Family is forever, but sometimes they can hurt you and make it difficult to forgive them for what they did. My brother and I played together all the time when we were younger. We would play with LEGOs, build forts with pillows, and invent our own types of games. We were kids, we had fun. We would fight occasionally, but the grudges wouldn’t last long. The next day we would be playing together like nothing happened.

One day, we were on the yellow living room carpet doing arts and crafts. We were sitting at our small table coloring and cutting out paper, when an argument arose. It was probably something meaningless and unimportant, as we were six and most of the arguments were something like:

“You took my lego, give it back!” or “My pillow fort is better!”

But this disagreement escalated, and Shane was soon chasing me around the house. From living room- to kitchen- to dining room- to living room. Around and around in circles. At one point in the chase, Shane picked up scissors, which were lying on the small table in the living room. I soon became aware of this and pleaded with Shane:

“Shane put the scissors down, don’t hurt me!”

He ignored me, so I kept running. After a few more loops, I turned around again to tell him to stop, but before I could get the words out, he opened the scissors and closed them on the tip of my right thumb.

“OW!” I screamed in pain.

I ran to my mother who was in another room folding some laundry.

“Mom,” I screamed, “Shane cut me with scissors!”

She looked up with concern and inquired, “Can I see it?”

After seeing the significant bleeding, she attempted to stem it, but could not and told me to get in the car.

With blood dripping profusely from my thumb to the floor, my mother grabbed me a towel and wrapped my thumb in it. We hurried down the stairs to the garage and to the car, with Shane following behind looking extremely guilty. I was crying, worried that I would have to get stitches.

“How did this happen?”my mother asked once we were seated and driving away from my house.

I was too overwhelmed to speak, but my brother said shamefully, “I accidentally cut him with scissors.”

My mother was angry but she had more pressing matters to tend to. We drove to the Urgent Care which was two minutes down the road. By then, my lap was wet with tears from crying and I was afraid my thumb was going to have to be amputated. We walked through the front revolving doors and into the front waiting room where my mother explained to the receptionist what had happened. I sat down, still crying silently, and waited for the doctor and the fate of my thumb. A few minutes later the doctor came out and took me to a back room. He asked me the routine questions and in between sobs, I explained to him what had happened.

The doctor examined my thumb and after consideration he said, “I have some good news. The thumb will not have to be cut off,” and some even better news, “and you will not need stitches.”

My crying ceased immediately and I was shocked at my good fortune.

“I’ll clean it up, place some special bandages on it, and you’ll be good to go,” he finished.

The doctor did as he said and when he was done repairing the damage, I had my thumb wrapped in a bandage.

My brother, mother, and I got in the car and drove away. My mother was thankful I was okay and made sure to lecture Shane on how bad it is to use scissors as a weapon.

“Always talk it out,” she lectured, “never resort to violence.”

I was angry at Shane for cutting me and ignored him for the rest of the day and the next few days. There were numerous times he attempted to apologize to me, but I gave him the cold shoulder. After a few days, I began to grow bored and lonely. I was not used to this isolated feeling because I always had my brother to play with. I finally decided to forgive my brother, for I noticed he was truly remorseful for his actions. Sometimes you have to forgive those who act impulsively and without much thought of what they are doing. At the end of the day Shane and I were brothers, and forgiving him would allow us to maintain our strong relationship. The next day we were playing in the living room again, as though nothing had happened.