THE ENDING .....

She spent a week in the psych ward of the hospital before being transferred to a private clinic. She spent another month there. She saw counsellors, attended meetings and took her meds. She listened as her family told her of their distress during her week-long coma. Of how the doctors had told her mother she may never regain conscience and if she did she may have brain damage. Of how her daughter couldn't come near her. Of how her father sat by her beside every day and held her hand and talked to her. Of how they would visit and tell her stories. Of how her husband never entered her room. Of how she called for him. Of her mother's anguish and anger. Her mother visited every second day and told of how she had wished everyone would go away so she could climb on the hospital bed and be with her alone. The young woman listened to these stories and realised that she was loved by people more important than this unfaithful man. When she finally was released and returned home, it was to a different situation. Her daughter was gone to live with her father. The cats were gone with the daughter. Her mother had moved in to take care of her. And slowly she realised that since she had woken from her coma her old friend Pain had not visited her. She began to grow stronger, mentally and physically. She had more good days than bad. She began to believe in herself again. To feel happy again. To feel free. How she had felt when she had first met the boy 20 years before.

And 6 months later, she really began her new life, when she left her country house and moved back to the city of her youth. She had built a new life for herself. Alone, but strong and happy. She had been reborn. Her often prayed for miracle had happened in her days of darkness, when she lay in a hospital bed, with a grieving family surrounding her. She had heard them. She had known they were there. And God had given her his grace and taken her pain away. And she now knew that there really were good things to come in her future. Life was wonderful. The love of her family was precious. And she was strong. And a new beginning had been given to her to grab with both hands and mould as she wanted. She was Strong!
Unknown "Moonlight" Purring - 16 years, 8 months, 23 days ago

PART 6....

One morning, a few months after his suprise 40th birthday party, she asked him what was wrong. He had been distant. She didn't really want to ask the question, but she needed to know if they could do something to fix the distance that was growing between them. But, still, she wasn't prepared for his answer. "I'm not happy. I want some passion in my life. I'm going to leave." She felt her legs go out from under her. He ran to the bathroom and threw up. She sat on the kitchen floor as the sobs welled deep in her. Her head was swimming with thoughts. Surely this wasn't happening again. Not after everything they had been through. They had celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary only 5 months before. He came towards her, to touch her and she flinched. She couldn't bear him to pity her. He said there was no-one else. She had heard this before. She needed to get out of the house before she started screaming. She dressed and left. She drove aimlessly trying to see through the tears that poured from her eyes. The sobs shook her entire body. There was a pain so deep in her she couldn't breathe. Her thoughts made no sense. She was cold but it was a warm day. A clear Autumn day, with the sun shining, a light breeze in the trees, cows in their pastures, farmers at work; the world was moving as normal. But nothing was normal for her, nothing would ever be normal again.

He packed his car and left the next day. He didn't return to the farm. He left her there on her own with their now teenage daughter. He would phone and she would cry and sob. He would try and talk about money and arrangements. She couldn't think or focus. She got up every morning to take her child to school and survived each day as best she could, only looking forward to night when she could descend into the oblivion of sweet sleep. But it wouldn't come. There was no refuge from the pain that was with her daily. She went days without sleep and food. She dreamt of death. Of peace. Of "nothing". She took too many sleeping tablets and slept for days. She was in her own private hell. In her moments of reason, she made plans to move from the farm back to town. She started to pack. She found a box in the garage and started going through the contents to see if they needed to be kept. She found love letters to her husband from a work colleague, dated 7 years previous. She counted back to the months when they had separated before. He had said there was no-one else. He had lied. This was the first of many lies that she would discover. And she kept descending into blackness. Her bones began to show through her skin again. Her clothes hung off her small frame. She only just survived each day. She moved back to town and tried to make plans for her future. Not the one she thought she was going to have, but a new and different future. She saw a doctor and was given medication to take the blackness away. She had days that were almost good. She pretended to feeling better for her daughter. Then she discovered that her husband was dating a woman he worked with. A woman he had met just before their wedding anniversary. A woman he had denied existed. Here was the second lie. Her daughter went away to visit friends during holidays and she was left on her own with only her two cats for company. She saw no-one and spoke to no-one but him. She called him constantly. She needed to know the complete truth of her marriage, not the fantasy she had been living. But each piece of information stabbed at her like a knife-blade. It drew blood. She started cutting herself. She could cope with physical pain. She had been doing that for 15 years. The sight of her blood on her skin made her feel alive. The scars produced were reminders of his betrayal. She cherished these marks she made on herself. But the blackness came back.

She woke to find herself in a hospital bed. Arms tied to the railings. Her sisters were standing on either side of the bed. One was massaging her feet, the oth
Unknown "Moonlight" Purring - 16 years, 8 months, 23 days ago

PART 5 ...

And so the boy and girl, now grown to be a man and woman, who had a life together and a beloved daughter, rebuilt their life. It was good. They travelled to different places in the world together. He took a new job with less travel but more money. They built up a decent security base of investment properties. They made plans for the far future when their daughter would go to university and they would have more time to be alone together, to travel more and enjoy themselves. But the pain had returned. It was worse than it had ever been before. There were months when she was unable to leave the house. They had hired a nanny to look after their daughter before and after school. The woman began the rounds of doctors again. But each visit produced no hope. Each visit made her more depressed about her health. She had started taking very strong medication so that she spent most days in a haze. She would burn herself and not remember doing it. She had no appetite. She had no will to live. She began to think that, once again, her husband and daughter would be better off if she wasn't around them. That he could remarry and find a new mother for their child. She stopped eating and drinking. Her mother came to care for her. She grew weak and stopped even getting out of her bed. She took smalls sips of water to take her medication; it kept her doped and unaware of what was going on. Her mother would bring her cups of tea and beg her to drink it. She would cry and beg her eldest daughter to please eat something. But the young woman didn't believe that her body deserved to be nourished. It had caused such devastating pain for so long. Her bones began to protrude through her skin. She was unable to get herself to the bathroom. She slept and embraced the oblivion of that sleep. Her mother would listen at the door as she screamed in agony from the pain. It was still with her; it grew stronger as she grew weaker. Her husband rang her doctor and begged him to do something. He couldn't let his wife die like this. What would he do without her? One morning, she had such bad pain that her Mother called an ambulance and she was taken to hospital. She had taken so much medication she didn't remember most of the previous day and woke to find herself in a hospital bed attached to a machine that delivered regular morphine doses. There was a steady stream of doctors to her room. She had become a mystery case and they wanted to talk with her. Each had their own diagnosis of what had caused the pain. She had heard it all before. She refused to leave the hospital until something was done. She stayed there for a month. When she finally left, she had been pain-free for two weeks. And once more she looked forward. The pain did return, but never to it's intensity. The family moved again and continued on with their travelling and building of wealth. They both drove good cars and their daughter went to a good school. Her sisters thought her life was perfect. They envied her. The family bought a farm and moved to the country. They had a dream of building a good life, without the stress of living in the city and being part of a community. But the business they set up in their local town didn't flourish and they started living off their savings. The man became stressed and the woman angry. They didn't fight. But they didn't laugh. The man went back to the city to work. They bought him a studio apartment to live in during the week and he would come home to the farm at weekends. She wasn't happy living this way. She missed him. She tried to shield him from her worries. She worried he might break if he realised how unhappy she was. She said nothing and asked for nothing.
Unknown "Moonlight" Purring - 16 years, 8 months, 23 days ago

PART 4 ...

Seven years after the pain had began and she had finally given up going to doctors seeking the answer, she had found a way of living with her pain. It had grown over the seven years and was now in her back, abdomen, hip, knee, thigh and foot. But she had become used to it. Almost like a long-time friend who is always there. Her daughter knew no other life except one where her mother was in pain and they had found a routine to work around it. But the girl still felt that she let her family down. Still, she tried her best to be a good wife and mother. Her husband now worked long hours to support them and travelled alot for work. He was gone most of every week and she was left to raise their daughter and do the best she could. Then one morning as her husband was preparing for yet another trip overseas for work, she was standing in the study doorway when he turned to her and said, "When I return from this trip, I am moving out." She looked at him as if she hadn't heard what he said. But it was ringing in her ears. She couldn't focus. She grabbed onto the doorway to steady herself. She fought back the tears and need to scream. Her head was starting to pound and her breathing had become shallow. Surely she didn't really just hear him correctly? "Is there someone-else?", she asked. "No" he replied. He said that he couldn't cope with her pain anymore and the way it had effected their life. He needed to have a break. He still loved her but he couldn't live with her anymore. She understood. She had always expected this day to come, somewhere in the back of her mind. His taxi arrived and he left. He was gone for two weeks. When he returned she had lost so much weight she was only 54kg. He looked at her as if she were someone he didn't recognise. She looked and acted differently. She seemed happy and at ease. She had begun yoga and started looking for a job. For the first time in 8 years, her pain had disappeared. She had made plans to move to a new place with their daughter. She was moving on with her life. She wasn't going to fight him over his decision. She wouldn't hold him to his vows because she knew he had endured much with her. They formed a new type of family; they spent time together as a family, they laughed and had fun, he came to dinner and she did his ironing for him. Their daughter seemed okay and not effected by their separation. They attended counselling together. He was still travelling for work but they were on good terms. She bought a new villa to live in and was moving on. She even started to date. He went away overseas again for work and one day phoned her from the airport to say he was on his way home and wanted to see her. 24 hours later, he turned up at her door and declared that he still loved her. That he missed her and wanted her back. She decided that for the sake of her daughter, she would take him back and give their marriage another go. She still believed in her vows and the promises they had made to each other. So, he moved back in and they bought a new home together. Life seemed good again. And once more, she looked to a bright future with the man she loved more than her own life.
Unknown "Moonlight" Purring - 16 years, 8 months, 23 days ago

PART 3 ...

They had a baby girl a few months after their first wedding anniversary and every thing seemed perfect. Then the pain began. It started in her thigh and hips. She thought she should see a chiropractor; that maybe her hips had been pushed out of alignment with the pregnancy. But it didn't help. Over the months the pain became worse. She was sent from one specialist to the next. She was in and out of hospital for surgery. Her body became covered in scars. But still the pain persisted and grew worse. She was unable to work, unable to care for her daughter or husband. She was in pain almost every hour of every day. She didn't sleep and couldn't relax. She felt that she was letting her husband down. That she was a bad mother. She thought that her husband would be better off if she left. She now wished that the doctors would tell her that whatever was causing the pain was terminal and she only had a few months to live. But every doctor had the same thing to say, "We don't know what is causing this pain. You will need to learn to live with it", but she wasn't living, she was just existing. There was no joy left in her life.
Unknown "Moonlight" Purring - 16 years, 8 months, 23 days ago