After reading so many of your blogs I thought it would be good to find out more about the person with a silhouette of his cat as his profile picture. (incidently the cat in question is Claude and at the moment he has just returned home with a broken front leg so he is resting after I patched him up)
ok enough waffle, I suppose it really all started in the 1970's when I was a child growing up with 2 brothers and a sister, my earliest memory is when my younger brother was born then my sister, I would of been 3 then 4. Other memories include going on holiday with my mum and nan and elder brother but coming home to just my brother and sister as my dad had ran off with someone who was not yet out of her teens. this had a profound effect on my mum and made me step up to take care of her as i did for the next 15 years, she remarried but that too came to an end when on arriving home from school one day to the sight of 2 police cars at the house and being told I couldn't go in, due to the fact my step dad had beaten her up, for this act I really wanted to hurt him. Infact kiling wasn't far from my mind, all this and i still wasn't even a teenager yet.
We all split up, my two brothers went to live with our dad whilst my sister and I stayed with our mother, we moved some 30 mies away to a relatively small town and started anew, this went really well, we became a close strong unit, until, one day my mum was rushded to hospital with a collapsed lung, this was in October of '91, whilst in hospital it was found out that she had several tumours, small to begin with so chemotherapy and radiotherapy was the next course of action, of course my sister and I helped in anyway we could doing whatever was necessary, my 2 brothers didnt do that much, something they still feel guilt for, as the months came and went on a friday evening in February '92 (21st I think) she took a turn for the worse and we called an ambulance to take her to the hospice, visiting every waking moment and praying for something good to come of it, as we always said 'why us, what have we done to deserve this?' over the next few days I gathered what family I could to say what had happened. consulting the doctor on the monday the prognosis wasn't great we were told she had less than 6 months to live. planning what to do for 6 months is not an easy task, this was made even harder when on the 25th Feb I was told by the head surgeon that they has miscalculated and she had less than 24 hour. from 6 months to 24 hours overnight is not a great scenario to be in, still I had to take the news to the others, so I gathered the family members that were there and just sai it 'mums got less than 24 hrs to live'....you can imagine the silence that followed, I felt awful, why should I have had to tell them. it still makes me sad now some 21years later. Anyway we were all there at 5.36pm for here finall moments, at least she was in peace and out of pain now.
this is where it all went wrong for me, no-one knew what I was feeling and no-one asked, so I drank, I drank as much as I could to numb the pain. my age at this 20, I was 20 and drinking myself into oblivion and whats more was I didnt care, I took as many drugs of all descriptions as I could for the next 6 years. I lost my house, jobs self respect, I was livimg on the street and peoples floors, destroying myself and my fucked up life right infront of people who called me a friend. no one stepped in to help except one person, and she came into my life whilst I was at rock bottom. I was going through a sober patch and met her at a quiz night, she spoke to me in waythat was endearing and clear. I met her again feeling good as I had only thought of her and nothing else, she was my salvation she gave me a purpose, she gave me reason to beleive in myself and to pick close friends wisely, she went on to become my wife, we have been married for 13 years and have 2 girls, I still drink but its more the relaxing glass of wine, I dont touch drugs and keep active by playing football and excersising often.
what I am saying is whatever position in life you find your self in, there is always someone who will be that good samaritan and save you, whether he or she exists for real or you find your strength in god, there is always someone there with an outstretched hand, you just have to see it and take it.
sorry for the waffling and thanks for reading.
