Friday morning I had my flu jab, and I've just finished a project which involved a deadline, a very important project to wrest money from the government. I am now having a week off. The combination of the project and the flu shot seems to have drained me of all energy!
I slept a lot of yesterday and last night went to bed quite early for me, before 10pm! I fell asleep almost immediately.
A ringing phone woke me from my slumber. Peering at the clock I could see that it was about 11pm.
It was a dear, longstanding friend from Perth. She needed to talk. Her ex, the father of her eldest child, had died. He had tried to contact his child, but the child (now in his 30s), refused to have anything to do with his father. The father had tried for a few years to contact the child, but the child had spoken with him and said "Stay away from me and my siblings." My friend had phoned him to let him know that his son had recently married. The ex had not changed, he used a nasty name he'd called her and started with the same old abuse, denigration and criticism of her which marked their relationship all those years ago. He couldn't help himself. She hung up on him.
Over the years there was a lot of hurt and pain, he had been vindictive and paranoid, and even doubted that the child was his (of all things!), and my friend and her new family had suffered; they'd been stalked and had all sorts of things happen to them. (The ex badmouthed my friend's husband to his boss - he was in the RAAF, fortunately the boss disregarded the lies told.)
The ex had died and his son had not had anything to do with him. My friend was sad that he was dead and died alone by the look of things. She had loved him all those years ago, and you can't just switch that off. She is sad that her son didn't really know his father and have a relationship with him. The father had accused her of poisoning his son. This is untrue, that boy knew that something was wrong, and although he's blocked out a lot of things which happened to him in the past, he did know that there was something not right with his father's relationship with his other family.
My words to my friend were "He made his bed, he had to lie in it. When you called to tell him his son had married he just went on with his same old rubbish and name calling, and I think that tells you that he would have been the same in a relationship with his son. His son would not have tolerated the put downs of his mother and the name calling."
I think I covered it.
3 comments:
Sad!
Very often in life it's not a case of: "it's me, not you", rather it's definitely: "it's you, not me!".
Even young children are pretty savvy at picking the truth.
My God, yes, Caz.
That child would have known because his mother was terrified when she heard from his father.
The stalking and the harassment and the threats.
That poor kid knew that his mother was terrified of his father - she was a wreck when he'd contact her. He even tried to find her through me!
He was a nasty piece of work.
She did finally get over the fright, and phoning him to tell him that his son had married was a triumph for her, she was not reduced to a blathering wreck by his nastiness and rudeness, she just hung up on him, and was not frightened of him at all. Disappointed that he'd not changed and grown enough to speak with her as equal adults, but not frightened.
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