THANK YOU FOR TODAY.
I have an exercise to complete about the possessions I have with me. There is almost nothing in my pockets or bags that I couldn’t do without. My old lap top is precious to me but the important things in it are my stories, my memories and my photos. Somewhere, I am not sure where, they sit on a cloud so, theoretically they would not be lost if my lap top went.
The rest is all replaceable in some way or another.
All except one thing I rarely look at. An old photo in my wallet of Wendy’s children; I think they would have been in primary one when it was taken. They are smiling, grinning fit to burst They are dressed in their school uniforms; possibly for their first day at school. I so often wonder that my life now involves such people.
I did look in my bag for my old Filofax as once, many, many, years ago my son stuck some sort of pokemon sticker on it but it was no longer there. I treasured it; a tiny symbol of connection to a long ago past that hardly seems to exist anymore but is maybe just now resuming with tiny flickers.
Once there was a time in my life when my son had disappeared, my friends had gone, family seemed to have gone. Possessions, mementoes, passports, certificates and awards; they had gone too.
I remember also, way, way back in my life, there was a time of violence and quite intense misery. It seemed to me that I deserved this ending to that stage of my life; that if I couldn’t love properly then the punishment of kicks and punches, of thrown glasses and overturned tables was my due reward.
And yet not that long ago in an office in Oban with Rape Crisis; for the first time I talked about it properly and for the first time I cried properly and for the first time I believed the person when she said that no one, whether they be a man or a woman, deserves to live in relationship where you live in fear of what might happen next. Where you never really know what the latest thing is that you have done or why it deserves such a dramatic response.
I also talked to her of a time in my very, very, distant childhood about the person who will be in court very soon and who I will have to bear witness to, to what he did to me. She told me what happened was not trivial; that the police do not take people to court for trivial things.
She let some of my shame slip away. She told me the stories of school that I told her were valid and important and that despite the privilege of my life, that those days sounded damaging and cruel.
My heart lifted a little at her words; lifted more when she said she would be happy to see me again and again after that, and said that it was a brave thing for me to have spoken about such things.
Those brief memories are a contrast to the photo of Wendy’s children with their broad delighted smiles. Somehow and I will never understand why, I found myself falling into a life and a family where no one is frightened of anyone else in it. Where voices are not raised and arguments so slight they might not really ever happen.
I wake to a morning kiss. I am given an ‘I love you’ cuddle when wee Charlotte sets off up the road to school or is picked up to go to her dads. When I walk in the door Dash the dog, wags his whole body he is so pleased to see me. James, Charlotte’s twin, even at the age of eleven, still claims he is part dog. He greets me with a bark too when I bring him his tea.
This is a world where we laugh, joke, tease and giggle, where we do our best to make each other happy. It is a constant surprise to me; a delightful wonderful surprise.
It was only very, very, recently that I learnt that Rape Crisis Scotland help both men and women and children; that they deal with the past and with violence as well as sexual harm.
I was so worried before I walked through the door of the office. I was sure I would be told it was all my fault; that I made it all happen. I thought she might say I left the people who did what they did to me with no choice but to do what they did. I worried she would tell me I was disgusting and should leave the office.
And she didn’t.
She listened and in the silence and calm of the room I felt heard for the first time in I don’t know how long and that was the most amazing gift.
Thank you so much Rape Crisis for existing and being there for us men too.
But thank you even more to Wendy. You have taught me that people can live together in harmony, with love and laughter and that fear doesn’t have to be a part of a relationship. It is not as though fear has always been a part of my life, but every moment of every day nowadays I feel like I am waking up; stretching out my arms and wondering what the day will bring.
(Photo: Wendy at Geilstone Gardens with Dash the dog. June 2022)
Comments