[Trishie, quote]
On the way to work tears would silently slip down my cheeks, Dad . . . was trying is best for the kids. And yes, pacing up and down is a real thing . . . Dad never realised that women found him fascinating. He was a quiet humble man . . . He was still grieving.
I tried to help in the many ways I used to help Mum. Everything I did drew criticism. Even the way I cut beans was wrong. I left home without fuss and without giving reasons. The two sisters younger than me also did. It was the sixties and we married two early, too young. Two of those marriages ended in divorce and annulment. Mine came close many times for the first 25 years. Two of my brothers left home far too young, two began drinking too much, one stopped, the other later died in a fiery single car crash at 12.30 am after drinking too much blue label whisky. He’d stopped drinking for a few years but his wife left, so back to drink. When we girls escaped, they lost too much also. After I married, this brother put himself arms around my waster and said sadly” I wish you girls hadn’t left home” worst, they’d ask for me from very young if Mum asked, “who do you want to put you to bed, “ Trishie “ they’d reply. That day I realised they’d lost more than their mum
For years I only cried if I did, for my siblings,
But then one day iI looked around at my three little boys and knew they would never know my Mum, and that I was never able to have an adult chat or a cup of tea with her. I cried on and off for three days, because I’d lost my Mum, and shouldn’t have to have done.
I’m 73 years old and have had tears running down my face as I write
So if you are talking about the life of a mother who is in danger of dying, think also about her husband and her children, each child. I cannot doubt that a compassionate God could. Most of us aren’t saints and never likely to be even if they tried as hard and as long as I did, from a young child.
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@Trishie
Praying for you and your family. I’m so very sorry for the decades of hurt that you’ve all endured.
My husband was killed in a military plane crash three weeks before our first anniversary and three months before our son’s birth. The row has been long, uneven, weedy, and definitely hard to hoe. I was often overwhelmed, even with the moral support of my dear parents, but I had only one child who didn’t understand why God took his daddy to “hebben.” I’m 78, he’s 55, and we still don’t understand. We’ve heard the platitudes and uttered them ourselves, but we don’t understand. Some things we must take on faith or cease to exist.
Knowing the magnitude of what I faced alone, with only one child, I can’t even imagine the devastation and anguish that your poor father encountered. No matter what earthly faults your father may have had, he’s a saint. May you all have more sunshine than rain in your lives in the years ahead, and may you all know eternal happiness together in Heaven. You and your family are in my forever prayer journal, Trishie. Hugs.