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Touch and Tenderness, no 4
If you are a priest, people at times tell you things you would not hear otherwise. The following story was narrated to me by a lady who happened to sit next to me on a Green Coach journey. It is as true as it is extraordinary. I am re-telling it because I believe that others might benefit from the experience. I will tell it the way she told me. “After I had been married for sixteen years, I got a divorce. We had three children at the time: a boy of ten and two daughters of twelve and thirteen. The last years of our marriage were catastrophic. In the end my relatives had to intervene and almost separate us physically. I had begun to fear and hate my husband so much that every evening I hoped that he would have an accident on the way back home from work.” Entering a Dark Tunnel “After the divorce I first felt an immense relief. But then things began to change. Friends and relatives took little interest in me. I began to feel lonely and deserted in the new place I had moved to. I became frustrated and despondent. It was like forever sinking deeper into a dark well. I took medicine, but it did not cure me of my depression. I came to the conclusion that I had nothing to live for. I decided to take the consequences and to make an end to it all.” “I had completely lost all sense of feeling, for, although I did love my children, their presence did not seem to make any difference. I planned my departure in a cold and detached manner. I waited till it would be Friday, because on Fridays my children had music class after school so that they would come home later than usual. I saw them off to school as on other days, I put some money and a message on the kitchen table to tell them that I was ill, that they had better go out for supper and buy themselves fish and chips. Then I went to my bedroom, undressed and stretched out on my bed, holding in my hand the bottle of amphetamines I intended to swallow. I felt nothing just emptiness.” That simple, tender touch did more to me than anything I have ever experienced. It was as if I woke up from a dream. Until that time I had even given up on God. But suddenly the thought came to my mind. “What am I complaining about? God has given me three miracles of love. I have something to live for!” In one stroke I was back on the way to sanity of mind and to a desire to give my children as much love as I could.” Think about it: Linda only came to her senses when her daughter touched her. Her children had been there all the time. It needed the touch of human skin to make her re-discover concern and love. John Wijngaards |
