Yes, your dad did save Selwyn -- because he believed it was the right and decent thing to do, regardless of Selwyn's position and past actions. Because he saw Selwyn as a person. Not necessarily even a good person, or someone who might end up doing something redeeming, but as a fellow human being in immediate and critical need.
This is not a single moment of crisis. It is a slow, agonising slip down a treacherous path of his own making. It is difficult to watch, as there is not a single point of intervention that could halt it, but it is the accumulation of a million choices made along the way. And you have made an effort, all of you, to show him the consequences of his actions.
Yes. All people are worth trying to save. But sometimes, people do their very best to make saving them impossible, which is a hard reality to face.
Although we can hold hope in our hearts, ultimately, redemption is up to him. We cannot force it, or assume its inevitability, and holding him against his will would only harden his heart. But these things take time if they are to happen at all, and it is a tragedy pure and simple that he may not have enough of it remaining to sort things out on his own, and that is what makes me the most sorrowful.
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Re: Private message to Alice Longbottom
Date: 2014-07-07 04:42 pm (UTC)I'm so very sorry.
Yes, your dad did save Selwyn -- because he believed it was the right and decent thing to do, regardless of Selwyn's position and past actions. Because he saw Selwyn as a person. Not necessarily even a good person, or someone who might end up doing something redeeming, but as a fellow human being in immediate and critical need.
This is not a single moment of crisis. It is a slow, agonising slip down a treacherous path of his own making. It is difficult to watch, as there is not a single point of intervention that could halt it, but it is the accumulation of a million choices made along the way. And you have made an effort, all of you, to show him the consequences of his actions.
Yes. All people are worth trying to save. But sometimes, people do their very best to make saving them impossible, which is a hard reality to face.
Although we can hold hope in our hearts, ultimately, redemption is up to him. We cannot force it, or assume its inevitability, and holding him against his will would only harden his heart. But these things take time if they are to happen at all, and it is a tragedy pure and simple that he may not have enough of it remaining to sort things out on his own, and that is what makes me the most sorrowful.