone here in church this morning who has a fractured or broken relationship between themselves and another family member or thinks badly of a brother, stand up now and go home and make your peace before coming back next week, because you may deceive your neighbour by your church attendance but you do not deceive God.'
One final thing, be sincere, direct and brief when you say 'sorry' and don't ruin your apology with excuses.
Love and wishes. Bill xxx