The Other Way Around

In a novel called, “Caught in That Music,” a woman named Debbie is going to marry a man named Norman. Debbie’s brother Jonas doesn’t like Norman. He thinks Norman is dull, cold, disagreeable and unworthy of his sister. Debbie tells her brother to be more tolerant and tries to explain why. She says, “Nothing is ever completely the way you think it is, or the way you’d like it to be. I didn’t love Norman right away. He loved me — so much that I wished I could love him in return. Some people have to see love before they can love.”

“Is that the way it works?” Jonas asks. “Because he loves you, you love him?”

Debbie replies, “Because I am loved, I see what you don’t see.”

We usually think that it works the other way around. Wouldn’t you tend to say, because I love someone, I see in him or her what you don’t see? We understand that. But…