God, why?

Do you know the feeling when you simply exist and suddenly, out of nowhere, a flashback of something stupid what you have done several years ago comes to your mind and your reaction can be expressed only by classic 'God, why'? I had something like this related to RPGs few days ago.

It was at the beginning of my current D&D3.0 campaign. One of my player screwed up and told us that she cannot be at the session about half an hour before it. That was a pretty important scenario and we needed her and her character. The party needed her and everyone was pissed off. Sure, by all means we had every right to be mad at her. Sure, that it was her fault and so on and so forth, however, I, the Dungeon Master, did something what I should not have done. Basically I let the rest of the party do whatever they wanted to her character, who ended up being raped. 

I believe that every experience, even the one of the worst kind, teaches us something. Now I know that it was an awful thing to do. I should not have punished the character for what the player had done. The problem was even more serious, because the player is one of the best kind of players anyone can have at the sessions. She does not play the character. When the game starts, she is the character and she has a very deep affection for each character she has.

I am a lucky bastard. I apologised and after few sessions everything got back to normal state, but I know that I could destroy something wonderful in her that day. I could destroy her love to RPGs for ever. I am a lucky bastard, but not everyone is. Do not push your luck and never punish the character for the deeds of the player. A character is like a pet - you do not kill someone's puppy because the guy behaved like a prick once, do you?