Collecting ghosts…
TRAGIC STORIES…
The most tragic story ever told starts with a family on a bed
Story time…
With a book of pictures
To help?
To make the telling easier?
“My boys, I’ve got a story to tell you”
It’s all about DIVORCE…
And their happy faces crumble with every rehearsed, tear-filled line.
And a child’s anguished cry,
“daddy, I don’t like this story”
BACKGROUND: Sometime in the second part of 2003 I blew my marriage apart.
I’d love to say there were lots of sides to the story, that there were all the classical excuses; “married too young, we grew apart, yada, yada,” but none of that is actually true. The truth is that I thought I was invincible. I signed life cheques on other people’s behalf and a lot of people ended up paying for my mistake.
Lives were damaged.
Especially the lives of 2 little boys. They didn’t ask for any of this and I had no right to put them through everything I did and still do. Their happy, laugh-filled little lives ended one afternoon in October 2003 when Cheryl and I sat them on a bed with a book I had bought that explains divorce to children (oh God! how intellectualised and arrogant and impersonal had I become?). They sat on the bed, all excited when I told them I had a story to read them.
And when the story was finished… They were both in tears and Ryan uttered the single sentence that haunts me every night…
“Daddy… I don’t like this story.”
Jeffs, Ryan… I am so very, very sorry I hurt you.
never easy, but you did what you thought was best at the time and that’s all you could do! You are an amazing Dad and your boys are just as amazing thanks to both you and Cheryl! Love you lots xox
Thanks Jen… They are amazing but to be honest, I’m not. Calling them every day and travelling down every second weekend doesn’t make me an Amazing Dad. It just makes me a friend. I gave up any chance of being a proper Dad a long time ago.
Hi Norman, one of the bravest things we can do is to admit our mistakes and then do whatever we can to help those whom we have hurt. In spite of everything you are a good father to your boys and I’m sure the day will come when they will understand that as broken people living in a broken world we all do things that we later regret. My prayer for you is that you will come to terms with what happened and that you will have peace. Lots of love, Dawn
Hey Norm, I know how you feel. I can tell you that the key to turning around is beginning to love yourself. Really love yourself. Louise Hay wrote a book called ‘You can heal your life’ and I am healing every day, loving every minute, and getting to know who I am knowing I am really OK. Detlev