The Gift of a Second Chance

When a powerful quake hit Haiti on January 12, 2010, Benito Revolus was hospitalized after being stabbed during a fight over money. When the ceiling caved in, Benito barely had the time to realize what was happening before the top section of his bed collapsed on him, piercing through his left thigh and pinning him to the ground. In an unexpected strike of good fortune, the top bunk shielded him and provided a pocket of breathing space, allowing him to survive. Benito was trapped under rubble and nailed to the floor by one of the legs of the bunk bed for five days. He lost a copious amount of blood and had nothing to eat or drink, but he survived.

Throughout his ordeal, one thing kept his mind occupied – while he thought he was waiting to die, Benito spent the time reflecting on his life, and made a solemn promise to God: If he made it out alive, he would change his life. His first step, he said, would be to forgive all old scores. He thought of his mother and he felt sorry for the pain he was causing her. He didn’t want to leave this life before accomplishing something good, and twenty-three years just hadn’t been enough to get on the ball.

After dawn on the fifth day, on Saturday, his prayers were answered. Benito heard the sound of a hammer being tapped, so he reached for a rock and used it to tap back three times. For the next several hours he heard people frantically working around him; the sound of jackhammers and circular saws broke the maddening silence, and around 4:00 pm Benito was free. The face of a young firefighter appeared smiling through the rubble and told him in broken French that he was going to be okay. Benito’s survival baffled physicians, as the maximum time estimated for someone severely injured and bleeding profusely is three days, but Benito didn’t seem too surprised, as he never completely lost hope. His faith had kept him alive.

Someone once told me that life is but a contract we sign before being born. The “contract” is stipulated upon estimation of the time necessary to learn the lessons we came to assimilate, but in Benito’s case, thankfully, it came with a clause. During his twenty-three years of life, he had probably never thought about all the things he needed to accomplish; most of us never do. We wake up in the morning and go about our day mechanically, often making the wrong choices, always thinking that we have plenty of time left to “fix things up”, when in reality, each day could be our last.

We live with anxiety, we hold grudges and focus on things that aren’t important, while we could instead use the time to let go of unneeded baggage, to forgive and forget, and to learn how to live a meaningful life. We invest most of our energy toward amassing wealth of the wrong kind, even if when the time to go finally comes we can’t take any of those things with us. As an old Italian proverb reminds us, at the end of the game the king and the pawn go back into the same box.

Life is too short to live or die with regrets. We can’t go back in time to change the past, but we do have the power to change today.

Benito’s story was found at: http://www.wral.com/news/national_world/world/story/6850423/

When Our Mistakes Become Who We Are

“Just because you make a mistake doesn’t mean you are a mistake.” - Georgette Mosbacher


A few days ago I had an interesting conversation with a lady I met through a friend. She was telling me about her failed marriage, and said that after many years of enduring verbal and emotional abuse she finally decided to count her losses and leave.

It took her so long, she said, because her children were young and she was afraid of not being able to financially weather the separation. She had gone to college before meeting her husband, and had dropped out when she had become pregnant with her first daughter. After that, she had been a stay-at-home mom, and her children had been the light of her existence. She stated that being a mom had been the only thing she knew how to do.

I looked at her in surprise – certainly there has to be something else she is good at and likes to do. When I told her that, her eyes filled with tears. She said that no matter how hard she tries she is a failure by nature. That chilled my blood. Her husband had pointed out her mistakes so often that she had come to believe she could do nothing right. She believed she is the mistake.

After being exposed so long to the verbal attacks, her mind had looked for a reason to justify the abuse, and had come to accept that she deserves it somehow. She felt incapable, unattractive and helpless, regardless of the fact that she is a beautiful and skilled woman.

As we delved deeper into the conversation, she volunteered a little more information – her father had also been quite verbally abusive. She knew he always loved her but had never really accepted that she was different than he.

Her wounds had been patiently etched into the core of her self-worth over time, and at the hands of multiple people. There was a pattern at work here, and I wondered if she was even aware of it. By assuming that her father was right in his criticism – after all he loved her and wouldn’t lie to her, would he? – she had come to accept that she was unworthy of his love. Feeling subconsciously guilty of causing her father unneeded grief, she had sought to continue the punishment he had “lovingly” inflicted on her by marrying a man who was similar to him.

When I pointed out the similarity, she was genuinely surprised and oddly recharged. She asked if I made mistakes often, to which I could only smile - If mistakes were a monetary fund I could easily be set for retirement. Yet, learning from my mistakes has led me to be the person I am today, and I wouldn’t change them for anything.

Mistakes don’t define our character but rather display the mechanisms we use in response to challenges. Someone once said that the worst mistake is our fear of making mistakes, as being afraid to fail will prevents us from trying. Actions can be a mistake, not people. I hope that someday she will be strong enough to see that.