Events over the past week have seen me having to think a great deal about my life. Before Prostate Cancer. Before meeting my wonderful husband David. Before things changed so much. I don’t recognize someone who meant so much to me in the past. It is not about PC. It is about how those whose lives don’t pan out as they had planned, who are so vulnerable that they believe stories and gossip about my past, from someone who wasn’t in it,who has had nothing to do with any of us for 40 years and so doesn’t know anything about me or my children.
It is sad how the little girl who was my first child, has changed into someone whose aim in life seems to be to cause me hurt. To make trouble for me. To hurt anyone who is loyal to me and my family. The comparison of the comments on my blog by her and the words above, are so massive that they are difficult to comprehend. I don’t know who has heard the gossip, who has read anything she has written about me, her life and her Dad, Terry. I don’t know but what I do know is that sadly, she seems to have lost the truth somewhere in the past 4 years. That in itself doesn’t bother me, the gossip I mean becuse I know the truth, but her lack of honesty does.
When I had my eldest daughter, she was, as I wrote in a poem to her, My Blessing. Life had been hard as some of you know. My marriage was good although children had never been discussed. Our physical life was almost non-existent, a legacy of sexual abuse in my childhood, but my husband was very patient. It was a surprise to us both when I became pregnant. We had made love once, I conceived. Meant to be I thought.
My daughter became my life. Many things happened over the years and all I know is that I was the best mum I could be. When you have a baby, they don’t come with a manual, it is guess work for most of us. I have a memory box here, in front of me, my eldest daughter’s box. It is full of letters, scribbled notes, cards saying ‘thank you,’’ I love you’, ‘the best mum in the world’ etc. etc. I am a literary hoarder and keep everything ever sent to me or emailed to me. We were very close as she grew up. I was there when she had her first son, my grandson. I held him when his Dad brought him out of the delivery room after a ‘c’ section and placed him in my arms. I wasn’t ready, not expecting this huge rush of love for this tiny child. I loved him. I loved my daughter and my son-in-law.
At this time or rather a few years after Lisa was born,I had lost a son to adoption and have letters from Social services saying how he should never have been taken from me. I had been quite ill at the time, friends on here know about those awful times and support me. Against my will and judgement, he was adopted. I am now reunited with him and we share a mutual love, friendship and respect. I also had Marie, a sister for Lisa born when Lisa was 5 years, old to my second husband. Jonathan my son was born in 1971, after I had been apart from my first husband for 18 months. One of the legacies of sexual abuse, the inability to sustain long-term relationships, especially if the physical side of those is difficult. Hence the marriages.
When my daughter had her 2nd son, her marriage broke down. Her husband was mortified and depressed. I wish I had seen this back then. I wish I had the training that I now have and the experience to have noticed this. He came to me often, asking me to speak to Lisa on his behalf, I did but to no avail. One Sunday he turned up at my door in bits. He came in and sobbed in my arms for hours. Eventually I rang his mother and Lisa came over. They talked but nothing changed. The following day he committed suicide. It was no one’s fault. If a marriage doesn’t work, it doesn’t work but he found it too much to take. I supported my daughter and my grandsons. It was me who had to tell them their Daddy was dead. The hardest thing I have ever done in my life. The eldest was 5 and the youngest around 1 year. I didn’t think twice about doing this when asked, I was Lisa’s Mum and there for her throughout her life and especially at that time.
Over the years we have fallen out, mostly because of my need for honesty and truth. She has hurt me over and over and I have forgiven her over and over. But this time she has the influence of an aunt who has always tried her best to spoil what I have. With my daughter she has possibly succeeded.
Why am I writing this today? My daughter, last year, aided by my youngest sister, Trisha Anne Hopkins, wrote and told my publisher lie after lie to try to ruin me. She lost me my publishing contract and cost me dear. This is now remedied and my books are back on sale. But the biggest cost was to me, the hurt and pain I suffered whilst trying to deal with David’s diagnosis of PC. Since then my daughter has re written her history, with no thought of the truth. My sister, her aunt knows nothing about me, my life, my issues or the huge things we have had to put up with and suffer through-out my life. She was not in touch with me, knew nothing about me after Lisa was around 7 years of age.How can what she tells Lisa and my grandsons, bear resemblance to any truth when she had no part in our lives?
So back to why I am writing this today. I have read and re read all the poems, letters, notes and emails Lisa has written to me over the years and been left feeling very sad. I loved my daughter, still love my daughter but not the one I see today. I love the kind, loving compassionate little girl who grew into a lovely caring young woman and mother. I love the person who would phone me 2 or 3 times a day. The one with whom I shared so much. The one who came to me for me to help her adopt her daughter Hannah. The one who couldn’t complete the forms because she couldn’t remember her childhood dates etc. The one who sent me hundreds of emails and photos of the little girl she has since adopted. My study and kitchen were full of photos of Hannah that I will always keep, photos sent by Lisa. At the top of this blog you will read one of the notes she wrote, not an early one, not a recent one but one when she was married to her 2nd husband and happy with her family and me as part of it. The tone is the same in most of her previous notes and letters.
We fell out because she had asked me to complete and sign a form that was not true. Those of you who have read my very first blog know what happened and so does Lisa.
After this she would regularly write and TELL me not to post photos of the past, with her or her sons, my grandchildren, on my social media. They are my memories and nothing can change that. At first I removed posts, then I didn’t. After my last 2 blog entries she has commented lies, threats and malicious gossip but has ‘published’ a letter ‘supposedly’ from her dad, and used it as her profile picture. This saddens me that she would do such a nasty thing. The last comment she wrote on my blog,was libelous and so I did not approve it.
So here I am writing a counter blog if you like. Hasn’t the past few years been enough! Haven’t we as a family seen enough pain? Haven’t I seen enough pain? I don’t want this but have tried everything to end it. To get her to remember how it actually was. How happy she had always been as a little girl. How much I loved her. The picture above is from her memory box, to me. I know they are possibly the lyrics of a song but she sent them me with her love. How can people re write history because their true history does not ‘fit in’ with how they or others want it to? Or to hurt someone? Why?. I am not angry. I am sad.
Unconditional love should go both ways. She knows how hard life was for me. She knows who her dad is, why did she write to him if she didn’t? I don’t know. If she really believes the lies she is spreading then a DNA test would show the truth. This blog is to say, give it up please. These words are the truth and Lisa and I know that. There is no other way of saying it. She wants nothing to do with me. Why? Because I know the truth and that is written, in brief above. Turning people, my grandsons against me with lies is unforgivable but I know why and who is behind all of this.
I am tired now. Tired of the family in fighting. Tired of being maligned and threatened. Tired of being gossiped about. Tired of being told what I can and can’t post. I am her Mum. I am Nanna P, to Harrison and Jordan. Nothing can change that. If she really wants me out of her life, then she would leave me alone. The little girl I was so proud of, the child who comforted me and dried my tears so many times. The one who listened to my life story, while I sat in her cottage and told her of my life, just before my book came out. who then came round the table to hug me so tight it almost hurt. The child and woman who wrote so many times to tell me what a wonderful mum I was and am; she wouldn’t do this to me.
Sometimes life gets out of hand, we become angry. I use anger, ‘angry is sad’s bodyguard’, is something I know too well. At times like this we say all kinds of things not meant. But I never say anything that is not true and never say anything to deliberately hurt someone. I thought my children would inherit this from me, the way I taught them. It seems with Lisa I was wrong.
Thankyou for reading x
carolannwright 