We often value a love only after we’ve carelessly thrown it away

“I have often thought of you,” said Estella. … “There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth. But since my duty has not been incompatible with the admission of that remembrance, I have given it a place in my heart.”
— Charles Dickens, “Great Expectations”

About 12 years ago, I almost married a brilliant and beautiful woman. A month before we were to be married, though, I backed out. I broke her heart. And I eventually regretted it.

But by the time I realized I had made a mistake — maybe six months later — it was too late. I told her I had been wrong and begged her to take me back. But I had hurt her and she was already moving on. So she broke my heart.

Over time, each of us regretted throwing away the love we had had from the other. But our timing was off — and our regrets were at different times — so our lives went in very different directions.

I’ve been wondering lately how different our decisions about love would be if we knew what we faced in the future. How often do we carelessly reject love which we later would do anything to have again?

Until about a month or so, I hadn’t read Charles Dickens’ classic novel, “Great Expectations,” since I was in the eighth grade. I remembered it as a mildly interesting story, but that’s about all. I never understood until I read it over the last few weeks — after I’ve experienced so much more of life — how deeply Dickens understood human nature.

There are many ways in which Dickens had deep insight into how we interact with one another — how we love each other and how we hurt each other — but the relationship from the novel that resonates with me most is one which is filled with longing on one side and regret on the other.

Pip was a young and ignorant teen from a working-class family when he was introduced to Estella, who was beautiful and was raised in wealth and high society. Pip fell in love with the beautiful Estella, but she had nothing but scorn for him in the beginning.

Over time, as Pip’s fortunes in life rose, Estella spent time with him, but she made it clear that she had a hard heart and wouldn’t love him. Or anyone else. That part of the story is too complicated — and twisted — for me to try to explain here.

Estella knew how much Pip loved her, but she hurt him by cruelly rejecting his love — with no feeling — and marrying a man who Pip despised. This crushed Pip and left him heartbroken.

In Dickens’ original ending for the novel, the two meet on a London street years later, but it’s a sad and unhappy meeting for both of them. At the urging of a writer friend, Dickens wrote a new ending while the novel was already in proofs.

In the ending which was published, Pip and Estella meet years later — after life has crushed Estella — but things are left in a far more hopeful light. Estella asks for Pip to forgive her past actions, but she doesn’t feel worthy of forgiveness. Even though this woman has hurt Pip and caused him years of grief, he shows empathy for her.

“I can [say that I forgive you] now,” Pip said to Estella in the final scene. “There have been sore mistakes; and my life has been a blind and thankless one; and I want forgiveness and direction far too much, to be bitter with you.”

Too many relationships in our lives — both romantic and otherwise — conclude with no forgiveness and no reconciliation. Maybe that’s inevitable. But even in relationships which I don’t want to renew in my life, there are cases in which I wish I could have had a more satisfying final page.

How many regrets do we have about love? How many times do we realize — after we’re mature enough to see love clearly — how much we should have valued love that someone else wanted to give us? That’s happened to me more than once.

Unfortunately, life isn’t like a novel. We can’t rewrite the final scene to be more satisfying. In many of my relationships, I wish I could do that. Even when I wouldn’t want to end up with a woman in my life, I would love to have the chance to end some past relationships with more dignity and empathy.

Dickens had that chance for his characters and he took it. Although he doesn’t say what happens to Pip and Estella after the final page, there’s a strong implication that they would somehow remain together. Here is the first-person narration from Pip in the last paragraph of the book:

“I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.”

That last phrase made me feel emotional when I finished the book a couple of weeks ago. It made me happy, because I wanted these two to end up together if they could.

But I know that real life isn’t a novel. My own life doesn’t seem to work this neatly, either. As it is, I have regret about rejecting love that others have wanted to give me. And I understand now that others will eventually feel regret about rejecting love I wanted to give to them.

Sometimes our timing in life just doesn’t work out. But there are others who we will later love — and others who will love us. Love and life are a joy when two people finally get that timing right. Sometimes, that really happens in real life.