Today my son called me to tell me that his mother had died. She was just aged 55. He had called into to her apartment to check on her, only to find her passed away on her bed.
This was a woman I married 33 yrs ago. A woman i once loved with a passion and desire i had never known before.
I had met her in a bar in Ottawa, the capital of Canada, Phil Collins song, Against All Odds was playing, a song i loved back then, and still do to this day. A gorgeous blonde sat with her friends at a table near me, i dashed over to her saying ” if you dance with me, i will love you for the rest of my life !” One dance and i was entranced by this lady.
We married just 6 weeks later and that blonde stunner moved to Australia with me.
Sadly it was to be a short love affair. Our married years were a rollercoaster of happy times and torrid times. What i was not aware of, was her mental health issues. In our 3 yrs of marriage we did one amazing thing together, we brought our son into the world. When my son was just one, our marriage had completely brokendown and we divorced.
Eight years after the birth of my son, my ex gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. The father was a doctor. He was not happy as this was unplanned and he was moving back to the UK to work there.
My ex was engaged many times after our divorce but never married. Her mental health issues always pushed away the men that tried to love her.
She also made my life a misery by making access to my son anywhere from difficult to impossible. He became a pawn in her game of my torture.
After one of her suicide attempts when my son was 12, my ex kicked my son out. He came to live with me and continued to see his mum when he could, and to love her like a son loves a mother.
My ex had her daughter with her and lived a life of solitude after the men stopped coming. Many times, my son asked me if he could have his sister stay over, to give her a break from her mum. These were wonderful times for the two kids and for me. His sister became like a daughter i never had.
As the years passed my ex slipped deeper into isolation and suffered more and more severely from her mental health issues. Over time another demon entered her life. Booze. In the form of red wine or vodka. Her depency on this crutch grew and grew, till she become not much more than a functioning alcoholic.
Gone was the blonde beauty i had met decades ago. Gone was the fun smiling happy girl i saw across that dance floor in Ottawa. Left in her place was an old, grey haired, stooped lady who could hardly walk and lived in near total isolation. Her only visitors, her two now adult children.
This afternoon i rushed to be by my son and his sister’s side, as they went through the formalities with police, ambulance and doctors, to officially have their mother declared deceased. She had passed away alone in her apartment. The cause seems to have been an asthma attack. She suffered from severe asthma all her life.
It broke my heart to see these two young adults, watch as the body of their mother was removed from the apartment, to be taken to the city morgue. Holding onto each other for support, their hands lightly touched the blanket under which their mother laid. Tears poured from my eyes rolling down my cheek, at this sight, not for the woman under the blanket but for the two kids and what they were going through. They had lost their mother years ago, in a mental haze and drunken stupor but still they were devistated by what rolled past them now.
Tonight we three got together and chatted about the mother and woman that we remembered as caring, loving, happy and carefree. Nice memories. Nice moments. Nice times.
RIP Susan. May you find the peace now that you could not find on this earthly plane. May the sun shine on you and your eyes sparkle for an eternity. I forgive you your misdeeds against me. If i hurt you I am sorry. Thank you for our son. I will take care of him and his sister. You are free now to heal your soul and continue your journey free of your demons. Fly free, fly far, fly away.