The medical doctor daughter had a big hurt, resentment, anger toward her academic doctor father. With great spite and condescension wishing to hurt him in turn, she said, “You’re no doctor. You’re a Ph.D.” He just stood there.

I would have said, “Daughter, you are a physician. I am an academician. We are both doctors,” but I’m not the one with whom she was having the hard time.

On an emotional level, of course, that wouldn’t have helped. Her hurt was deep and really had nothing to do with degrees, but if she is going to fight, she should fight fair, get her facts straight and call things as they are. Perhaps her father said nothing, because he knew no response to that statement would be helpful and so his silence was golden.

Perhaps later, if indeed he was culpable and penitent with a resolve to straighten up and fly right, he might simply offer that he was sorry for the hurt he caused and, by the grace of God, they might begin to talk — adult to adult/person to person and begin the journey to reconciliation — perhaps.

Ah, wouldn’t that be nice? Wouldn’t the adult journey to reconciliation be nice for all of us and our damaged and sometimes broken relationships — as much as it depends on us?