A Lost Cause part I by Carol Naylor

 
                                                       courtesy of photobucket.com
 
There have been two extremely difficult and traumatic periods in life when everything has been bleak and I have felt utter despair: 1981 and 2006 are those two BLACK years.I didn't deal with either of them; I repressed the hurt and anger which psychologists advise is wrong. I was too badly hurt to face not just one, but TWO losses head-on and ran and hid from the hurt and pain that would have destroyed me. The consequences?
Years and years later the pain is still there and I know that it will eventually destroy me. They say that love conquers evil but what about pain and suffering like mine? It destroys the human psyche and ultimately, man's spirit. That's how it was with me and that's how it remains.
 
E'li, E'li, la'ma sa bach tha' ni?
My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?
 
There was no beginning or end to my grief. It was just like a bereavement but my son didn't die, he simply faded from my life and his childhood, adolescence and manhood came and went like the tide without a loving maternal presence.
 
Some of us are unfortunate victims of an unfair world. When did it start for me? Difficult to say. Events mingle and time clouds our memories so they become indistinct and distant.
 
My sins? I lost custody of him when he was 3 years of age and I was a naive 28 year old mother of such a young, precious but LOST child. I was traumatised for life.
 
Allow me to digress, to go back in time to 1975 when I got married and the following year when I graduated from Newcastle University, an optimistic young woman aspiring to happiness. I had been teaching one year before I became pregnant. It wasn't planned, a pure accident. Life at this point was good, not brilliant but good. I wasn't blissfully happy but I did feel content-for a while and then it all changed.
 
My ex didn't turn out to be the love-of-my-life. He was selfish, indulgent, irresponsible thinking of himself as a Jack-the lad. William David Hunt known as Bill. I remember the excessive drinking and womanising, the arguments and aggressive behaviour, the sexual dalliances-and there were too many.
 
I admit I was a fool to marry him. I blame my naivety. He forced me into having sex with him-he raped me at the Hydro in Hexham outside in the wet grass. I felt dirty, smutty, riddled with masses of guilt. Should I have felt guilty? Of course. I didn't love him. I didn't know him and I certainly didn't want to be raped. I was too embarrassed to speak to anyone about it.
 
 
courtesy of photobucket.com
 
 
I was stupid to entertain him let alone marry him two years later. I found out that he had a reputation amongst the girls for sleeping around. Why couldn't I have been wiser and seen the signs from the start? Wisdom comes later doesn't it? Too late in most cases. In my heart of hearts I knew that a relationship with this man was doomed. And it was.
 
In retrospect I can look back on my folly and question why I had to pay such a heavy price? Unlucky? Absolutely! I was young, naive, headstrong and I reluctantly agreed to marry the man who gave me so much grief. Man? No, he was an irresponsible boy who threatened not to turn up at the church on our wedding day. Can you imagine that? He was the one who went off with a young girl who had been ditched at the altar when we were in Benidorm in 1978. My son was a tiny baby at the time. I felt betrayed and hated him. I loathed Benidorm back in the seventies because I associated this upsetting incident with the setting. Bill and I had a showdown when he eventually returned to the hotel room. I could have left him and ended the marriage there and then......................I wish I had. Life would have been different, easier......,
 
                              left to right: Joanne, Carol, Christine and Margaret March 1975 Crossgates, Leeds.
 
                     to be continued
 
COPYRIGHT 2013. Permission must be obtained from the author before reproducing any part of this work.

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