On Letting Go

This is a true story, which took more than 3 months to unfurl and fruit. One can imagine the uncountable number of such occurances in our lifetime, some are short while others highly protracted. We should pause to ask ourselves whether we have enough time in this life to reap the benefits of each lesson well learnt.

Some years ago, an elderly retired Indian gentleman, presumably in his sixties and re-employed as a dispatch person, dropped by our office to deliver documents. Subsequently, as his visits became regular; my colleagues and I struck up an acquaintanceship and in those brief chat moments that he could spare, he told us he was a heart patient wearing a pacemaker.
One day 3 months ago, he popped in while I was away and on his way out I bumped into him. On seeing me, he showed me a label torn from a medicine pack, and politely asked whether I could lend him 50 Ringgit to buy the drug to treat his cardiac ailment. Without a second thought, I whipped out the note and handed it to him. He graciously thanked me and promised he would return in 3 days to settle the debt.
When I walked into my office, my colleagues reported that he had approached them earlier to borrow money and they had flatly turned him down on the reason of trust. They then wanted to know whether I had unwittingly lent him any. I only responded with a smile. Somehow, their uncalled for remarks implanted negative thoughts in my mind of distrust and fear of losing the money and whether I have made a mistake of lending him. In the few days that followed, I struggled to put the thoughts behind me but could not completely erase them.
On the day he promised to return with the money, he defaulted. This further fueled my thoughts of distrust and I reasoned it was unfortunate that our relationship could only be worth a mere 50 Ringgit and so consoled myself that the world's full of such characters anyway. A month passed without any sign of him. Then one day he came by to say that according to his doctor, it was time to replace his pacemaker but he will repay the debt a week before the procedure. Another month passed. I then resigned to the thought that the debt was irrecoverable, wrote it off and re-attempted to forget that it was ever incurred.
However, a week ago, he showed up and upon completing his assigned chore, he confidently walked up to me and joyfully handed me an envelope containing 50 Ringgit. I was unexpectedly touched by his honesty and the very gesture of returning with the money jeered at my distrustful thoughts of him. Instinctively, I took the envelope, put my hand on his shoulder and said, "Do me a favour, please take this back, and donate it to a welfare institution of your choice, in your and your family's name." He gave me a sudden look of surprise that melted into a gentle smile. He whispered a "Thank You", nodded acknowledgingly and slowly walked to the door without looking back ...

In reflecting, I concluded that in this encounter, it was a small price to pay not for one, but for several lessons learnt. Everyone in the story was my teacher. As for the bottom line - did I lose anything? I think not. I was just letting go ...