About three years ago, I heard a story of a cleric who was badly hurt by his wife and one of his friends. The cleric, a very loving, soft-spoken man who was admired and respected by all because of his soul-soothing words suddenly entered a dilemma when he noticed something unusual with his kids.
His two children whom he loved so much suddenly started falling sick and wouldn’t miss a week without getting admitted to the hospital. The cycle continued for a while, and he was getting low on everything. His faith, though strong, but he couldn’t bear to watch his kids writhe in pains every week. They missed schools, kids’ outings and all, so, he decided to do something.
He ran a genotype test on his kids, and voila! the secret was revealed. The confusion set in at first because he wondered how that could happen. His genotype is AA, and his beloved wife’s is AS, so, worse come to worse, they would have AS children. Then, how could his two children have sickle cell?
In his confusion, he decided to run his own genotype test again, which the hospital confirmed to be AA still. So, he tried to remember when the kids were born if perhaps, they were exchanged at the hospital, but thinking back, he was there through the process of birth. He made sure he stood by his wife’s side to avoid stories that touch, so it definitely was not the hospital. The last solution to the puzzle? His wife.
After series of questions, the wife confessed to cheating on him with one of his friends whose genotype is AS and was also married. Hell was let loose.
The soft-spoken cleric suddenly became wordless. He was heartbroken beyond measures, and no one could console him. He cried and locked himself up for days. After everything, family, and the elder clerics spoke to him to not send his wife packing, and “forgive” her because everyone’s prone to making mistakes. No one cared about his healing first or his state of mind or anything. All that mattered was the society.
It's 2025 now, and the cleric who was hurt in 2022 has transferred the hurt to another married man. He slept with the wife of this man, and double hell was let loose, but this time, nobody is willing to “forgive” the cleric. They said, since he’s a man of God, he should know better, but what they are missing is that he is human first before any other thing.
It takes a lot of effort to not want to hurt others the way you were hurt. So, most times, people avoid situations that would put them in positions of transferring the hurt they’ve once experienced.
Paying attention to what traumatizes us, working on it, removing ourselves from situations that seems to continuously hurt or remind us of the hurt, and working tirelessly on healing, and possibly letting go will help us get better as humans, severe the chain of hurt, and make us better humans.
No soul deserves to bear the brunt of other people’s hurt because they were not part of the people that hurt them in the first place. And the most important part is, just like this cleric has been suspended, demoted, and embarrassed, it may be hard to forgive you because it’s no longer a mistake, rather, it’s a transfer of trauma.
Images are mine.
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