A boy was born to a couple after eleven years of marriage. They were a loving couple, and the boy was the gem of their eyes.

When the boy was around two years old, one morning the husband saw a medicine bottle open. He was late for office, so he asked his wife to cap the bottle and keep it in the cupboard. His wife, preoccupied in the kitchen, totally forgot the matter. 

The boy saw the bottle and playfully went to the bottle fascinated by its color and drank it all. It happened to be a toxic medicine meant for adults in small doses. When the child collapsed the mother hurried him to the hospital, where he died. The mother was stunned. She was terrified how to face her husband. 

When the distraught father came to the hospital and saw the dead child, he looked at his wife and uttered just five words.

Questions:

1) What were the five words?
 
2) What is the implication of this story?

Answer: 

The husband just said, “I am with you, Darling.”

The husband’s totally unexpected reaction is a proactive behavior. The child is dead. He can never be brought back to life. There is no point in finding fault with the mother. Besides, if only he had taken time to keep the bottle away, this would not have happened. 

No one is to blame. She had also lost her only child. What she needed at that moment was consolation and sympathy from her husband. That is what he gave her.

If everyone could look at life from this perspective, there would be much fewer problems in the world.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

Let us make a beginning now. Let us discard all our envy, jealousy, unforgiving nature, selfishness, and fears, and we will find things are not as difficult as we think. 

Teaching:

Many times people, unnecessarily, engage in blame games. We spend time in asking who is responsible or whom to blame, whether in a relationship, in a job,, or with the people we know. In this way, we miss out on some warmth in human relationships. 

Human nature tends to let down its guard and act its worst around those who we are most familiar with. How we really are, is the way we act towards others, whom we know the best, which are typically those of our own home.

“When nails grow long, we cut nails, not fingers. Similarly, when misunderstandings grow up, cut your ego, not your relationship.”

To relate is to react.

To react is to understand oneself.

To understand oneself is to be enlightened.

Relationships are schools for enlightenment.