A WAY TO HEALING… RIGHTING THE WRONG SOMEHOW…

~ Posted 27th January 2016 ~
 
On Tuesday, the 24th January, I had only 4 hours sleep and wrote the previous blog post about that… and then, the very next night, on the 25th, I only had 4 hours sleep yet again, but this time for a different reason.
 
My phone rang and woke me at about 01h45... A man on the line was letting me know that my 2nd ex-husband had passed away at 01h05… Not the kind of news one wants to hear in the middle of the night.
 
It was impossible to fall back to sleep after that.  I lay there with my thoughts and emotions bouncing all over the place.
 
Why was I feeling so sad?  I thought.  Why were there tears coming out of my eyes?  I honestly cannot remember ever feeling loved by the man, or genuinely happy with him.  I lived in real fear of him due to his sadistic nature and strange, warped behaviors.  I knew there was a problem the very 1st night after I married him.  Two weeks later I was already searching for help by speaking to church leaders, because I felt so unloved and miserable… Why had he married me? 
 
My quest for help went on for the full 14 years that I was married to him… most of those years I was trapped in a state of perpetual tears… and finally my marriage ended in divorce when my sister and brother in law came to my aid, organizing legal aid and the financial help we needed… I finally found the courage to set my children and I free from the torture that had been ours for far-far too long already!
 
Proof was found that my ex was homosexually inclined and he admitted to our church at the time, that the proof was his… even letters to other homosexual’s, written by his own hand.
 
He was an emotional abuser… a narcissist.  I often said, that it was for me, like living with the devil himself.  He was so clever… nobody believed us… nobody could hear our cries for help.  I visited FAMSA and tried everything, everywhere to find help for my children and I, but we were invisible and the world was blind and deaf to our tears and cries.
 
Anyway… long story… my book will be more detailed and I’m not writing this right now, to berate a man who has only just died.
 
As I lay there in my bed during the dark early hours of the 25th, I searched my mind for answers to the reason for how sad I was feeling.  There was no love lost at his death… none whatsoever.  During our marriage, my love for him was beaten down so many times, by the emotional abuse that he seemed to find such twisted pleasure in inflicting on us, that in the end, he managed to kill every piece of love I had left for him… so there was nothing left… only a large void where my love for him used to be.  That void had become so empty, that I had no need to ever look back on it again.
 
So, all I could come up with, was, that I was sad, because I had no way of sending “that terrible past” away with him and in the process, righting it somehow.
 
Like in 2012, when I handed over the keys of the old house that my children and I had lived in for 30 years… (the first 14 years of that time with my ex… a tortuous time with him).  That old house was literally rotting and falling to pieces around us… it held such terrible memories, but as I was leaving it and handing over those keys, I cried bitterly… I made the new owners promise me that they would make that house beautiful… fixed, repainted and lovely… they promised.  I needed to know that I would not be leaving all that ugliness there forever… that those new owners would keep their promise to take all the ugliness away and change it into something lovely.
 
I think that’s what my sadness and tears were all about this time also, as I lay there trying to go back to sleep… because it seemed that not even his death could rid the past of all the ugliness that we had endured living with him…
 
After our divorce, my children and I chose the attitude of… “If we had to have anything to do with him at all, we would prefer not to be ugly to him.”  I was still very scared of him and didn’t want to be too close to him at any time, but if we had to talk, I chose to be friendly and kind in the process, and I’m grateful for that decision, because when we finally moved home, and found ourselves struggling for funds to live on… both my youngest son and I still without work and myself in no state mentally to go out to work, my ex found out about it and made the decision to send us a large sum of money which kept us going until we could be more established in our new area.
 
Now that is something he would never have done, and I do believe that our decision to be kind and decent towards him after our divorce from him, is what brought about that extremely unexpected Miracle.  When he deposited that lifesaving money into my account, he said to me that he did not want to see us ending up in the ditch.  So, there was this man, who had deprived us of so much for years and years and treated us so cruelly, now showing that deep down, there was some goodness in him that he was still able to tap into, at least, for that moment in time. 
 
I stopped fearing him after that day.
 
We were forced to move house, because he retired in May 2012 and was no longer able to pay maintenance support.  So, for about three months after moving from the old house, we were penniless, jobless and did not have a home of our own yet, and psychologically, I was still in a mess after what had happened with the transference and countertransference breakdown of my therapy… something I don’t think I will ever recover from completely.
 
In November, last year, I celebrated my 60th birthday with the Logotherapy students at their exam workshop, and because I am still on office duty when I’m at the workshops, I always sit near the door in order that I can exit quickly if someone calls to enquire about the Logotherapy courses.
 
The phone rang and once outside of the classroom I responded… it was my ex.  He was calling to wish me happy birthday which was a surprise to me, and at the same time told me that he was not doing well.  While he was talking, he hinted that he had had enough of his own health struggles… mentioning the story of how his own father gave up when his wife had died and he no longer had any desire to go on… when his quality of life was left without meaning. 
 
There and then, I said to my ex… “If you ever feel that you are dying, please would you let me know… I will come and get you and we will make sure that you are comfortable… we would take good care of you” He seemed to appreciate that.  We did chat again a few weeks later and he sounded well on the phone, chatting away about nothing much as always and I listened and responded when I could get a word in edgeways. 
 
As soon as we had our workshop lunch break, I told my trainer, Teria, what I’d done, because of how absurd it seemed to me… I couldn’t understand my own actions… Why had I offered to be there for him if he was ever dying… she responded:
 
“It is all about the power of forgiveness; lifting the bitter burden of hurt about what someone did to you.  It means that you remove your condemnation of them and free them to give their own account before their Creator.  Their voices will not be drowned out by accusations coming from the left and from the right.  They will stand alone before the One they have to give an account to.  The verdict, after all, is solely His. 

By doing this, forgiving them and even by proving that forgiveness by showing them compassion and mercy when they need it most, when they are dying (as in the case of your ex-husband), or when they are hopelessly caught in the misery and consequences of their own crooked lives, you are giving them the fairest chance to come to their senses before it is too late.  You give them a chance to come to terms with their own lives, with the wrong of it, and to repent of it.

May we be granted such forgiveness!  How with this attitude, of wiping the slate of accusation, anger, bitterness and feelings of revenge towards our perpetrators clean, our own spirits soar in freedom!” ~ Teria Shantall
 
Strangely around the exact same time he called me at the workshop in November, my one son mentioned to me, that my first son had gone to a doctor and when the doctor recognized his surname, he mentioned that my ex was not 100% and even suggested that a visit from family might be in order.  My second son decided that he might go and visit my ex, but with not living nearby, work commitments, his wife being away on business for a week during the school holidays, and study commitments, he never had a chance yet.  But the very fact that he wanted to, I thought showed me a very special kind of compassion… a compassion even for “the abuser”… in his hour of need.  But as none of us really knew what his struggle was, there didn’t seem to be much urgency to go and visit him.
 
Anyway… now, my ex was dead and in the morning of the 25th and so, I let my children know.  He was the father of the second two children… the first two he had adopted at my insistence, because I wanted us to be a whole family… it was so important to me.  Their own father had paid no interest in them over the years.  Sadly, my second husband also did not show them any love or care and was downright nasty to them… especially my first son who he absolutely despised.  He didn’t care much for any of the children really and they all knew it.  After the divorce, he chatted with my youngest son on his birthday for about two years, but that was it… none of them had much to do with him at all, although my second son took it upon himself to deal with him when it came to signing all the house sale papers, dealing with the lawyers, etc.  That spared me a huge amount of stress for which I will always be grateful.
 
My cellphone died on Christmas day, so I lost all my messages, before I’d even seen them!  A day or two later, with my tablet then set up as a phone, I sent my ex a message to find out how he was doing and to wish him a Happy New year.  He responded kindly.
 
On the morning of the 25th January, two days ago, I was exhausted from the two nights in a row, of very little sleep and having lain awake half the night with so many thoughts running through my head… a complete tangle of emotions which I had not had a chance to make full sense of yet.
 
But then something really beautiful happened…
 
My children, all seemed to handle the situation of the death of my ex, each with a certain degree of compassion.  I think my daughter struggled a little, yet, sometime during the day, she sent an sms which showed me that she had not written her father’s death off completely… she wrote: 
 
“Is there going to be a funeral?” 
 
Even though I know that the extent of her hurt (not having a father who loved her) runs very deep, I felt a sense of gratitude that she cared enough to at least ask the question.  I would not expect her to attend his memorial service though… that she can decide on, on her own and the rest of us will be there for her if she comes.
 
My two older boys who honestly don’t owe my ex anything, both immediately after hearing about his death, took it upon themselves to be involved where necessary.  My second son called the person who had called me in the middle of the night and offered his assistance wherever needed.  He discussed funeral/memorial arrangements… wanted to check with his work if he had a policy that might pay for a decent funeral.  Once he found out that there were people who knew my ex, who were taking care of things, he made it clear that we had no intention of interfering in what they chose to do with my ex, but that we wanted to assist wherever we could.
 
I cannot tell you how much comfort I felt in seeing that spark of compassion that each of my children displayed, even in the face of such ugly past memories and the damage that still sits with each one of us as a result of living with that awful abuse for so many years.
 
I felt such an immense sense of gratitude towards my children on Wednesday, because their compassionate reactions to the news of my ex’s death, helped me to gently unravel the tangle of emotions in my mind.  I was able to nap in the morning for two hours, and that got me through the rest of day.  I took ¼ sleeping pill in the evening and thankfully had a good night’s sleep.
 
My son also heard that a woman friend of my ex’s was very sad about his death, so I wrote an sms yesterday to tell her that my ex had spoken very highly of her, and that I was sure she must be feeling very sad at her loss, and if she wanted to chat, I’d be here for her.  I hoped that my message to her, would help her to feel comfortable about my children and I attending the memorial service… I didn’t want her to be worrying about that also. 
 
And just like the promise of my old house being fixed… so too, I do believe, that the attitude that my children and I have adopted at this time, towards our abuser’s passing, is one that will ultimately bring each of us the healing we might still need. 
 
I am glad we that have chosen to deal with his death in this way.   I want to believe that my ex was having a genuine change of heart for the better over the months prior to his death. 
 
I believe that by righting the wrong somehow, on both sides, we have created a legacy of honour for the surname that we carry and the surname our grandchildren and descendants will also carry in the future. 
 
I believe that this is how things should be, especially when there is a need for healing…

To conduct our lives in a spirit of genuine LOVE? 
 
Thank you for sharing with me…
 
~ Pana