A Deafening Silence in Reading...

One of the joys of retirement is that I can just jump on a train during the middle of the week instead of burdening myself down on my daily work routine, whether it's to satisfy my employer or to ensure that the fees from every client I serve are keeping my bank account topped up. Both forms of employment - working for a boss (12 years) and working for myself (35 years) adds up to 47 years of useful employment and, I hope, a worthwhile contribution to society. 

According to the conversations I had with a number of former clientele, I have found that the 47 years of my working life is generally longer than those who work in the professions, the latter which begins after leaving University at around 22 years of age and retiring at sixty on a private or work pension, making the pro's working lifespan of 38 years. And as for me to retire at 63 instead of the compulsory 65 years of age for State Pension eligibility was mainly due to health. My cardiac procedure has made carrying heavy equipment by hand difficult enough to reduce the five-day working week to three-day for the last three months before retiring in early Autumn of 2015.

And now I'm free to board a train to Reading or even to London midweek, which I find more fulfilling than at weekends, which was the norm before retirement. Watching office workers out on their lunch break, dressed in a suit yet, in this present day, minus a tie, which is something unnoticeable at weekends. And also find myself mingling among schoolchildren of both genders in their uniform and all having to wear a tie. A reminisce of my own school days more than half a century earlier, when I had to wear full uniform and tie under the threat of punishment from our P.E. master.

Suit minus tie - Prince William.

By means of a snap decision, I began to stroll casually west towards an attraction which meant so much to me, spanning right back to the late sixties. It was Reading's Central Pool, and after work during the early seventies, I use to go there for an evening's swim, as well as visiting at weekends, which usually get crowded, mainly with out-of-school adolescents, but some adults also turn up, who were mainly parents of younger children, along with a few pensioners. Therefore, serious swimming can be hard done by during the weekend, hence preferring a weekday visit.

However, I wanted more than just lane swimming, and after making inquiries and speaking to lifeguards on duty, in 1972, I joined Reading Life-Saving club, back then the only club throughout Berkshire which specialises in Water Safety. This involves improvement in existing swimming skills as well as learning new skills, both in and out of the water, and an accumulation of knowledge in human anatomy - in my mind, an area of Science which should have been dealt with at school.

As I dwelt into memory, I recalled passing the qualification exam, both practical and theory, just before Christmas of 1972, and about the same time I was converted to Christ. This meant that in 1973, I was able to land a job at Central Pool in Reading as Pool Attendant, joining a team of four people (men, actually) patrolling the poolside. Although spiritually I was a babe in Christ, and maybe that was why I was a proud cock-of-the-walk at the poolside, as being a qualified lifesaver has always been a requirement for the job, with intermittent tests carried out throughout our time there, along with further in-job coaching or brushing up if necessary.

And so this week as I stood there, outside a two-metre high hoarding encircling the site where the pool building once stood. Painted brilliant white and completely free from ad posters and with hardly any graffiti, I sauntered around the outside of the enclosed area, looking for a way to satisfy my burning curiosity of what lies within such an impenetrable barrier. It was when I passed a lampost that I noticed a small peephole directly behind it, but enough to look into a flat, rubble-strewn ground resembling somewhat to a pebble beach. On one side a pile of rubble rising from the site where the changing cubicles and cloakroom use to be.

Oh, it was so sad. Being just outside of the town centre, the pre-war residences of terraced housing predating the 1960s pool building now overlooks the enclosed rubble. With the demolition contractors having already moved out, the area was quiet, deserted, an air of stillness hanging over the site where it once echoed with children splashing and shouting, the raised voice of the swimming instructor booming across the cavernous chamber, the cheering of spectators during a swimming gala, the amplified calls through the tannoy for all with a certain colour wristband to please leave the pool, the slamming and lock-clicking of cubicle doors, the hustle and bustle of people entering and leaving, an occasional child crying along with some adolescent bickering, the constant sound of splash, splash, splash, both from the main pool and also from the adjoining diving pool, above which the ten-metre high platform held a challenge to the nerves of any would-be diver.

Now all was still, all was quiet, a miniature and inaccessible semi-desert on the edge of town, and here am I, wondering what will be built there. I think it will be a block of apartments. Well, I hope so. Because a shining new office block would never hold a candle to the joviality of a year-round indoor leisure facility.

Central Swimming Pool, Reading. Opened in 1967.

Being a day of reminiscence was enforced by the fact that just the day before I boarded the train to Reading, it was my eldest daughter's 18th birthday, the day she comes of age. And that had quite a repercussion for both my wife and myself. Because she, along with her younger sister, was taken from us against our will for eventual adoption, knowing that she had just come of age without us raising her up. She had just turned four when she was taken, and her younger sister was approaching her first birthday. Yet Alex and I will never forget that fateful night of February 2005 when a knock on the door at three in the morning was answered with two Police officers and a social worker barging into our house and running upstairs, then back down with our two sleepy daughters in their arms and my wife left screaming hysterically upstairs.

The next morning we found the silence unbearable. Therefore we kept our hi-fi constantly playing. I was unable to work that day. It was a Friday anyway when most of the week's work was already done. Unable to tolerate the silence at home, I booked a hotel for an overnight stay for both of us in London. It was that evening, at the Trocadero bowling alley near Picadilly Circus, that I burst into tears in public and allowed myself to cry without restraint. Indeed, just as a heavy silence hangs over the site where once was jovialty and bustling life, so an awful silence hangs over our lounge where just the day before was a hive of family activity.

What was it that caused our beloved daughters to be taken away for adoption, against our will? It took months for us to find out. And a friendly Psychologist revealed that which we were totally unaware of, although I have heard of it before. Two friends of mine, both with very high IQs, have it. Asperger's Syndrome.

I was too embarrassed to look at the world with open eyes. My hatred of our original social worker, Wendy, remained intense for months to come. How my pent-up rage and desire for revenge remained unfulfilled! Her arrogance, her atheism and her sense of personal, social and ethnic superiority were beyond a joke. She was even astonished that I owned a mobile phone and rendered us as far too stupid to understand what it means to be online on an Internet website. Too bad that in those days we did not have the Internet, even though she still expressed surprise that we owned a desktop computer.

Fortunately, she was given a month's notice to clear her desk soon after our daughters were taken, having been refused to renew her contract. But even long after she had gone, both my rage was thunderingly loud and the silence in the house was equally deafening. It took quite an effort to sit down before God and ask for the ability to forgive Wendy for everything she had done to us. This was made more difficult by the fact that she wasn't around anymore, and therefore unable to sit down and talk it all out. But forgiveness for her did come. It was later that I learned that by forgiving Wendy in her absence is doing myself great favour. The day I forgave Wendy was the day I was set free from the anger for my own sake, and not for her sake.

But knowing that I have Asperger's Syndrome has answered some mysteries in my life which had always puzzled me. For example, at school, why wasn't I good at team sports, especially in football and rugby? Why had I never felt a sense of team belonging? And at any social meeting, such as in a restaurant or bar, why am I usually the quiet one?

And in a church environment, I do find "fellowshipping" difficult. And I don't mean coffee and doughnuts. Such refreshment is the easy bit. What I do find difficult is interrelationships, especially in a small group.

And I can relate a good example just over a week ago. At a local church, there is a monthly informal group meeting for all those in the fellowship who have an Apple computer or those who are interested in such a brand of technology. First of all, I don't own an Apple computer, the laptop I own runs on Microsoft (did I get that right?) But even if I did own an Apple, the meeting would still be outside my realm.

But in recent weeks, Google had decided to close the Google+ account, which was connected to this Blogger page. Therefore this group decided to centre this month's meeting to the loss of Google+ as I will also be personally affected by it. So, for a one-off, I decided to attend.

There were nine of us, most were around my age, but I sat next to Dr Andrew Milnthorpe, a good friend of mine and a regular attendee of the group. He was the only one who helped me feel a slither of a welcome. Otherwise, I felt lost there. And I think that it was not that I wasn't welcome. Instead, they did not know how I should feel welcomed. Their knowledge of computers and its software is well above my realm of understanding.

But I am convinced that the bottom line cause of this isolationism is not that I'm too stupid to understand technology. Rather, it's down to having Asperger's syndrome. The inability to communicate.

10-metre high Diving Platform, Central Pool.

Asperger's Syndrome is a result of the Fall and the inherent sinful nature as a result. But it's not earned by wilful sinning. Rather it is a genetic defect which occurred at conception. It is not even inherited by either of my parents. I have a younger brother, a good businessman, and he does not have Asperger's Syndrome. Neither has any of his three daughters. I was the unlucky one.

The loss of our children brought great distress to us, but there are three positive outcomes. First, instead of running away from God, we ran towards him, calling out for help and to be filled with his Holy Spirit. Secondly, we relied on each other's strength to support each other and by making our marriage strong and robust. I'm happy to say, with all honesty, that disagreements between us are extremely rare. We enjoy a strong, loving marriage, especially since my beloved had lost her full mobility caused by the stress brought by the loss of our daughters.

And thirdly and no less important, we chose to forgive. Especially forgiving Wendy and setting us free from the emotional perils that would otherwise eat us up.

In Reading, there was life and bustle at the Central Swimming Pool. Now there is silence. At home, there was once life and bustle among our two daughters. Now also silence, but like in Reading, the bustle of daily living can only be revived by rebuilding on the firm foundations after the removal of all the rubble which occupied our lives.

Father God I Wonder...

The moment I walk out our front door, it is impossible not to see and hear parents with their young children. Like just a couple of hours before typing this, when I went to do the weekly grocery shop at our local superstore, there was this toddler constantly screaming his head off, his high pitched voice piercing the air and drowning any normal-tone conversation. Eventually, his mother took him out into the car park even as the child constantly remained restless, while the father (I assume) continued with the shopping alone.

Just another family, one of countless others I see each day, whether at work (never far from a primary school) or at a leisure attraction, as well as at the shopping mall. Such one attraction, Coral Reef Water World, just a few minutes walk from my home, has always been a haven for screaming children, in most cases as expressions of joy and excitement with all the fun features the venue provides, but never without an occasional cry of frustration as the parent or guardian refuses to let the little one have his own way. (For me, at least, I go straight to the Adults Only section for a gym workout and relaxation in the sauna, where not a single whimper from a child's mouth could be heard.) And it's the same where ever I go, parents constantly keeping their young offspring to conform to the environment they are in, often with the adults feeling the frustration themselves, usually with the rest of the crowd apparently staring. I suppose that is natural enough. A sudden loud cry from an infant usually turn heads, does it not?

So it looks to me that the average Mum and Dad takes their children as if for granted in the Western World. Yet I can still imagine the sheer exuberance when a young man (or the not-so-young, as was the case with me) finds out that his wife is pregnant for the first time, either vocally or from a urine test strip showing a positive result. In my case, I was tempted to shout out from the window, but being British, I don't do things like that, tut-tut, I know. Instead I all but burnt out the 'phone line with calls to our relatives and friends. After the birth, my daughter was the apple of my eye, a darling I just about worshiped. I think that becoming a father for the first time at an age approaching fifty intensifies the bonding between father and daughter to a level which younger fathers tend to see as more of a right than as a privilege. So I have always believed.

So there were no negative feelings when I took her out to the superstore, to the town centre, even boarding the train to various other locations, including the coast, as well as on holidays, even on ferry sailings to the Channel Islands. I loved the moments when I spoon-fed her, often when eating out. Each night, around three in the morning, she would wake up and cry. I have never felt a moment of burden in getting up and seeing to her needs, diaper change, hugging and holding her in my arms. I cant help thinking of Stevie Wonder's classic hit Isn't She Lovely? coming to mind as she falls asleep in bed with her in my arms as my wife sleeps soundly on.

So sometime in the past there might have been a mother in her early thirties, named Rachel. She was devoted as much to her infant son as I was to my daughter. The main difference being that not long after the birth of the child, her husband died of an illness. So after months of mourning, she was left with his offspring. And therefore unhindered by anyone else in her household, she devoted herself to her upbringing of her son. She always made sure he was adequately fed, bathed and wrapped in clean clothing. Then night after night the two of them shared the same bed, with him fast asleep in the comfort of her arms. Then during the daytime, it was never rare to see the infant sitting on her lap while she sang and made baby sounds to him.

But one particular night, Rachel was bewildered at the unusually bright star in the heavens, which was directly overhead. Was the star a messenger of glad tidings, a bearer of good news? Or could it be an omen of something dreadful about to happen? As her eyes were transfixed to the sky above, she sensed that rather than being ominous, it meant that something wonderful was about to happen, if it had not happened already. Could the birth of someone highly important, such as a king, had just occurred?

It was a couple of days later, when she was cooking in the kitchen with her son playing on the floor nearby, when she began to hear the screaming of women within the town, along with angry shouts of men. As the menacing noise grew louder and nearer, suddenly a Roman soldier burst into the house, carrying a sword. He searched around the tiny house and he saw Rachel reaching frantically for her son. But the soldier was quick, and thrust the sword through the child's small body. The sword-bearer then quickly left, as if deeply hating the task he was ordered to carry out. Left with the tiny corpse, Rachel's screams joined those of other mothers in the streets of the town.

For weeks, even months, Rachel was in a dreadful state emotionally. She being a devoted Jewess, could not understand how her God could allow such catastrophe to occur in her personal life. It was even worse than her neighbour's. At least some of her neighbouring mothers had other children who were older than two years, and as such, escaped the slaughter. In addition, their husbands were still alive, and some of the women affected by the slaughter had become pregnant again. But not Rachel.

Instead of cursing God for her lot in life, she spent time in prayer, believing in her heart that somehow something good will come out of this. She believed in the resurrection of the dead on the last day, as was the general belief among the Jews, and she had an inkling that she would be reunited with her deceased son, and maybe her husband too. So instead of cursing and throwing her wrath heavenwards, she gave thanks, and managed to worship God at the Temple precincts whenever she can make the journey. And on one occasion, while praying at the Temple, someone handed her a parchment with a portion from the prophet Jeremiah penned on it. This is what was written:

This is what the LORD says:
"A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping,
Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted,
because her children are no more."
This is what the LORD says:
"Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears,
for your work will be rewarded,"
declares the LORD.
"They shall return from the land of the enemy.
So there is hope for your future,"
declares the LORD.
"Your children will return to their own land."
Jeremiah 31:15-17.

When she read the script, her eyes widened with hope, and reading her own name gave her a feeling of joy. She knelt down and heartily gave her thanks to God, along with a beast to offer as a sacrifice of thanks at the Temple. Then she returned home, knowing that her all loving Father in Heaven has heard her cry, and has responded favourably to her.

So earlier this week, a solicitor came round to our home to discuss about making a Will. I suggested that all of our assets should go to our three birth daughters at the death of both of us. But the visitor warned that this may be impossible, because of their different surnames, unknown by us, and growing up to couples not related to us at all, yet they having all legal rights to them as parents. At this point my poor wife broke into tears.

I recall the dreadful night early in 2005 when the Police and Social Services ran into our home at three o'clock in the morning and took away our two daughters. The entire operation took just a few seconds. Yet, how my dear wife screamed and screamed, just like Rachel did two thousand years earlier. Despite my effort to comfort her, I knew that our lives would be changed forever. The shame, the embarrassment, kept us quiet about all this for a decade. Only now we tell it as it is. But why did this happen in the first place? What was it that deemed the State to judge us unfit to raise children? Did we commit a crime? Drugs? Alcohol addiction? Abuse? Neglect? No, it was none of these things. To summarise, the reason why we were judged unfit to be parents was because we both suffer mild autism. And in the wake of national scandals of child abuse hitting the headlines, our daughters were taken into care, which means that never to set foot in our home to this day. At least it gave us a crumb of comfort to know that the Social Worker involved had lost her job over the incident.

So what has been our response over the years? Did we curse God and turned our backs on him? Rather, we ran towards him, as the righteous runs into the Strong Tower, and they are safe. It wasn't long after that someone in our church fellowship came up to us with a revelation that our children will return. Then, not long afterwards I was browsing through Matthew's Gospel, and came across the story of the Innocents. My Bible cross-reference directed me to Jeremiah chapter 31, and by reading the Scripture, I felt strengthened, knowing that God is my heavenly Father who looks out for the welfare of his children. It is amazing what Scripture mixed with faith can accomplish. Not only the source of edifying myself spiritually, but it has been the source of strengthening and encouraging Alex, and also added new life to our marriage, binding us tighter together in Christ, even to the extent that my wife can be the source of encouragement when my chips are down, and that despite her emotional suffering being more intense.

God is our heavenly Father, we ourselves adopted into his family. By law, our daughters are no longer our family members, even if every genome, every chromosome in every cell of their bodies, are Alex's and mine combined. No amount of paperwork, not even as high as Mt. Everest, can change the genome of a single cell in them. But they are legally the offspring of those who have adopted them. We do not know their new surnames, let alone knowing where they live, which schools they attend, which shopping mall their parents take them to. But God knows. All we can do is commit them to his care. But all this is good news for us. We are adopted into God's family through faith in Jesus Christ. Just as our daughters cannot return to us before coming of age, so we cannot return to the adversary's domain for ever. Furthermore, we are born into God's family through regeneration of the spirit, making each one of us temples of the Holy Spirit, who will dwell within us for all eternity, according to John 14:15-17.

So it can be said that our adoption into God's family is much stronger and a lot more secure than the legal adoption of our daughters, because when of age, our daughters can return to us if they desire. But we cannot be disfranchised from God's family because this is more than mere legal adoption. It involves a rebirth of the spirit, making us a new creation altogether, perfectly fit and suitable to heavenly life with Jesus Christ.

These are wonderful, wonderful truths! It is these truths which allows us to look upon the world with open eyes, to commit ourselves to each other in marriage, as well as to God as our heavenly Father. These truths allow us to live our daily lives without upset or mourning over our loss, to give thanks for what we do have, to enjoy some travel together, to commit ourselves to our roles as husband and wife, and most important, to edify each other when things look grim and unbearable.

Rachel found her strength through faith in God in Scripture. The same applies to us. Our encouragement to you is to read your Bible, and believe that all things work for the good for those who love God, and are called according to his purpose. Like that you can be a source of strength to those who has also suffered distress.

Coming Clean...

I have quite a number of friends on Facebook, not a great many, mind you, but all who I know personally, and one whom I have known closely for up to 45 years. Sooner or later the inevitable will start to appear on the main scroll. That is photos of babies, cute infants, giving me the wanting to gently lift and cuddle close to my heart. Friends who are young enough to be my own son or daughter proudly displaying their newborns, often with a slightly older sibling standing nearby, along with my older online pals, nearer to my age, displaying grandchildren at various points of their young lives as they grow up towards school age.

To them I give all my congratulations and blessings. No doubt, if I had young children living at home, we would have done the same thing - posting photos of our offspring at intervals as they grew up. Therefore it was during a discussion with my wife Alex that we fully agree to come clean, just over ten years after what we consider to be the darkest hour of our lives. And by sharing this, I hope it will throw light on why I think and feel the way I do, my dislike of celebrity worship, the problem with forgiveness, our faith in God, our future hopes, and the glory to come. But because this is a public blog, no names will be revealed here, except the first names only of adults involved.

I was 47 years old when I married my wife in 1999, the first ever in my life. This was after 27 years after I was dumped by my last girlfriend in 1972. It was during this period of my life when I started backpacking, the first only a year later when I boarded a train to travel across France and into Italy. It was also during that time when I flew my parents' nest, started up a business, trained and competed in half-marathons to raise funds for a charity, then peaked in fitness by cross-training and competing in Triathlons. Meanwhile, this was also the period I turned to Jesus Christ as Saviour, which began the long process of sanctification and Bible knowledge, which were intertwined with visits to Israel - backpacking there as with other countries visited, eventually circling the Earth.

My first daughter was born February 2001, fifteen months after our wedding. I could say that our unborn had also been to Israel, as I took my wife, then eighteen weeks pregnant, to celebrate our first wedding anniversary in the Holy Land. Here I will admit that Alex was more spiritual than I was. At various Holy sites such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and at the Garden of Gethsemane, both in Jerusalem, she knelt and gave thanks to the Lord, while I stood by, as these sites were so familiar to me from previous backpacking trips during those 27 years as a committed singleton. 

By the time of delivery, the unborn remained in a breech position, therefore a cesarean operation was necessary. At the hospital theatre, I partially buried my face until I heard the first cry. The surgeon held the purple infant high, and as she cried, my legs gave under intense emotion, and two of the staff had to support me while the baby was wrapped in a hospital garment and handed over to me. And I sat there, in a small room just across the corridor from the theatre, I held in my arms my daughter. A father for the first time at 48 years of age. As Alex was transferred to a recovery ward, I saw like a mental video of my life leading to this moment, while also watching her chest rise and fall in rapid breathing, as she slept peacefully.

My firstborn changed my life completely. She was my sheer joy, my treasure. In the months and the first years to come, it was I who got up in the middle of every night as she cried, and cuddled her close. And you know what? I never ever regretted a single moment of this. I was never annoyed, or frustrated at any of these small hours awakening, as I had always considered holding my daughter a sheer joy and privilege. And that presented a problem for Alex. As I devoted myself to my daughter, my wife felt that I could have given more attention to her. And this difficulty was noted by our health visitor, who was near to reporting us to Social Services.

When my second daughter came into the world just over three years after the birth of the first, she too spent the first hour of her life in my arms, while her mother, this time having went through a natural birth, rested nearby. It was after we took her home that unwittingly, I allowed problems to develop at home. How? By devoting myself to my firstborn in expense of the other two. For example, if my wife said we needed to top up the groceries, I always responded with, "Get my firstborn ready." Except for work, wherever I went, my daughter came with me. I always took her shopping, to town, even on train trips to Reading and even for a day trip to London - the two of us - my firstborn and myself. I adored her. I sat and watched her run about at an open yard. I saw her explore and learn about her immediate environment. I fed her. Whenever in a cafe, I took joy in slowly spoon feeding her. You see, throughout all this, I believed that I was doing my wife a favour by allowing her to spent time alone with our second-born, and therefore acting as a de-stressor. It was soon after then that Social Services were contacted, but not by us.

To cut a long story short, we had to attend a conference at the Borough Council, and we were assigned a Social Worker, a female graduate named Wendy who looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties - a lot younger than me. She had already been in trouble with the local authority. The previous family she was working with fled from her to Scotland. She was given us as her last chance to redeem herself, and save her career. In my mind that was a massive mistake, demonstrating a shocking lack of foresight among her superiors who should have heeded the warning signs. After all, we are humans, not a product to be tested or laboratory guinea pigs. Then I suppose her academic credentials were far more important to them than our personal needs.

During the four months that were to follow, she proved to be the nasty-minded individual she was. It was known by us that even in the office, she was disliked by her colleagues, and even the nursery school teachers who taught our daughter, made an effort to stay clear of her whenever we had to attend the weekly meetings (known as Core Groups) chaired by Wendy, after having lost her temper with one of the school teachers. There and then I wanted to physically hit her, but the thought of prison deterred me. Even Alex stayed away on a couple of occasions, inflaming the situation. The things about her that stood out enough for me to take note: Her arrogance. She sometimes appear late at Core Groups, insisting she'll leave her desk when ready. She also kept on reminding us that her income was much higher than ours, along with her level of education and social class. She was also a self proclaimed atheist, but had a fair knowledge of the Bible. She was also patriotic and proud of her Yorkshire upbringing. Taking a peek at her credentials while she was not looking, I found that she attended a privileged school for girls, and then attended University to study Psychology and other subjects related to child care, quoting past famous Psychologists such as atheist Sigmund Freud and Alfred Kinsey as examples.

Then by February 2005, things came to a head when my patience snapped while she was checking our kitchen and criticising our food stock. We ordered her out of our house. Shortly after this, our beloved two daughters were removed from our home at three in the morning, and they were never returned. Instead, they were put up for adoption. By the end of March 2005, the Social Worker cleared her desk, not having her contract renewed, and we never saw her again to this day, and I guess we never will. 

During the assessments which followed the removal of our two daughters, I found out two important matters which had escaped Wendy's analysis of us as a couple. First I have an above average I.Q. - which was contrary to Wendy's evaluation of me because she was surprised at my ownership of a cellphone, let alone knowing how to operate one. The second matter was that we both have mild autism. It was this - mild autism - which was the underlying factor to the cause of the breaking of our family. However, I did not feel back then, and I certainly don't feel at present, being mildly autistic as justification for tearing a family apart. Rather, I have heard tales of a mildly autistic parent or couple raising their offspring successfully, and I believe even to this day that we could have raised our daughters with success, especially as they got older. 

For many months afterwards, I was held in a grip of fierce anger, not only towards Wendy, but for England as a whole, because not only the State had taken away our two beloved daughters, but I also saw the Social Worker as an embodiment of England in its cultural entirety. In a sense, Wendy was England. Nearly every morning, while making breakfast for my wife in bed upstairs, I had wished that I had inflicted physical harm on that arrogant female, who believed she was so much above us and thus behaved accordingly. But in another way I was glad that I hadn't, or else I could well be inside, and as such, separated from my wife too. But it took a very long time for the anger to calm, until in the state of dormancy, enabling us to live a normal life as a childless married couple. 

But what has happened since then? Well our marriage has strengthened in many ways. We have become fully devoted to each other, having learnt to put the other welfare before our own. Also my faith in God through Jesus Christ has grown and strengthened. With Alex, she has a deep distrust in organised religion, and refuses to attend church, as our Elders had sided with the Social Services during and after the conference. But my beloved, encouraged by me, has developed a deep trust "in the Trinity" as she likes in referring to God, even to the point of encouraging me to trust in Jesus when my faith weakens. We used to go out together, and quite a number of occasions, have flown to one of the Greek islands three times, also to Malta, Sicily, and to the Canary Islands. I recall our intimacy on the beach, the night time strolls under the bright stars, as well as exploring ancient history and beautiful countryside arm in arm.

That was until she went down with a psychosomatic illness around July 2013. She became lame in her spine, and lost the ability to walk freely ever since. She had to spend four months as an in-patient at a general hospital. After this, I had to buy her a wheelchair, and she uses it whenever we need to go out together. It breaks my heart to see her this way. And also having to renew her medical prescription every week, including antidepressants, along with required G.P. appointments. Psychosomatic illness. This means "upset mind, sick body." We both agree that this goes back to that awful, dreadful night in 2005 when our two daughters were taken away at three in the morning, leaving my wife screaming hysterically before I was able to calm her down.  

But as for our daughters, we have up-to-date photos of them along with letters written by their adoptive parents and sent to us via the Adoption Agency. As such, they are forbidden to tell us their surname or their whereabouts. Although this is very hurtful to us, at least we can gain some satisfaction that first, they are brought up in a better environment than we could have provided. Secondly, there is evidence that they are doing well at school, and the younger one was diagnosed with above average intelligence, and is now University material, if she keeps up with her school work. Thirdly, they are both good at sports, with swimming and athletics being their favourite activity. But still concerning for us, is that I long for them to know the Lord personally. Out of our reach, we can only commit them to God, and trust in Him to break into their hearts as he had done with us. Then I recall the Scripture I read through which I felt God speaking to me personally. It was from Jeremiah 31:15-17, where God himself had encouraged Rachel not to weep over the loss of her children, for he will bring them back to their own border. Another believer in our fellowship had also endorsed this promise as well.

This has been ten years now. As this was written on the 10th anniversary of Wendy's departure, I was reminded last week on Facebook about forgiveness. Forgiving that arrogant woman? A good friend of mine suggested that I should, based on how both Jesus Christ and Stephen forgave their enemies whilst nearing their deaths. But there is a difference between them and myself. With both Jesus and Stephen, they requested their forgiveness out loud, in the presence of their enemies. This most likely resulted in the conversion of some who stood by the Cross, especially among the three thousand who heard Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost. Then Stephen's request for God's forgiveness, according to many scholars, had resulted in Saul's conversion. With the martyr's request pricking the Pharisee's conscience, Saul had covered up his conviction by a fresh anger towards all who followed the Way. When the Lord revealed himself from Heaven, Stephen's request to God was answered.

But in Wendy's case, this is different. She is not around. She would never know whether I forgave her or not. Even if I did, she would not know about it, neither would she care. What is left of her is now just thin air. How I would feel will have no impact on her at all, no matter where she is at present. No address. No phone number. Out of our lives forever. So the best thing I can do is simply let her go, with no part of our lives whatsoever.

And no, I won't try to look for her on Facebook.