I cracked open the bottle of Jack Daniels I’d bought on my way to the resort. It seemed appropriate to have a last celebratory drink while wondering what constitutes appropriate when one is technically insane. I’d moved the rickety cupboard that I would need to kick away when my phone rang. On the other end was a producer for a late-night radio talk show. He wanted to know if I’d be available the following Tuesday for a live interview on the topic of survivors of childhood sexual abuse. With a little bit of difficulty explaining the tradition of using only my first name, I naturally agreed. I can’t say for certain whether any other call could have been able to pull me back from the ledge I was on, however the opportunity to reach another survivor was exactly the right call for the job. I called a friend from the bike club who fortunately had the presence of mind to realize exactly where I was at. He insisted I stay with them at the equestrian show jumping farm they’d recently purchased as a home. The farm stabled their four horses, as well as being home to eight rescued pit bulls who bounded onto my bed every morning and wouldn’t stop showering me with their love.

I wasn’t in the best condition to be interviewed, but I think I managed to share that I’d found a solution – along with practical tools – for daily living in the various Twelve Step fellowships I was privileged to attend. Tools that changed my perceptions and helped to slowly iron out the kinks in my distorted reactions and patterns of thinking. I also found that I was not alone – quite the opposite. There are so many members who just like me are using a program – originally designed to help alcoholics – to recover from the effects of childhood sexual abuse. I ended the interview by trying to encourage listeners and anyone in need to attend a local meeting of Adult Child. I would have liked to be a bit more available, but I needed to be able to feed and house myself before I could be of any more use.

While waiting for the interview, Jeremy – who’d previously taught English in South Korea – suggested I try teaching in Vietnam. After a little bit of research, I booked myself a flight to Saigon where I enrolled for the required teaching certificate. Initially, it was somewhat of a shock. I was overwhelmed by the heat and humidity, and the hustle and bustle of the mega-city renamed Ho Chi Minh City after the war. In keeping with the course’s guarantee of employment, I was placed at a school. After working for a few days, and a brief look around the city, I headed for the coastal city of Vung Tau. I was told it was the wrong time of the year and it would be more difficult to find work on the coast. Disregarding that advice, it took me less than a week to find enough work to cover my monthly costs. I wasn’t in the best physical condition, and I found myself fighting ear, nose, throat, and chest infections one after another. I’d go to work, feed myself, then hit the bed shivering and shaking until it was time to start the next day.

There was so much about Aida’s father that I admired and I’d long suspected his patient and understanding demeanour had a lot to do with his being a dedicated teacher. While there’s no comparison between the career of a consummate educationalist and what I do as an ESL teacher, I do get to experience a little bit of what he must have enjoyed. Some might view going to work when you’re sick as irresponsible and they’re probably right. However, most new foreign teachers do tend to get sick. There’s a different work ethic in Asia and when you’re sick you go to a pharmacy and then get your ass to work on time. There were some tough moments where I thought that I just couldn’t hack it. However, it soon became apparent that no matter how awful I felt, I almost always felt so much better after teaching a class. What can I say without gushing about teaching these bright and inquisitive learners – especially the little ones, which to me always felt like having twenty grandchildren who couldn’t wait to see me.

Eventually the repetitive bouts of fever lifted and I could start to look around. Vung Tau is a beautiful peninsula city about a two-hour drive from Saigon. It has a vested infrastructure boasting five kilometres of coastal promenade where the locals like to hang out. It’s a popular weekend beach destination for southern Vietnamese, so it has the best of both worlds. From Monday to Friday it’s dead quiet, but at weekends this city comes alive. There’s an ancient lighthouse and a statue of Jesus overseeing poetic streets lined with seafood restaurants, and coffee and tea shops. I prefer the street food: delicious local dishes with complex flavours for as little as a dollar or a dollar-fifty. The architecture comprises a charming mixture of French colonial townhouses, Catholic churches, ancient Buddhist temples, and modern apartment complexes.

Before sunrise each morning the marble-tiled promenade is filled with elderly Vietnamese a lot older than me. They’re up before dawn and they trickle back for sunset to practise yoga, go cycling and running, or enjoy a swim. It’s pretty inspirational and I soon found myself compelled to join in. If you don’t know that the Vietnamese are a strong, tenacious people, I’m not sure where you’ve been. Yet, despite all they’ve endured, or perhaps because of it, they’re the friendliest and most supportive people I’ve ever met. It’s hard to describe. Perhaps it’s because of my age, but an early morning run includes a line of supporters busy opening their businesses or getting ready for work, who always take a moment to encourage me with a smile and a nod. As an avid climber, Jeremy introduced me to intermittent fasting and a ketogenic diet and before long I found myself in possibly the best shape of my life.

Unbeknown to me, Jeremy decided to get an ancestry and genealogy DNA test, which linked him to an unknown cousin of mine living in New Zealand. While I remain convinced that whether he was biologically mine or not wouldn’t change how I felt, it’s quite brilliant knowing that he is actually mine. After two years in Vietnam I managed to set aside enough to settle what I owed back home, and enough to visit Jeremy and Gareth in Brisbane. The visit was brilliant, and I left Australia thinking that as parents we are privileged to experience such a wide range of emotions: from the miracle of birth and the oh-my-God moment of ten fingers and ten toes, to the you’re-my-hero period of adoration which you know you can’t possibly sustain. Then there’s the brutal rejection of the mother, the primordial young-bull, old-bull head butting developmental phase, and the ‘If I stay, I will only be in your way.’ And having to detach with love. Some of it wasn’t easy, but quite frankly I wouldn’t have wanted to miss any part of it. It had been a while, and perhaps I’ve forgotten the intensity of birth, but after leaving Australia I wondered if there’s any greater joy than the moment you realize that the child you had a part in nurturing is a good, decent, and caring individual. I couldn’t be prouder.

Like most parents I guess I’m always going to worry about my children, especially when I don’t hear from them. I do get the occasional cryptic message from Samuel, who is now living an hour outside of London and working as a chef. One read ‘I’ll always love you, Dad.’ and for now, I’ll gratefully accept that.
Most days, I’m grateful that I have work in a country that celebrates an annual teachers’ day. I live on a stunning strip of coastline, where I wake up and go to bed to the sound of the ocean rolling in off the South China Sea. Plus, I live among a community of people whose powerful sense of family is constantly putting a smile on my face. On other days, I can’t help asking how I messed up so badly that in my sixties I’m still working ten to fourteen hours a day, seven days a week. How long can I sustain this, and just how will it all end? My faith had been shattered and I desperately needed an answer, so I threw myself back into those much-needed rewrites. After four years of reflecting, all that I could come up with is that I needed to hit zero because that’s how it all too often ends. And if I wasn’t delusional and I had actually been called, then historically I was bound to end up wandering
around a desert without ever entering the promised land. So delusional or not, I’d like to end with my current prayer: ‘God, help me help others.’

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In the course of my personal journey – and while researching this book – I accessed seemingly endless websites and studies. I would like to thank those who have dedicated their professional lives to helping survivors of sexual abuse.
I gathered my statistics from many places but found the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), and The New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault, in the United States of America, to be especially helpful. Also from the USA, the National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse, National Children’s Alliance and their nationwide child abuse statistics, Child Sex Abuse Prevention and Protection Center, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Administration for Children & Families, the Child Welfare Information Gateway, and the U.S. Department of Justice.
In the UK, I am grateful to Professor Dame Sue Black from the University of Dundee and her talk given on WIRED UK. I also read the Interim Report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, published in April 2018. The information about Katheryn Bolkovac came from an article in the UK Telegraph by Nisha Lilia Diu in February 2012. And of course, thanks to the BBC for its article about Thai MPs and the sex trade in Thailand.
The Peace and Justice Studies Association in the USA, an affiliate of the International Peace Research Association, printed Joanie Connors’ article about Mass Consensus Reality Trance in their Winter 2008 newsletter.
In Cape Town, South Africa, I am grateful to the District Six Museum and the people who work to preserve the history of such a torn nation. Noor Ebrahim’s book Noor’s Story has been quoted both on their website and by many authors and speakers over the years. I also access the University of West Cape repository for information about the South African student protests of the past. Rethinking White Societies in Southern Africa: 1930s-1990s, by Duncan Money and Danelle van Zyl-Hermann, was another invaluable resource for the history of my country. The Nelson Mandela Foundation supports a number of organizations, and I was happy to find the 1967 Defence Amendment Act in an online archive. I also found I.B. Tabata’s paper Education for Barbarism – about the history of the Bantu education system – in an online archive.
Finally, I want to gratefully acknowledge Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Al-Anon Family Groups, Nar-Anon Family Groups, and Adult Children of Alcoholics & Dysfunctional Families for not only their support of myself and others over the years but also for their body of published work which I have drawn on here. Many prayers are in my own words taken from my personal journals, but they have their roots in my experiences and meetings. All quotes from the bible are taken from the New King James Version.
And of course, not to be forgotten, I want to thank Anna Daffodil for her patient reading, advice, and encouragement without which I likely wouldn’t have kept going. I also want to thank my editor, Robyn Rae at Simpatico Editing, for her patience and hard work.

RESOURCES (Updated Additional references can be found under ‘About this Mission’)
FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO CARE TO LOOK FURTHER:
Professor Dame Sue Black
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qjqa8oTikP8
RAINN
https://www.rainn.org/statistics/children-and-teens
The New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault
http://www.svfreenyc.org/
Sexual Violence Research Initiative
https://www.svri.org/
Joanie Connors, PJSA newsletter
https://www.academia.edu/2994277/Mass_Consensus_Reality_Trance
Kathryn Bolkovac
https://www.peacewomen.org/content/bosnia-herzegovina-kathryn-bolkovac-they-called-me-xena-warrior-princess
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/9041974/What-the-UN-Doesnt-Want-You-to-Know.html
District Six Museum
https://www.districtsix.co.za/
Noor Ebrahim
https://kenanmalik.com/2016/02/11/i-knew-i-was-witnessing-a-terrible-evil/
South African student protests
http://repository.uwc.ac.za/xmlui/handle/10566/4692
Nelson Mandela Foundation
https://www.nelsonmandela.org/
https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv01538/04lv01828/05lv01829/06lv01925.htm#:~:text=1967.-,Defence%20Amendment%20Act,(Riley%201991%3A%2098)
Bantu education
https://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/Education%20for%20Barbarism.pdf
Alcoholics Anonymous
https://aa.org/
Narcotics Anonymous
https://www.na.org/
Al-Anon Family Groups
https://al-anon.org/
Nar-Anon Family Groups
https://www.nar-anon.org/
Adult Children of Alcoholics & Dysfunctional Families
https://adultchildren.org/

JUST FOR TODAY
JULY 28
SECRETS AND INTIMACY
BASIC TEXT, P. 32

We feared that if we ever revealed ourselves as we were, we would surely be rejected.

Having relationships without barriers, ones in which we can be entirely open with our feelings, is something many of us desire. At the same time, the possibility of such intimacy causes us more fear than almost any other situation in life.

If we examine what frightens us, we’ll usually find that we are attempting to hide an aspect of our personalities that we are ashamed of, an aspect we sometimes haven’t even admitted to ourselves. We don’t want others to know of our insecurities, our pain, or our neediness, so we simply refuse to expose them. We may imagine that if no one knows about our imperfections, those imperfections will cease to exist.

This is the point where our relationships stop. Anyone who enters our lives will not get past the point at which our secrets begin. To maintain intimacy in a relationship, it is essential that we acknowledge our defects and accept them. When we do, the fortress of denial, erected to keep these things hidden, will come crashing down, enabling us to build up our relationships with others.

Just for today: I have opportunities to share my inner self. I will take advantage of those opportunities and draw closer to those I love.

Reprinted by permission of NA World Services, Inc. All rights reserved

How Al-Anon Works for Families & Friends of Alcoholics, copyright 1995, 2008 by Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc., and reprinted with permission of Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc.

Permission to reprint does not mean that Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc. has reviewed or approved the contents of this publication, or that Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc. necessarily agrees with the views expressed herein. Al-Anon is a program of recovery for families and friends of alcoholics – use of this excerpt in any non Al-Anon context does not imply endorsement or affiliation by Al-Anon.

Excerpts from A.A. materials are reprinted with permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (“A.A.W.S.”). Permission to reprint these excerpts does not mean that A.A.W.S. has reviewed or approved the contents of this publication, or that A.A. necessarily agrees with the views expressed herein. A.A. is a program of recovery from alcoholism only – use of the excerpts in connection with programs and activities which are patterned after A.A., but which address other problems, or in any other non-A.A. context, does not imply otherwise.

CHECKOUT TIME
After five months a message from John’s wife informing him of her return arrived, meaning I was once again homeless. With help, I finally managed to get an interactive website up and running on which I uploaded all I had discovered and researched, as well as the Steps, Traditions, and Preamble we’d written. Then I forwarded the passwords and security codes to the original women who had asked me to get Survivors Anonymous started. My first sponsor offered a couch for a few days, and Stan had a week available before his daughters moved in to start university close to him. I accepted Stan’s offer, and spent a day visiting my parents – well, where my sister and I spread their ashes – to apologize and say goodbye which felt kind of comical as I might well be seeing them in a few days. After a quick YouTube search on how to make a noose I bought a length of rope, only to have to re-visit the hardware store for a longer piece. I checked myself into Monkey Valley Resort, on the side of Chapmans Peak Drive overlooking the eight-kilometre stretch of Noordhoek beach. Hard to find a better view, but I’d chosen the resort for privacy and the accommodation’s featured thatched roofs with exposed beams.

I didn’t want to do this, and I kept telling myself this wasn’t right. More importantly, I didn’t know how to evaluate how my action would affect my children but I knew it couldn’t be good. I tried to negotiate with God. Believing I was owed, I asked for a catastrophic heart attack or any other way out. I’d had enough, and more than anything I simply wanted an end to my repetitive thoughts. To sleep eternally and never awake again sounded like bliss. But not at my hand. Suicide is often referred to as a form of insanity. Perhaps it’s true. I needed to put some more thought into where I was, though I’d exhausted my ability to think. I reverted to paper to write a final summation as a last-ditch attempt at clarity, or more likely as a delay tactic. I started with, ‘I don’t understand and I don’t know why it’s come to this.’ I categorized what I should cover, what I was grateful for, where I’d failed, what regrets I had, if I was holding on to resentments, and what unanswered questions remained.

I understood from an early age that I wasn’t the smartest cookie in the jar, and I’d simply have to work harder if I wasn’t going to be a problem for my family. I became the kid who worked through the night to prepare for exams, and it paid off. For most of my working life, I’d experienced an upper-middle-class lifestyle that I was more than satisfied with. I also believed that I’d been fortunate to have had more opportunities than most. Three women had been willing to marry me, and I’d been privileged to father four children. I’d been granted custody when it was virtually impossible. I’d been accepted and liked wherever I’d socialized, and I’d made a few good friends. I’d travelled the world until I’d had enough. I had bought, designed, built, or renovated eight homes, and I’d enjoyed a couple of interesting toys. For many, my ordinary life may not seem like much and perhaps they’d be right. However, for me, who was not meant to survive a single week and who’d made it to sixty, it was so much more than I could have planned.

Staring me in the face was the fact that with all the opportunities I’d had, I’d failed to take care of myself and I’d knowingly not provided for my retirement. I’d had three wives, but I’d failed to keep any one of them happy or to make a marriage last. I had a reasonably successful small business that in my opinion had been incredibly good to me and my kids. But despite this, I’d failed to adjust to the changing environment or attract someone else who could. I believed I was a good parent, that I was always available, loving, supportive, and always prioritized my children’s needs. Hoping they’d find their passion, I did all I could think of to expand their imaginations and encourage and back their interests. Since they were in their twenties and thirties and are supposed to take risks, I was no longer able to be their safety net – let alone take care of myself. And considering the properties I had owned, and the way my generation messed up the market, I should have been able to give my children a better financial start. However, I still had the life insurance policy I took out shortly after Jeremy was born, which I hoped would provide my children with enough to get a foot in the door. Other than that, I could only hope they would someday forgive me, remember how much they meant to me, and just how much I loved them.

REGRETS
Does anyone get through life without regrets? I love the life I’ve had, and I’ve certainly had my chances. But damn, it’s been pretty lonely, and I do regret not being able to find a long-term partner – someone with shared values and with whom I could be honest and open about my past. I met, married, and divorced my first wife all before my twenty-third birthday, and I’ve often wondered if she had been the one. In recovery, I’ve tried to find her to make amends, but even with the advent of social media there was simply no trace of her, her family, or any of her siblings.
I regret not being there for Stan when he was going through a difficult financial time. I was having dinner with my friend Vernon who’d been on my case about people-pleasing when Stan decided to join us. Stan, who’d always thought to include me, had introduced me to dirt bikes in the 80s, and I was terrible at the sport. Then he showed me water-skiing, and more recently the Harley Davidson club. He had introduced me to almost all the activities I’d come to love and enjoy. I doubt the incident even registered with Stan, but when it came to the bill, I didn’t pick his up.

Vernon may be right, and I have often questioned my motives and why I don’t seem to appreciate what I have. I get that there’s an unhealthy element to people-pleasing if it’s born out of one’s own need for attention. But I’ll lend someone my car because they happen to mention that it’s their dream car. Or I’ll even let a friend use my beloved Fat Boy for a weekend rally because his bike was being customized and he hadn’t gotten it back. I find it easy to spot someone who is struggling and invite them for coffee in case they’d like to chat. Like most, I enjoy being comfortable and having nice things, but I’m just not too attached – and if I can make someone happy or help someone out, then why the hell not.

There are a couple of other incidents that still bother me, but I suspect it’s more about me feeling guilty whenever I stand up for myself. There’s a lot that I’ll let slide simply because it’s just not worth the effort. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no pushover in business or with anything involving my children. With most confrontations I think I’m fairly rational and willing to listen, so I don’t believe that I’ve intentionally done anyone in. Yet somehow, I still feel guilty and I’m not sure if that’s a regret.

I never got to be honest with a potential partner about my past and how it continued to affect me. I’m not going to beat myself up over it and I’m not sure I’d term my inability to explain myself as a regret. I was first told to forget about it and not think about it, which kind of worked. Except, I never dealt with the shame so it never left me, and it resurfaced in my forties and took me out at the knees. Still, I do regret not using my time with Kathy to let go of that unwarranted shame. After Aida, I decided to focus on raising my children, however once every year or two I’d meet someone and decide to cautiously give it a go. With most, I’d quite quickly discover our shared childhood traumas seldom equated to compatibility. Or I’d manage to avoid having sex for two dates but by the third, it would be impossible to avoid. It was the last thing that I wanted, but I didn’t know how to say no to someone I’d essentially just met without feeling less than a man. Perhaps if I’d paid more attention to the concept of wound buddy attraction and I’d been willing to work on my shame with Kathy, I wouldn’t have hurt others. Once we’d had sex, I’d back away without explaining and basically disappear.

I didn’t know to tell Kathy, so how was I ever going to tell someone I’d just met that I struggled with sex? I had hoped to meet someone who I could trust with what went on in my head. Someone who’d know about the images that flashed through my brain, or about how I couldn’t divorce what I’d seen in the face of my abuser from my mother’s story and how I’d vowed I’d never be like that. I would have liked to have told someone that the vast majority of male survivors are more likely to be over-protective and wouldn’t dream about hurting a kid. However, there is still roughly thirty per cent of adult male survivors who start abusing children themselves. It’s that horrific statistic, and the very necessary media attention it brings, that makes it incredibly hard for the rest of us to reveal our status as male survivors without thinking others will immediately run away.

I was attempting a Fourth Step inventory by writing down my regrets when I realised that I was either in denial – or I really didn’t have any regrets. I couldn’t work it out, so I simply continued by adding should have regretted to what I wrote down. I should have been pissed off with myself for losing the business and for not taking better care of myself. If I’d done that, I probably wouldn’t have considered letting Samuel go. So, if I’m talking about regrets, surely that should be my only real regret. And I should be angry with Aida for devouring him and using his desperate need for her affection to weaponize him against me. At times I’d call out ‘Just call me and tell me how I fucked up, how I let you down, that I didn’t do enough, you think I’m an asshole or even that you hate me. Anything would be better than not hearing or knowing how you are.’

I knew who Aida was and what she could do – she had blocked me from seeing Ellen. But Samuel was so much older and even though I knew the kind of pressure he’d be under, I never for a moment thought that I’d never hear from him again. I had to ask, What did I miss? I’d invested in weekly professional advice on how to best protect him. Yet somehow, I’d still gotten it wrong. I had so many questions: Was this pressure from his mother? Or had living with me been so terrible that he genuinely didn’t want to see me again? Or was Kathy right, that spending time with his mother could free him from a harmful pattern of attraction and I’d simply have to be patient for a lot longer than I thought? Then there’s what I didn’t want to consider. I’d been so focussed on protecting Samuel from his mother’s undeniable neglect, what if I’d completely missed that Samuel had been genetically pre-programmed to be more like his mother? Was I facing the nature-versus-nurture debate, where no amount of nurturing from my side was ever going to change who he was always meant to be? I believe in the principle of service, or self-transcendence, and I wanted to teach my children that we’re meant to care about something outside of ourselves. I see service as the pathway to happiness, but just look at where that’s landed me.

The idea of Samuel being self-centred was almost unbearable to me. I preferred to keep remembering the child who cared about stray bees and who’d thought about his sister while we were on holiday and drew their names in the sand. I also couldn’t deny that he’d been intentionally punishing me. At least that’s how it felt. I may be an egotistical asshole that needs to be right, but I’m likely to continue searching for a way to let Samuel know you cannot go through this life hurting others without ultimately hurting yourself. Above all, I’d like Samuel to know that whichever path he may choose or how much he may hurt me, I’m never going to stop loving him unconditionally – even though I may strongly disagree.

Next, I wrote out a couple of pages about who and what had pissed me off and what I should be resentful about. Once again, I realised I was jotting down stuff that I was no longer angry about. I was a bit disappointed in Valeria at times, but I somehow always understood why she needed to blame me. As for Aida, yes I had been fumingly mad with her, but eventually I understood she was acting out of fear and that she truly wasn’t well. It might sound a bit patronising, but I’ll keep praying for her health and happiness and hope she does well. Ultimately, the two of them provided me with my children who turned out to be the greatest joy of my life. So, just how was I supposed to remain angry or disappointed with either of them?

CONVERSATION WITH GOD
When we first met, I was just a young kid that had recently been traumatized. Then, even the concept of the trinity didn’t seem too complicated. After my military service, I moved away from you primarily because I wanted to experience life and have some fun. I also couldn’t wrap my head around the concept of an all-powerful loving God who just happened to have created an eternal hell for anyone who disagreed. However, there were a couple of ideas I hung onto which have served me well. I kept believing in a loving power that had my best interests at heart. To paraphrase, this world is way too scary, so I needed to know that you had my back. I followed a path of service that seemed to connect all faiths – admittedly because I discovered that service, kindness, and honesty almost always worked for me. That said, it didn’t work in my marriages. Supporting my wives’ ambitions with everything I had just never seemed to be enough.

Getting legal custody of my children meant giving up everything I owned. Still, as far as I’m concerned it simply wouldn’t have happened without you, God. Then in the case involving Samuel where securing custody would have been more than enough for me, I got back ten times the amount I had to give up – which bolstered my faith in you. For more than thirty years, I had the greatest time of my life raising my children and I can’t thank you enough for that. There was nothing I could do about the issues they had with their mothers, so ultimately, I had no alternative but to give them back.

Right now, I’d like to talk to you about the esoteric experiences I’ve had. The first was when Jeremy was still a toddler and we were sitting on the beach watching an unusual storm as it whipped across, lashing the waters of Table Bay. Then twelve years later, there were our hundred and twenty days together which started on the evening of Ellen’s sixteenth birthday. Guided by my younger brother and sister who hadn’t survived six months, you showed me what I wish I hadn’t seen and you asked me to write it all down. Then six years later, you sent a messenger to tell me I was exactly where you wanted me to be. Then you asked me to set aside my writing and to get out there to look for a leader who could support other survivors like me. I almost overlooked the first occasion, which frankly I didn’t understand. However, the second and third were so indescribably powerful that they profoundly changed my life.

So much so, that despite my fears I kept trying no matter how much I lost and how painful it became. To get legal custody of Samuel, I had to lose so much – but I’d been pretty close to zero before and it had worked out incredibly well. I trusted you had a plan that I was simply not privy to. I’m not sure I can claim to have walked in faith, but I guess at times I did: when the business kept failing no matter what I tried, or even when Samuel moved to his mother and I was cut out. While I questioned my sanity, a part of me accepted that anything which interfered with what you’d asked me to do would simply be removed. Now I need to ask whether our connection was nothing more than a grandiose religious delusion, another form of addiction, or a self-centred need for attention? I know that I seemed powerless to stop and the consequences seem to be pretty much the same.

On the other hand, several intellectuals who are a lot smarter than me speak about experiences that are so similar to mine. Academics have researched the effects of hallucinogens like magic mushrooms or DMT. Magic mushrooms contain the naturally occurring psychoactive and hallucinogenic compound psilocybin. Studies often report profound mystical experiences that users regard as the most significant experience of their life. Many report having entered a different experiential dimension where they died an ego death and transcended their normal mode of perception. Their personalities were permanently or drastically altered, and they often lost their fear of death and were less likely to suffer from death anxiety. Well, that research pretty accurately describes what happened to me, except without the use of drugs. Some of these academics go a step further, by even describing their work as observable and verifiable psychedelic evidence of God.

Then there are other bright individuals from the so-called intellectual dark web – who are supposedly agnostic – who speak of conscious living through the practice of meditation and refer to Judeo-Christian principles of service as potentially the real meaning of life. Other scientists from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), describe the yet to be defined but measurable forces which are greater than gravity as the scaffolding holding the entire Universe together while using the world’s largest and most complex scientific instruments to probe the fundamental structure of particles that make up everything around us. Perhaps I was just cherry-picking what I wanted or needed to hear, then subconsciously applying confirmation bias to block out the rest. However, most scientists seem to agree that despite our incredible development, we’ve barely scratched the surface of what’s yet to be discovered, let alone understood. So I simply can’t comprehend how anyone can claim to know with absolute certainty whether there’s a god or not. As for me, I’m good with simply asking ‘Surely somewhere in the ninety-five per cent we’ve yet to discover there’s space for a loving God who might just be trying to reach us and who has our best interests at heart?’

I FAILED
I hit zero, so I cannot deny that I failed. I saw or called my parents almost every week of my life and in their retirement, I made sure they owned their own home. In the final few months of their individual lives I made myself available to them every day, ensuring they wouldn’t be alone when they passed. I held my mother’s story for as long as I can remember. Then in the ultimate act of treachery, I wrote her story down. Writing about my parents, my children, and even my ex-wives was an incredibly painful journey filled with self-doubt and feelings of betrayal which made me wonder if I deserved to hit zero. But I did finish my story, which less than four per cent of those who write are ever able to claim. That said, it still required a few good rewrites and a patient editor if it was meant to be read. Still, I’m not sure if it will help me, or anyone else.

From all the research I’ve read, I knew that sexual abuse of children happens more frequently than society is willing or able to admit and it wasn’t just the odd weirdo. Indeed, even though I was close to bankruptcy, I felt compelled to take one more step. I don’t want to make this a gender issue, because it undeniably happens to more girls than boys and I’m encouraged by women who have found the courage to start a movement where they can safely share what happened to them. But young boys can also be victims, and we’re more likely to put a bullet in our heads or a needle in our arms before we put a hand up to say ‘Me too!’ I’m grateful I found a free solution that worked for me on a day-to-day basis, and for all the various Twelve Step meetings where I was privileged to share. I’d additionally like to thank those who trusted me with their story and who shared how they’d been quietly adapting their primary program to recover from abuse.

I seemed to be going in circles. I’m happy with the life I’ve lived and I knew there was a strong possibility of hitting zero, but at the same time I had never expected it. I was always worried about being homeless, but I don’t believe I’ve ever been afraid of death. Perhaps I’m arrogant or just a slow learner, but in this moment with the clarity of hindsight and knowing full well how this would all end, I’m confident I’d make the same decisions all over again. I’d asked God for an alternative because I just couldn’t see how another suicide statistic would possibly help. Whether it was the right thing to do or not, it all felt kind of special – walking to this ledge in faith. I’d paid for a week in advance, and I’d tested the rope on the first day. Enough said – it was time to get on with the task at hand. Exhausted, I looked forward to the nothingness of endless sleep.

MATTHEW
In the family fellowship of Al-Anon there’s a fair bit of focus placed on how an alcoholic can infect his or her entire family, and on the fact that family members can become alcoholics themselves as well as developing other illnesses. I’d witnessed the damage to my mother and her siblings. In consideration of that, I still felt wholly unprepared for Matthew and his young family. Matthew’s cute three-and-a-half-year-old boy had the same long blonde curly locks as my son, reminding me of Samuel before his first haircut. Mathew’s older brother introduced him to heroin – and instead of stopping him, Matthew’s own addiction only got worse after discovering the three-day-old dead body of his overdosed brother. As a young family, Mathew and his wife had held decent jobs. However, while dealing with his addiction his wife had come down with chronic fatigue syndrome. They’d ended up jobless and had no alternative but to move in with his parents. With his parents’ guidance, and under their house rules, the decision was made for Matthew’s best interest: he needed to step up and take care of his son. To all intents and purposes, Matthew was fulfilling both parental roles.

He’d visited their family physician and was currently on a course of methadone. Except, while still on the methadone he’d been prescribed he regularly met his heroin dealer outside their son’s daycare and used both. Having no knowledge of what mixing these two substances meant, I sought expert advice from two medical doctors working in the field of addiction and from my first sponsor – a recovered heroin addict who had published two academic books on addiction. In their collective opinion, the next time Matthew injected himself could very well be his last. They also suggested an extended treatment program would probably be his best option.

Matthew and his wife approached me while I was busy doing my rounds in the bay area where Jeremy and I had once lived. In our first meeting, I told them what I’d learnt. Still, they were living under his parents’ house rules so even the free ten-day detox program was out of the question for him. Instead, I made them the same thirty-day offer that I’d previously made to Ryan. Over the past two decades, the Tableview area had boomed beyond its capacity. This meant getting in and out had become a bit of a nightmare. However, between the various local fellowships, we had at least ten weekly meetings available for us to attend.

I started walking Matthew and his wife through their first thirty days. The afternoon I spent clearing my head on Table Mountain was day twenty. They’d let me know that Matthew was a survivor of childhood sexual abuse when they first approached me, but it hadn’t come up again. It didn’t have to, now or ever, unless he wanted to speak of it. For now, all that mattered was he’d achieved twenty days of being clean and sober. While I’d done my best to introduce this husband-and-wife team to separate programs, they were still joined at the hip. We were alternating between meetings of Narcotics Anonymous and the family fellowships of Nar-Anon and Al-Anon.

I was busy running all over the peninsula and becoming increasingly anxious about my future. As much as I wanted to believe I was walking in faith, I simply couldn’t shake the feeling of impending doom. I tried to remind myself that at least I was no longer writing. I suspected that living in the past, trying to get in touch with what I was thinking and feeling, was directly responsible for the dark depression I’d gone through. Yes, it was so much better being of service. But damn, now I was dealing with anxiety and was constantly worried about how all this could end. I needed to check in with my sponsor, trusted friends, and three additional associates I’d come to respect. I couldn’t afford to alienate myself from my homegroup, and with their help I was willing to explore if I had essentially switched addictions and was now drunk on service. Additionally, I decided to come clean about my burning-bush experiences, wondering if I’d lost my mind. I’m truly grateful they all listened attentively. I didn’t get much feedback, so I wasn’t sure if they thought I’d lost it or they simply didn’t know how to respond. My sponsor suggested I take it a day at a time and do my best to renew my faith. I started each day rolling out of bed onto my knees to recite my version of the Step Three prayer. I’d repeat it throughout the day until I ended back on my knees with ‘God, I offer myself to You – to build with me and to do with me as You will. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Your will. I humbly ask You to take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Your Power, Your Love, and Your way of Life. May I do Your will always.’

ANOTHER CHRISTMAS
I celebrated a brilliant Christmas evening with the girls from our unofficial dinner club, who well knew how to entertain. I’m not a good cook, although I believe I held my own. On a role of fettuccine and rocket, I served a beetroot and mint salad with lime-crusted seared tuna. I also made a final dish of thickly sliced chicken breasts, baby English spinach leaves, and snake beans all drizzled with a coconut, coriander, and red chilli dressing. Cooking always reminded me of the joy of being a parent and of Samuel’s sophisticated palate. Devastatingly, I hadn’t heard from him again.

As parents, we never stop worrying about our children, especially when there is no contact. I believe at some point in time the duty of keeping in touch passes from the parent to the child. At times, I’d hear the song Say Something – written by Ian Axel and Chad King and popularized on the American talent show The Voice by Christina Aguilera’s vocal delivery – and my spine would crumble. It’s as if I recognized defeat, and I’d cry out to their lyrics ‘Say something, I’m giving up on you.’ Perhaps I’m just too stubborn, but I don’t know how to give up. Whatever reason Samuel might have for not calling, I’d taught him always keep your side of the street clean. Without contact and not knowing what else to do, I decided to continue sending him my best wishes and remind him that he’s always in my thoughts. It hurt like hell. I needed to remind myself that expectations are premeditated resentments. It was time to get over myself.

On Christmas morning I received an unexpected call from Vernon, who urgently needed his hair trimmed. Vernon kind of micro-manages everyone, and he’s very particular about his hair. I used to treat my mum to a regular wash, trim and blow-dry, and for most of their lives I cut my boys’ hair. I have fond memories of conjuring up classical styles for Ellen, but I’m not a professional stylist. So, something else must have been going on with Vernon. I grabbed my hair scissors, comb, and clippers, and drove over to see if I could help.

While still in high-school Vernon had gotten his girlfriend pregnant and their parents had decided that adoption would be the best option for all concerned. Thirty-two years later Vernon finally got to meet his long-lost son, in what was quite possibly the most emotionally charged meeting of Narcotics Anonymous that I’d ever attended. Naturally, their newfound relationship had its moments. On that day Vernon would be celebrating his first Christmas with all of his children, including two grandchildren. I barely touched his hair in two hours, even as I followed his directions to snip a millimetre or two off the odd, offensive hair.

A lot of people struggle during the holidays, which are supposed to be about family. I certainly do. I’d often spend an entire year prioritizing children, without ever getting a break. Then, because their mothers’ families would be visiting, I’d find myself alone. I could have insisted on alternate years, but that felt like depriving my children of the only opportunity they got to see their grandparents and extended family. It felt kind of special to watch Vernon and his wife preparing for Christmas lunch and to be there to support him. It was an unusually busy holiday period for me. After Vernon’s haircut, I joined my sister and her family for lunch at her brother-in-law’s house. While there I got to catch up with an old childhood friend who I’d barely seen since graduation. That evening I attended a meeting, and the following day I drove to a reunion of the Ford family.

As a child, I’d seen more of the Ford family than anyone else. But like so many South Africans who emigrated to the UK or New Zealand, I hadn’t seen them in decades. It was all going well until the wife of one of my cousins decided to give me a piece of her mind. Unbeknown to me, my cousin had married one of Valeria’s old school friends. They’d kept in touch, and their friendship had only strengthened since they’d both left their countries of origin. I was so uncomfortable that I didn’t know how to respond when I was publicly accused of domestic abuse in front of the few people who knew what my grandfather had done and what my mother had been through. I really wanted to let it go. Instead, I suggested my cousin’s wife might want to have a chat with Valeria before making accusations. She might find that Valeria had subsequently admitted to everything being one big ugly lie that she was using to justify leaving her children behind. I’d like to be able to say that as long as my children know the truth I don’t care what others might think – but unfortunately I do care.

The holidays ended on a tragic note with yet another suicide by a member of Narcotics Anonymous. I knew his mother from the Harley Davidson Club. I’d met her son a year earlier when she’d arranged for us to meet for coffee. He was working the program with a sponsor and attending regular meetings. They lived roughly fifty kilometres out of town in a coastal suburb, with arguably more multi-millionaires per capita than any other suburb in the country. The last I’d heard he was still doing well, and I had hoped to run into him when I attended his local meeting on my recent road trip – it was a small but impressive Sunday afternoon meeting, with two of eight members in attendance who both had more than twenty years of recovery and service to their names – but he wasn’t there.

When someone suicides, there’s almost always the speculation about whether the member had relapsed, usually followed by an uneasy ‘There go I, but for the grace of God.’ Unfortunately, there had been a last-minute change of venue for his memorial, and I hadn’t received the message. I couldn’t reach anyone, so I drove around trying to decide if I’d gotten the address, date, or time wrong. I kept thinking that I now knew four sets of parents who’d buried their children. One at a very early age through terminal illness, two in fatal car accidents during that dreaded phase between school and university, and now another to addiction and suicide. Try as I might, I couldn’t imagine the extent of their loss or their heart-wrenching pain. As self-centred as it felt I couldn’t help being grateful because I still had hope. I still had a chance of seeing Samuel again, of repairing and rebuilding our relationship and holding him.

ZERO
I’d had a particularly busy evening collecting individuals for meetings from polar opposite ends of the peninsula. I got home feeling pretty good about being able to coordinate everything. In contrast, all my fears were waiting for me in the form of a simple credit-card statement. I hadn’t received a statement for quite a few months, and I hadn’t followed up to ask why. I’d sold my thirsty American V8, and I was doing all my running around in a tiny 1100cc Hyundai. I still completely underestimated just how much fuel I’d been using. In the normal course of things, it wouldn’t have been a large amount, but all the business deals I’d been working on were still pending.

A discussion about the sexual abuse of children is understandably not one most want to engage in, and after a few follow up meetings about initial funding I’d given up on asking. Perhaps it was my ego because I would have preferred to remain self-supporting. But I could no longer afford to pay for fuel, rent, or even food. I was trying to make a difference, and as such I trusted that I’d be looked after. But the harsh reality hit me: at age sixty, I’d zeroed out.

I was now dependent on the good graces of friends. Vernon was project managing renovations to a home he’d bought in the suburbs. He’d completed the bulk of the work when he decided to take a month’s break. Feeling like a delinquent staying in the unfinished house, I at least had a roof over my head until the room could be remodelled for office space. I moved what I needed to furnish a one-bedroom apartment into storage, and I sold the rest. Jeremy sent me some money, which I used to secure the life insurance I’d had in place since his birth. Samuel, who’d heard from Jeremy, emailed me with the longest bit of communication I’d received from him in years. I understood that he was still young and had a lot to learn. However, being told by my son that I needed to get my act together felt like being kicked while I was down. Even though I shouldn’t have, I chose to reply. I let him know that in the forty-two years I’d been working, I’d always been self-sufficient, I’d always done my duty, and I’d always paid my way. Then added perhaps I’d been extraordinarily lucky, but that’s how life sometimes goes. And other times, shit just happens through no fault of our own. In this case, I made a few decisions that didn’t go as planned and I’d have to live with that. I finished my reply by letting him know that despite my current status as a loser I still felt pretty good about myself, the life I’d lived, and the decisions I’d made.

After I left Vernon’s, I moved in with my friend John from the Atlantic Seaboard. His wife of forty years, who periodically needed space, had recently moved to the south of Spain. John is one of the most decent, long-suffering human beings I’ve ever met. He practically raised and educated his kids on his own. After they’d graduated and moved to the UK, John struggled with being alone. Thankfully, he was all too happy to have me move in. I’d been spoilt by Vernon’s ability to infuse complex flavours into traditional home-cooked meals. I’d had plenty of practice catering for Samuel, but I’m not in his league. As I wasn’t required to pay rent, I offered to take care of our meals. I had several additional credit cards, issued to me without question, which I’d rarely or never used. I’m not sure if it’s even legal, but the idea of paying one bank from another bank’s facility didn’t appeal to me. So, I wasn’t preparing the kinds of dishes I used to put together for my children, but John never complained. On the contrary, he seemed to genuinely appreciate whatever I prepared. Or perhaps it was simply the marathon conversations that accompanied our meals.

I was grateful for the space John and Vernon gave me, but things weren’t going well. Fran, who turned out to be the marketing assistant I’d always hoped to find, got a role she’d auditioned for. She’d studied to be an actress and she’d been upfront from the start, so I honestly couldn’t have been happier for her. I’d always been pretty good at generating new business and finalising sales, so I threw myself back into the game. I followed up on deals that were still pending, but no one was ready to sign. Then I revisited every client I’d ever done business with, who were all happy to see me. But after I’d exhausted a twenty-year list of contacts, there was still no business to be found. I was getting desperate and questioning my faith. Because of this, I asked a member of my Saturday morning group if we could have a chat. I specifically chose him because, much to the dismay of the agnostics, he often bravely shares his faith.

After our meeting, we took a walk and stopped at a nearby park. It was early morning, so we had the park to ourselves. I admitted that I’d strayed from my original Christian faith, although to the best of my ability I’d followed the words of Jesus from Mark 9:35, ‘If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.’ Somewhere I must have gone wrong. My friend reminded me that God always has a plan and suggested that I read the Psalms of David, a man who often desperately cried out to God.

I read all one hundred and fifty Psalms, from start to finish, while I updated my resume and started to send it out. Initially, I only applied for experience-related positions. Then for anything and everything that might help pay the bills. While scouring for potential employment I cried out to God, reading Palms 6, 22, 30, 55, 69, and 88 each morning and repetitively throughout the day. I knew it would be difficult for a sixty-year-old white South African male. Just the same, I was surprised that I didn’t receive a single reply to any of my applications. It soon became apparent that if I was going to have any chance of finding employment, it would happen only through a friend or acquaintance aware of my experience and past success. Or it was going to take a miracle. So I added Psalm 69: verses 1-3 to my daily Step Three prayer, ‘Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing; I have come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary with my crying; My throat is dry; My eyes fail while I wait for my God.’

As a last resort, I approached the recovery facility where I’d recently been offered free counselling space. Over the years they had given me many referrals and I had helped with job placements. I would have gratefully accepted a position as a recovery assistant – basically, a babysitting position for evenings or weekends when their counsellors and regular staff need to go home. Again, I didn’t receive a single call back. Finally, my first sponsor called a facility that he was connected to, an upmarket treatment facility primarily for Dutch patients, and arranged for me to see their general manager – I was aware of rumoured changes regarding government funding for patients seeking treatment outside the European Union. When the interview didn’t go well, I wasn’t sure if they simply weren’t hiring or if they could smell the extent of my personal failure. I’d taught my children that nothing succeeds like success and that the same principle can easily be applied to failure. This is why I’d always suggested that if they ever hated what they were doing, they find a way to succeed until they found another job. Well, I’d fucked up and hit zero, and I was fast learning exactly what that meant.

SURVIVORS ANONYMOUS
As for my book, I needed a break because I’d reached a point where I could no longer construct a sentence, so completing another essential re-write or two seemed impossible. Ever since I contracted chronic fatigue I’d gotten used to making detailed notes and setting two alarms for appointments and for my daily to-do list. But lately, even with a list of ingredients for meals I’d cooked dozens of times, I’d find myself lost and afraid in the middle of my regular supermarket. Overwhelmed, I’d decide on take-out for dinner. The brain fog had gotten so bad that my inner hypochondriac feared for early onset of Alzheimer’s disease and that any day now I wouldn’t remember or recognize my children.

With the latest encounter, the fog lifted. Inspired, I dove into my research and available Twelve Step literature. In business, the only concept I’d used from first-year economics was to look at what worked and that was obviously succeeding. To compete and to gain a slice of the market, all one needed to do was to offer a five per cent difference. Even though the Twelve Steps had been turned into a growing industry, I wasn’t looking at it as a business opportunity but rather as a voluntary association as it was originally intended to be. However, the concept of not changing much still applied, so there was no need for me to try to re-invent the wheel.

Eighty-plus successful years had started with the idea that one alcoholic could best understand and help another alcoholic to recover. It had successfully been adopted and adapted to help drug addicts, sex and love addicts, co-dependents, and families and children from alcoholic homes and other dysfunctional families. There was more than enough information available and all we had to do was to substitute some words and phrases. I’ve used the pronoun we because I felt that I needed to apply Tradition Two from the outset. Tradition Two reads, ‘For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority – a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.’ I had the two women from the convention, a knowledgeable friend – and a psychologist – from a sister fellowship they had invited to join, and naturally my sponsor, so I didn’t have to attempt the work on my own. Everything I wrote was written only as a suggestion first, then emailed for feedback and to determine an initial group conscience.

The changes weren’t too difficult to make. I’d been sitting in meetings for years feeling guilty for having an internal debate questioning whether I’d ever truly surrendered to being powerless over drugs and alcohol. I always struggled to relate to shares dominated by war stories, especially those that included the violent abuse of their families. Those shares would almost always trigger memories of my mother and her childhood story. It wasn’t a satisfactory answer, but I’d end the debate either with the reminder you haven’t been there yet, or that’s where this disease can take me. However, more often than not, I’d simply replace words. So, for example, ‘I’m powerless over alcohol,’ would become ‘I’m powerless over the effects of my childhood abuse.’ And ‘Self-seeking will slip away,’ became ‘Self-condemnation will disappear.’
We obtained written permission from Alcoholics Anonymous New York office to adopt their program. We adapted most of what we needed from the family fellowships of Al-Anon and Al-Anon Adult Child. In what couldn’t have been more than a few weeks, we had enough to get started. We now had our own Twelve Steps, Twelve Traditions, Twelve Promises, a Meeting Preamble, Meeting Guidelines, The Problem and The Solution, and Common Feelings and Behaviours for Survivors Anonymous.

Our Tradition Three was borrowed in its entirety from Survivors of Incest Anonymous and initially read ‘The only requirement for membership is that you be a victim of childhood sexual abuse that you desire to recover from and that you have not abused any child as an adult.’ It was immediately challenged by a long-standing member of Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous. He’d sponsored and worked with members of his group who’d been unable to forgive themselves for underage sex that they were responsible for as young adults. Some of them were also victims of childhood sexual abuse and he felt they couldn’t be excluded. It was a hairy decision; if we allowed for their attendance, what was there to stop other sexual predators from intentionally targeting our meetings? I’d previously sponsored a self-proclaimed paedophile – of course, I didn’t know that when I agreed to sponsor him for his addiction to drugs. I put boundaries in place: I insisted I wouldn’t continue to sponsor him if he missed a single appointment with his therapist, and I’d personally have him arrested if he ever thought about acting out on his impulses. Even so, it didn’t go well – a few months later he dumped both me and his therapist to relocate to the UK. From the research I’ve viewed, a little under thirty per cent of adult victims later repeat what was done to them. It’s a horrific statistic. But as much as I might want to help a genuinely remorseful individual, I’m not qualified to make that determination or to be of any real assistance. A safe environment is paramount for all Twelve Step meetings and even more so for a meeting of survivors of sexual abuse. That said, we decided that if we wanted to align ourselves with the founding principles, we’d have to amend our Tradition Three to read ‘The only requirement for membership is a desire to recover from the effects of sexual abuse.’

However, we did additionally amend our meeting guidelines to include ‘. . . a sense of safety in meetings is vital to survivors. This is especially true for new members, where it can be initially difficult for a survivor to set boundaries – well enough – to effectively protect themselves from re-victimization. Important to note; Many of our members that are here for their recovery are “mandated reporters,” required by law to let authorities know when privy to abuse. We cannot put members in a position of having to choose between anonymity and legal culpability. Recovery from the effects of sexual abuse is the focus of our program. For the protection of the group, any discussion of personal crimes of abuse will be stopped and immediately reported to the relevant authorities.’

JONKERSHOEK
At the treble A mini-convention, I’d been invited to represent Al-Anon Adult Child as part of a panel of speakers to open AA’s annual regional convention held at Simonsberg Christian Centre, Jonkershoek, on the 18th of November 2016. With the support and backing from my Al-Anon home group, we agreed to use the opportunity to launch Survivors Anonymous Cape Town. I started my turn by expressing my gratitude for the program, then jumped right in with a quote from Al-Anon Works (pg 25) ‘Most of us have had good reasons for hiding certain information from ourselves – it hurt. It probably still does.’ I then added parts from the preamble Common Feelings and Behaviours of Adult Children: ‘We deny, minimize or repress our feelings as a result of our traumatic childhoods: denial, repression, isolation, control, shame and inappropriate guilt are legacies from our family of origin. As a result of these symptoms, we feel hopeless and helpless, we confuse love with pity and tend to love people we can pity and rescue.’
Conscious of the time, and just how much I’d prepared, I briefly referred to my mother who I really wish had found an Al-Anon Adult Child group. I still saw her as a little girl who survived a violent alcoholic father. Incapable of love, she’d married my father because she pitied him. Because the theme for the convention was A Design for Living, I mentioned having it all in recovery – I had my children and a decent small business that provided us with a stunning home, cars, bikes, toys, and travel. I was truly grateful for having more than what I believed I needed or imagined I would ever have. Yet despite my gratitude, and while still working the program with a sponsor, following the suggestions, and being of service, it all started to unravel when unresolved memories returned to take me out at the knees.

I ran through some of the statistical data I’d found on what’s often referred to as the number one international taboo. I didn’t mention that every time I looked at a report, whether from the UK, the USA, or Australia, they all reflected a number I struggle to wrap my head around. And it’s not just the horrific numbers or the magnitude of the problem, which would mean that survivors of childhood sexual abuse are the largest individual demographic group of people living on planet earth. It is also the number one thing that we as a people cannot speak about – and in my understanding that makes it the world’s number one secret. An awful secret. And while some groups are more vulnerable, it does not discriminate. It happens in financially privileged families, as well as those of low socioeconomic status, it happens to those of all racial and ethnic descent, from all religious traditions, all ages and all genders. I didn’t express my struggle with the statistical data, but I did note that no matter which Twelve Step fellowship we’ve been privileged to be members of, we’ve all heard the catchphrase, ‘Secrets keep us sick.’ I shared some of the staggering statistics of the long-term deleterious effects associated with survivors of sexual abuse, making the point that speaking about the experience could potentially lower these.

I went on to say that though I’m not an expert, an academic, or a research analyst, it seems to me that in any study done on any form of self-destructive behaviour, the victims of childhood violence represent an overwhelming majority. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, and certainly not to this audience, that many of us look for ways to anaesthetize our feelings, drown out the ceaseless inner critic, and quiet the self-loathing chatter of our minds. The result is that eighty per cent of us end up with a history of alcohol and other legal or illegal substance abuse. The lucky ones find recovery in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotic Anonymous, and others find a home in the family fellowships of Al-Anon or Adult Child.

I had to add: ‘If you are recovering from alcoholism or addiction, it is important that you remain in your recovery fellowship. As you start to revisit the consequences of your childhood abuse, emotions that have been held down for years will surface. So that you will not be tempted to relieve those feelings in self-destructive ways it is strongly suggested that if you are recovering from addiction, you need to focus on that first – until you have had at least thirteen months of continuous recovery. However, we have also discovered that if you are struggling with an ongoing problem of switching addictions or repetitive bouts of relapse, finding a safe space to start looking at your abuse may well be the missing ingredient in achieving long-term recovery.’

I finished my share with ‘I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to live and enjoy life as others do. I have found that each time I attend a meeting and I’m able to open up a little bit more about what happened or about how it continues to affect me, I realize I’m not alone. And each day that I’m able to apply one of the suggestions, usually from the daily reading or from what another member shared, my day is just a little bit better – and that’s good enough for me.’ I hadn’t planned to stay for the weekend, and I hadn’t reserved accommodation. I did return Saturday to answer further questions. By Sunday morning, I’d lost my voice and I only left along with everyone else after the convention closed.

GETTING A MESSAGE OUT
I did a simple analysis of the number of different Twelve Step meetings in and around the Western Cape and determined that I could quite possibly visit every meeting in a relatively short period of four months. Naturally, I started with the meetings I’d been invited to share at, and then I looked at what other meetings were on route or in the area that I might be able to include. For notice boards, we put together a basic A4 information page, and because most fellowships have a daily reading, we designed a prettier bookmark. It took a little over six months to get to every meeting on the list I’d compiled. Where I’d been invited, it was a little easier to introduce the subject, and at other meetings I kind of pushed the ground rules to at least let their members know of our existence.

Meeting attendance ranged from a handful to around a hundred and twenty. I shouldn’t have been, but I was surprised to have three or six members brave enough to approach me after each meeting ended to share that they too had been abused. One old-timer decided to let me know that as far as she was concerned, she didn’t know of a female member of Alcoholics Anonymous who hadn’t experienced sexual abuse. To fund myself I’d long since sold my beloved Fat Boy, so when a local Harley dealership with a bums-in-seats sales strategy suggested I take one of their demos for a weekend to experience their new Milwaukee-Eight engine, I jumped at the opportunity. It was brilliant and I couldn’t believe they’d retained the authentic Harley feeling with a new, incredibly balanced powerful motor. I hadn’t ridden for a while, so I used their gift travelling the back roads along our coastline to attend outlying meetings. That weekend I managed to join my bike club for Sunday lunch, and I managed to get to ten meetings. The feeling of being of service can be extraordinarily seductive. But before going to bed that Sunday evening the combination of riding, catching up with club mates, and being of service, had me reeling with wave after wave of pure unadulterated joy as I’d never experienced before.

On the other hand, I needed help. I’d visited every meeting within a hundred-kilometre radius of Cape Town. It was still early days, but I hadn’t found a leader. One of the two women who had initially asked me, first looked into starting an invitation-only, exclusively female group instead. I completely understood and was pretty encouraged to have a potential meeting to refer women to. Then they both changed direction and decided to offer their service to support the supervision of a much-needed Al-Anon/ Alateen group for teenagers living with an alcoholic.

I was working eighteen-hour days, and between producing the best design work I’d done in my career and more than eighty per cent of my time focused on being of service, I wasn’t taking care of myself. I was already sponsoring way too many men. After discussing it with my sponsor, and a few failed attempts to connect her with a female member, I additionally found myself in the uncomfortable position of sponsoring a young woman – and a second woman shortly after. My sponsor simply asked, ‘Who do you think sponsored the first woman to walk through the doors of AA?’

Cape Town’s drug treatment facilities target and attract a substantial number of foreign patients. I’d had a few who, after I suggested they discuss my intention with their treatment counsellor – and yet another call with my sponsor – committed to getting through all Twelve Steps before they finished their inpatient treatment and returned to their country of origin. Here again, according to my sponsor, that’s kind of exactly what the original one hundred members of Alcoholics Anonymous used to do. They’d target potential alcoholics who were in detox and get them through the program while still detoxing, so they could pass the message on to the next patient that entered the detox ward.

Pushing that aside, I wasn’t keeping up and I wasn’t sure of the right way forward. All that I was sure about was an incredible need. I wasn’t sure if survivors wanted to sit in a meeting to talk about what happened. It seemed a little easier to encourage them to attend a meeting of Adult Child, where they could retain their anonymity as survivors and still work the program – just like I had and others before me. Nevertheless, most seemed to trust me and wanted to stay connected. Others felt more comfortable and a lot safer simply messaging me their personal story. Trying to honour their bravery over several weeks and several volumes of text messages, which often included their entire life story, was difficult for me to manage on a phone app. I knew that I had to find support – or another way that worked.

During this process, I was offered consolation space with the oldest drug treatment facility in Cape Town which was started by a medical doctor with a powerful message of personal recovery from addiction to drugs. Over the past twenty years, the treatment industry of Cape Town had boomed. Primarily because a parent could send their child and anyone seeking treatment could get nine months or more of the equivalent professional help for the cost of twenty-eight days in a facility in Europe, the UK, and I’m assuming the USA.

Then Vernon arranged for me to meet with the pastor from a local evangelical church group that he’d recently partnered with to develop a leadership program for high-school kids. This pastor knew what he was doing, he’d founded and built what was quite possibly the largest evangelical church in Cape Town. They had the right infrastructure and knew how to attract government and substantial private sector funding. Even though Tradition
Seven suggests ‘Every A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions,’ historically, Alcoholics Anonymous had initially accepted funding from the Rockefeller Foundation for the original printing and distribution of AA’s first Blue Book. I’d recently held meetings with two up-and-coming start-ups whose owners I’d known since they were children and they had offered their expertise to establish an interactive website. Another activist friend from the eighties who was still well connected with the current government, legal, and business communities had taken an interest in raising the needed funds. So, I thought it would be brilliant if the pastor would use his resources to raise funds for the interactive website we had in mind and which we thought could be the modern equivalent of AA’s Blue Book. I thought it could be a medium where a newcomer would feel a lot safer, and where other survivors with Twelve Step experience would be willing to share the solutions they’d found and what worked for them.

I needed to clear my head and Vernon had, out of an abundance of concern, set up a meeting with the pastor. After the pastor had left, Vernon stayed for another coffee. He let me know that I was in danger of alienating myself from my home group, which we both knew I couldn’t afford to do. Still, I’d chosen to dump all over him. Vernon told me I was starting to piss off some of the members of our AA homegroup. I didn’t react well, letting rip about how everyone is aware of just how difficult it is to get members to be of service. I’d personally found that it was worse than the eighty-twenty ratio in business, where eighty per cent of the work is done by fewer than twenty per cent of the staff. And I let him know that just about every call I got was from a survivor who would first need to get help with their addiction or their alcohol problem.

It had been time-consuming and frustrating trying to find help: to get a member to sponsor someone new, to join me for a Twelve Step call, meet with potential newcomers at a safe venue before their first meeting, or for that matter to find a member willing to give someone from their neighbourhood a ride to their next meeting. Thankfully, Vernon worked out most mornings at the gym attached to our complex and he’d often stop by for a cup of coffee, so I’d pretty soon get an opportunity to apologize.

I needed some space to think, so I headed for the Newlands forest, one of my favourite places where I used to regularly walk our dogs. I love the sound of flowing water, so I’d invariably follow a stream up the eastern slopes of Table Mountain, winding my way to one of several vantage points that offer exquisite views stretching from the city out across the flats to the Hottentot Mountain range. Following the stream I’d seldom encounter other hikers, so I could meditate as I walked, pray out loud, or even chant – something I’m still somewhat uncomfortable doing. In the 1800s much of the indigenous forest was felled, and the fynbos was cleared to make way for commercial pine plantations. However, I’d still find endangered Peninsula Granite Fynbos, the iconic Pincushion Proteas, clusters of striking Silver trees and an incredible array of daisy species.

This is where I usually felt a little bit more connected, and where I felt at peace. But not that day. My usual practice of taking my time, silently praying as I walked, or stopping to meditate with my feet cooling off in the stream, wasn’t working, so I decided to push myself and see how fast I could get up the side of the mountain.
Even though Vernon had softened his comment with, ‘They’re just jealous of you and your service,’ I was pissed off. I wondered if it hadn’t come from the same annoying old-timers who always tried to sound profoundly spiritual and who had to share at every meeting they attended – even though I’d recently been doing the same and taking up space I believed should be reserved for newcomers who initially struggled to share. I knew that I was wrong, but I couldn’t help thinking that something hadn’t worked whenever anyone with five years or more of sobriety still needed to share every time. I needed to remember that these old-timers had kept the doors open for me, and while I might have heard their story a hundred times or more the newcomer hadn’t – and the old-timers certainly knew what to share.

Next, I tore into my ex-wives, regurgitating old resentments I thought I’d worked through. Then I questioned God about why I’d been asked to write when He knew from my very first year of school that I had a problem. While my classmates could read, I didn’t get it. And to this day, I still can’t understand phonics or why words are spelt the way they are. Why me, when if I accept the statistics that I’ve looked at, there must be over six-hundred million other men to choose from who’ve been through the same thing as me? Surely, there must be someone among them with a more compelling story and who is better equipped to write? How
about a journalist or a novelist? Practically anyone with a bit of writing experience would be more qualified than me.

I was about to ask ‘And just where were you when I was besieged by headaches and depression?’ when I realized I’d almost reached Maclear’s Beacon, the highest point on Table Mountain, and I needed to get back. Blaming and venting may well be a healthy part of grieving, but this felt more like wallowing in self-pity. Which reminded me of a comic book joke I’d appreciated as a teenager. It’s a cartoon drawing of a shotgun wedding, where the bride looks like she’s about to pop out triplets and the groom questions, ‘Why me Lord?’ only to have the hand of God crash through the rafters to splat him and answer, ‘Because you irritate me!’ And I was starting to irritate myself.

On any other day, it would have been brilliant to walk along the top to the cable station and enjoy the views of the city and the Atlantic seaboard. This time I still had a considerable amount of correspondence to attend to before collecting Matthew and his wife for their next meeting. As I bounded down the mountain, I wondered if my reaction wasn’t about my insecurities and my need to feel better about myself – or my possible need to feel superior. I can all too often be highly critical of others and even harsher with myself. Like most rational individuals, I don’t usually voice my opinion or send that email till I’ve had a chance to calm down. It’s usually a good indicator that I need to be a lot kinder to myself.
With that in mind, I chose to do a gratitude list on my way down: I’m grateful for my health, the headaches have gone and the depression has lifted; I have my children and Jeremy regularly calls; I personally know three parents who have tragically lost their children, whereas I may still have a chance of someday restoring my relationship with Samuel; I have a few special old friends and I’ve recently made some new ones; I have enough for another two or three months and Fran has turned out to be the marketing assistant that I’d always been searching for; the business has a few potential deals lined up, any one of which would cover my new budget for at least another year; I have a program that works; I have a sponsor and I’m sponsoring others; I feel like I have purpose and meaning. I mentally signed off my list, as I usually did with, Thank You, Thank You.

I felt a lot better and yes, I’d over-reacted to the criticism from my homegroup. I was struggling with being kinder to myself while doing my best to carry a message to others that they are not alone, and being in the forest where I used to walk our dogs had triggered an overwhelming sense of being over-exposed and so utterly alone.

ANONYMITY
Sharing about my childhood was not something I ever wanted to do, and in my opinion it simply didn’t gel with the primary purpose of most Twelve Step fellowships. Tradition Six reads ‘Each group has but one primary purpose – to carry the message to the alcoholic/addict who still suffers.’ However, there are several readings on the subject of abuse that can be found in the literature from Al-Anon Adult Child and Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA), where it felt a little more appropriate to share. Initially, when first confronted with flashbacks, I’d inappropriately blurt out to friends and work colleagues, and unfortunately even my children knew about some of what was going on for me. Following this, I withdrew. My last meeting with Kathy had reopened that door. But I could no longer afford to see her, so it was brilliant having these smaller meetings to attend where if the topic for the day was sexual abuse, it felt a lot safer to share.

Perhaps it was purely coincidental, but it always surprised me that almost everyone I’d sponsored had some trauma from their childhood that needed to be worked through. And it happened again when Ryan from my Greenmarket Square meeting asked if he could speak to me. After several relapses, he’d been ostracised by his family and was living on the streets. Whenever I hear someone’s childhood story, my first thought is almost always This is so awful, how am I ever going to relate? Then after reminding myself that my only function is to listen, it usually doesn’t take too long before I realize I invariably can relate. With Ryan, it was very different. His story was just too close to mine, and it triggered all my memories from when I was eight. Ryan was only ten when his older brother started sexually abusing him. In my case, I could leave and go home to ask for help. Ryan couldn’t, and he didn’t know to ask for help.

Addicted and homeless, the only one left he could depend on for the occasional handout was his older brother who’d abused him, and he could no longer live with that. He’d previously tried to kill himself and according to him, like everything else in his life, he’d even fucked that up. He’d taken the last handout he’d ever need from his brother and had enough of his drug of choice to ensure that he could and would succeed with this one last thing. He’d attended the meeting essentially as a way of saying goodbye and asked me to buy him a cup of coffee because he wanted someone to know and believe his story. I told him I did because something similar had happened to me, not with an older brother but a friend’s brother who I guess represented an older brother to me. I told him I’d be willing to share my story another time, however right now my story didn’t matter. Then I asked, ‘As harsh this might sound, right now, in this moment, I need to know if you want to live or not.’

Cape Town has a few options available to someone in Ryan’s position. There’s a seven-to-ten-day detox facility out in the northern suburbs that is specifically designed to help heroin addicts, but it took about a week to arrange. So I suggested that he first voluntarily admit himself to one of two hospitals that I knew accepted addicts to their psychiatric ward. Despite my best effort, I couldn’t persuade him.
The best I could get Ryan to agree to was to meet me at a designated spot of his choice three times a day and I’d get him to morning, lunchtime, and evening meetings for the next thirty days. Nowadays, most members of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, myself included, are introduced to the fellowships while still in treatment at one of Cape Town’s many rehab facilities but it wasn’t always like that. Treatment facilities simply didn’t exist when two alcoholics first got together in 1934 to develop a program and a voluntary association through which one alcoholic could best help another alcoholic recover from the disease of alcoholism.

I wasn’t sure if this last option would work. I would have preferred if he’d chosen to check himself in. I’m not a professional and couldn’t draw from my own experience. Yes, after my relapse I didn’t go to rehab – I first cleaned up at home, which was not the best idea. And a month later I rejoined the program and followed the suggested ninety meetings in ninety days. Yet, despite my gratitude, commitment, and belief in these Twelve Step programs, I still wasn’t sure whether I was stuck cycling through them. Over time, I’d sponsored a number of addicts and taken them through the program, though in my own opinion I’d never truly completed a proper Step One – ‘How it works: Step One – We admitted we were powerless over our addiction – that our lives had become unmanageable.’ In Cape Town, as with most large cities around the world, we can attend three to five meetings a day and I’d met enough members of Narcotics Anonymous for whom treatment hadn’t been an option. Addicts who had hit a rock bottom similar to that of Ryan’s and who managed to get clean by initially telling themselves that whether they’ve used or not, they only have to make it to the next meeting. They’d get a sponsor, work the program, and most of them had significantly changed their lives for the better.

Ryan showed up from Tuesday evening to Friday lunchtime, then disappeared before the AA convention that I’d hoped we’d attend together – an entire Saturday of meetings that included the family fellowships of Al-Anon and Adult Child, and the members of Alcoholics Anonymous. I believe in these programs, what’s not to be believed? AA has been successfully helping alcoholics recover from addiction to alcohol since 1935. Al-Anon has successfully supported families and friends who are worried about someone with a drinking problem for more than sixty-four years, and the same applies to Narcotics Anonymous – adapted from AA in 1953 – and its comparable family fellowship of Nar-Anon started several years later in 1971. You may like these programs and you may not. You could also have at some point attended meetings and found that it wasn’t for you. Recently, there have been several reports on the undeniable success of policies adopted over the past twenty years by both the Swiss and Portuguese governments, who legitimized previously banned substances and replaced incarceration with supportive policies that encouraged integration. Well, in my opinion, that’s exactly what Alcoholics Anonymous started doing over eighty years ago, and it has been successfully adopted by a variety of other groups. At its core, it’s a simple but powerful message – you are not alone.

On my way to the convention, I started sobbing uncontrollably and I wasn’t sure who or what I was crying about. I wasn’t sure if I was crying for Ryan whose story was just too close to mine? Or the brave, damaged little girl who was my recently departed mother? Or because I was simply missing my children? I accepted that it was probably all of the above. Feeling a touch raw, I got through chairing a meeting with Al-Anon Adult Child, a little self-conscious about my bloodshot eyes. I didn’t share how I was feeling and I didn’t want to speak about Ryan, possibly because I didn’t want to start a discussion about sexual abuse which wasn’t the day’s topic. But most likely because I didn’t want to hear ‘You can carry the message, but not the alcoholic.’ In Ryan’s case, it would be ‘You can’t carry the addict.’

I’d heard this message repeatedly and it never felt comfortable. In my first year of recovery, Angela, a receptionist that worked in our business, knocked on my door looking for a place to sleep. I took her in and while she slept, I thought I’d better call my sponsor. As a recovering heroin addict now working in the recovery industry, he knew quite a bit about Angela’s story. Angela had been cycling through the revolving doors of the rehab industry for many years. After yet another relapse, her parents were told that they were enabling their daughter’s addiction and were advised to take a new tough-love approach. To potentially save her life, they’d have to cut her off; she could no longer spend a single night in her room, and no matter how desperate she might become, they were never to help her again in any way, shape, or form – and that had to include the occasional handout. I’m told that more often than not, this approach works; that without a safety net the addict will decide they want to live and finally start to take responsibility for their own recovery. This was in my first year and I couldn’t begin to imagine having to cut off one of my children. I guess my sponsor knew I wouldn’t understand when he told me I should immediately get her to leave if I didn’t want to get robbed of anything that could easily be exchanged for cash. He added that if I cared about her I should tell her if she wanted help she could get herself to a meeting or she could go suck her dealers dick. I didn’t listen to him and after a few hours of sleep, Angela left of her own accord without stealing a thing. Later I thought my sponsor was probably right – that as a parent, I should have backed her parent’s unbelievably difficult decision and we were probably fortunate not to have had anything stolen.

However, this broad-brush application of the idea that we cannot or should not carry the addict didn’t quite gel with what I’d been recently hearing about the first one hundred from my new sponsor. After my relapse, I’d intentionally chosen my new sponsor because of his years of service at both national and regional levels and because when he relapsed, after more than twenty-five years of sobriety and service to Alcoholics Anonymous, he asked me to be his sponsor. That said, he was passionate about AA’s history and he loved sharing stories about the founders and the original one hundred members. Back in those days, these guys would take active alcoholics into their own homes. They’d get them cleaned up, walk them through the program, find them jobs, and do whatever was necessary to help the newcomer – including keeping a bottle of whisky at hand to deal with their shakes so the newcomer could make it through his next meeting.

With the advent and growth of the addiction treatment industry, a lot has changed since 1935. As members of AA or NA, we rarely get involved with the detox process, and in a way it’s a relief to not have to take in strangers and clean up after them. Most of this is now taken care of by treatment facilities before they are introduced to meetings. All the same, I can’t ignore the first paragraph of Bill W.’s speech in 1955 at the St Louis Convention that would become AA’s legacy of service. For those who aren’t familiar with the origins of all Twelve Step programs, it was founded by Bill W. and Doctor Bob. At the celebration of AA’s 20th birthday, Doctor Bob was already gone, but Bill W. spoke for him and all the pioneers, turning over to all of us the responsibility for AA’s continuation and growth. He opened with ‘Our Twelfth Step – carrying the message – is the basic service that the AA Fellowship gives; this is our principal aim and the main reason for our existence. Therefore, AA is more than a set of principles; it is a society of alcoholics in action. We must carry the message, else we ourselves can wither and those who haven’t been given the truth may die.’

I need to be clear; I’m not opposed to treatment centres and the valuable service they provide. However, I am concerned that in some way we might be in danger of losing our way and in the process, losing ourselves. Needless to say, treatment is an option only available to those who can afford it. For someone like Ryan, there’s a brilliant state-sponsored seven-to-ten-day detox program which addiction centres often use prior to admitting the addict to their facility. I felt confident that after his initial observation we’d get Ryan transferred to detox, after which we could walk him through his first thirty days and then hand him over to the fellowship to complete his ninety days. I tried but failed to get him to voluntarily admit himself, and I was left with the lingering and awful question of whether I could or should have done more.

AA’S MINI CONVENTION
I’d usually leave a convention feeling lighter and inspired. This time I wasn’t in the best headspace when two long-standing members, one from Al-Anon and the other from Adult Child, asked me to consider starting a Twelve Step meeting specifically for survivors of childhood sexual abuse. It wasn’t something I was interested in because I didn’t believe it was something a man should attempt, and because I felt I was already doing my bit. The two were female, and they had way more experience than I – one had close to thirty years serving at a regional level. I was feeling overwhelmed and was afraid my writing, which I was far from finished, had extracted too high a toll: emotionally, personally, and financially. So I put the ball back in their court by suggesting that something similar must have been started somewhere. I suggested they google the info and I’d willingly support the process by committing to regularly attend any meeting they were able to get started.

I’d gotten my story down. Even so, while I’d estimated and budgeted for two years, I’d been giving it my all for six and a half years and it still wasn’t ready. It simply wasn’t sequential or coherent enough to hand over to an editor who would hopefully weave some of their magic into it. I felt certain it was going to take another two rewrites, possibly more. I had confidently started, believing that all I needed to get the job done was to find a competent ghost-writer. In reality it was too personal, so a ghost-writer didn’t work too well. I put myself through a creative writing course, attended additional workshops, and employed a retired professor of literature to mentor, guide, oversee, comment, and make suggestions. Even so, I was plagued by self-doubt, and I simply couldn’t dispel the feeling that I was dishonouring my parents and whining about my ex-wives. If I’m kind to myself, delving into and living in the past was just too painful. To avoid the pain I kept deflecting myself, thinking I needed to do more research. I found myself spending an incredible amount of time reading everything I could download or get my hands on. Subjects covered included recovered memories, traumatic amnesia, false memory syndrome, post-partum depression, narcissism, borderline personality disorder, self-victimization, chronic fatigue syndrome, and so on. As the years rolled by and the losses piled up, I became more afraid and increasingly questioned the spiritual experiences that set me on this path.

For a while, I turned to science in an attempt to validate if what I’d experienced was at all possible. That decision took me down a rabbit hole of everything from the neutrino – little neutral one in Italian – to wormholes, parallel universes, the Higgs boson particle, modern physics, quantum mechanics, and the superposition principle – which says particles can interact with each other across hundreds of miles, be in two places at once, or be still and in motion at the same time. I went on to explore dimensions and neuroscience where scientists and spiritualists alike have attempted to define consciousness and the question that has vexed philosophers and scientists for centuries: does time really exist, is time an illusion and is time simply another dimension? Learning that the content of the universe was 4.6% atoms, but 72% dark energy and 23% dark matter, intrigued me. And listening to renowned scientists proclaim that my body was constructed with elements that had arrived from different parts of the universe and existed before the beginning of time, and would continue their existence to the end of time, fascinated me. At times, I thought I understood some pretty complex equations. But in reality, I knew there truly wasn’t a lot that I could follow, and I was aware that I was potentially cherry-picking bits of info that allowed me to continue believing what I needed to believe. In this process of avoidance, I amassed more than ten thousand pages of medical papers, scientific articles of interest, research notes, and summations. And despite my best efforts to categorize them, when I needed to find or reference something, I was often lost.

I’d failed to make a difference for Ryan, but I’m not arrogant enough to believe that I can save everyone – and I’d had my successes. In early recovery, when I’d completed the Steps with my sponsor, it was suggested that I say yes to anyone who asked me to be their sponsor. Oddly enough, Grant, Aida’s current husband, was the only one I had declined. To be honest, he hadn’t asked – his girlfriend had asked for him – but if he had I probably would have agreed. In the main, the suggestion works because most newcomers who ask are unfortunately never heard from again. At times it did get out of hand, and I discovered that I can’t effectively sponsor more than five at any given time. So while I felt especially devastated by Ryan’s disappearance, I could take heart from the knowledge that I’d been privileged to have played a role in the successful recovery of a number of individuals.

One, whose success I could always lean on at times like this, was a young man who was still in treatment when his addiction counsellor called and asked me to sponsor him. Both his father and his older brother had committed suicide when he was still a kid, and he was left to be raised by a mother who suffered from schizophrenia. At times, in the middle of the night she’d grab a knife from the kitchen and try to kill him in his bed. The damage was evident for anyone to see, there was hardly a bit of exposed skin that was not covered by welt-sized scars from where he used to cut himself. His counsellor had called on his behalf because he struggled with the worst case of stuttering that I’d ever encountered, so couldn’t ask for himself. He worked his program and I was privileged to meet with him weekly for the next four years, and this beautiful young man made it to the cover of
Men’s Health. I’m not trying to take credit for his recovery: as I said, he did the work. But he was particularly disappointed when I relapsed, more than anyone else.

A NEW DIRECTIVE
That Sunday evening after the mini-convention I’d gone to bed wondering what the hell happened. I had thought the only real challenge to writing my book would be how much I was willing to share. Other than that, it should have been a relatively easy process that would involve employing an experienced ghost-writer and an editor. Yet I’d ended up utterly alone, consumed by an endless quest to understand and incapable of completing the task on my own. I’d mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and financially bankrupted myself. While I had imagined I’d be setting an example of service I hoped my children might follow, I’d damaged and potentially permanently lost my most treasured relationships. Meanwhile God, who had profoundly called me and who I trusted to have my back, hadn’t spoken to me again and appeared decidedly missing in action.

My friend Stan’s eldest daughter Fran had recently been in touch. As an aspiring theatre actor, she’d been supplementing her income freelancing for an interior design business. After they’d successfully delivered their first exhibition stand for one of their regular retail chains, they were looking to explore the potential of the trade show and exhibition industry. The owner John initially suggested that our two businesses collaborate. After a relatively short period of fewer than three weeks, he asked me if I’d be interested in taking over from him. He was seven years my senior and for several reasons, he needed to retire. It wasn’t perfect – nothing ever is – but it was a solid offer from a decent guy with an interesting set-up that was not too dissimilar to what I was accustomed to. It should have been an easy decision to make. Only, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get back into the business or if I even could.

I hadn’t finished what I’d started, but I was also so burnt out that I was finding it hard to construct a single coherent paragraph or even a sentence at times. Before turning in for the night I signed off my journal as I usually did, with a prayer, ‘I don’t know what to do – I’m too invested, and I don’t want to feel like I’ve failed. I also desperately need to start making some money again. Help please – I need direction.’ Ever since Samuel left, I’d been pleading for direction and I hadn’t gotten any answers yet. I kept telling myself to have faith, that there was a plan I wasn’t privy to, and to get on with it and just do the best I could.

The next morning, I was awoken by someone whispering in my ear, ‘You are exactly where I want you to be!’ I rubbed my eyes and glanced at my bedside clock to see it was only two-thirty. I was about to pull the duvet back over my head when the statement was repeated. In my room stood a particularly beautiful, middle-aged Indian woman draped with a brightly coloured gold and red sari, with gold bangles and the traditional red dot. In Hinduism, the bindi mark worn by married women is often viewed as the third eye. I was captivated – she was quite possibly the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on. I don’t know to describe these encounters, the best I can come up with is there’s a sense of wholeness, meaning, and purpose. Possibly because I was vaguely familiar with darshan, she appeared as light.

She never said a word, yet somehow, in what couldn’t have lasted more than a minute, I received so much. I often beat myself up when I kept deflecting by doing more research, but she showed me that my perceived avoidance was actually what I was meant to be doing. Attempting to simplify and improve the flow of my story, I’d been removing the bulk of research from the main body of my book. Even so, it was the summarized research, together with the volumes of literature from the various Twelve Step fellowships that I’d been privileged to be a part of, that I ultimately needed. For now, I had to set aside my own story and focus on preparing the basics for a new voluntary association: a new Twelve Step program designed to help survivors recover from the lasting effects of their abuse. I had to visit all known Twelve Step meetings to look for a female leader who I could support, and I needed to have faith. The next day, I called John to decline his offer, but as we had a few promising deals pending, we could simply continue as originally planned.

GIRLFRIEND
I had to wait for another year to pass before I got a second opportunity to see Samuel again. In a somewhat frantic call for help, Samuel asked if I could urgently meet him at his girlfriend’s home. He’d argued with his mother, and she’d apparently gone nuts. On the way I got more info: after their argument he’d temporarily moved in with a friend, and to get back at him she’d called his girlfriend’s parents and made an appointment to see them – I’ve paraphrased because I’m not entirely sure of the exact words he used. Under normal circumstances, it would be nice to imagine that divorced parents would understand that arguments will erupt and trust that the other would sort it out. Or, if needed and if we had a semblance of communication, we could simply discuss whatever was going on. But there was nothing normal about my divorced parental relationship with Aida. I was uncomfortable because I was pretty sure that my presence would only serve to aggravate the situation. But frankly, after having waited so long to hear from Samuel he’d called and asked for my help – and nothing else mattered.

I briefly got to meet his first girlfriend while Samuel brought me up to speed. When Samuel didn’t respond to having his car and phone taken away and after he was denied access to collect his clothes and personal items, Aida – despite having never met the girl’s parents before – called the mother to arrange an urgent meeting. I arrived a few minutes before their scheduled meeting. Uncertain of Aida’s next move they anticipated that she, together with her husband Grant, would lie about Samuel – and they wanted me to be there as a character witness. Well, that was the sum total of the info I could gleam before her father intervened to avoid an incident on his doorstep. My first impression – which was all I had time for – was of a polite salt-of-the-earth reasonably successful family man. After our hurried introduction, he suggested that I remain out of sight while he and his wife handled the situation. I thanked him for being there for Samuel and, feeling like I was bungling my words, I attempted to let him know that I’d raised Samuel. I told him I’d kept a journal, and if he wanted to know anything about this magnificent young man, I’d always make myself available.

As requested, I waited out of sight around the corner at a local garage. Unfortunately, Aida and Grant saw me as I was leaving. I didn’t mind waiting, but I was confused and becoming more concerned as the hours dragged by. It was a little short of four hours before I was called. Samuel and his girlfriend met me out front and I wasn’t invited in. He was visibly shaken, and rather hurriedly informed me that the most bizarre first meeting of their respective parents had turned into a rant about me and what a terrible husband and human being I’d been. They both hastened to reassure me that they didn’t believe what had been said about me because Aida and Grant had also blatantly lied about Samuel and his girlfriend. Grant, in the role of protective husband, had taken the lead in informing them about my abusive personality because it was apparently too painful for Aida to verbalise.

I can’t imagine what Samuel, his girlfriend, or this wholesome family who’d never met me, must have thought. I wasn’t too surprised by Aida’s projection of her aggressive behaviour onto me. However, I was disturbed by the details they’d concocted and what they were willing to share. I was not only verbally and physically abusive, but also a sexual deviant who’d forced Aida to participate in group sex against her expressed objections. And it was just too much to hear Samuel awkwardly ask, ‘You didn’t do that did you, Dad?’

I didn’t get invited in, so I didn’t get to see her parents. I had to wonder, how does one defend oneself and just what the hell would I have to say? During our marriage, Aida and I had had a pretty ordinary sex life, and I could recall only one potentially embarrassing situation that we’d been involved in, which I’d written off in my journal as part of ‘the subtle erosion of my values.’ As requested, I sent Samuel everything I’d learned and summarised about Aida’s personality disorder. I suggested he read Randi Kreger’s two books Stop Walking on Eggshells and The Essential Family Guide to Borderline Personality Disorder, both of which were written with a more compassionate approach to the disorder. As an alternative, I additionally sent him a link to Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, who in my opinion takes more of a run-for-your-life approach.

A few days later Samuel emailed me to let me know that his girlfriend’s parents had sided with Aida and he no longer needed the scooter I had repaired for him. I suggested he thank her parents for being there for him, and to try and understand that parents are expected to support each other. I don’t know what their argument was about. I never asked and I wasn’t told. We’d also had our fights, which Kathy explained as primordial young-bull, old-bull head butting and said were an important developmental phase. Even though I knew it was important to push back, our arguments always left me conflicted and somewhat upset. Sadly, I suspected that his relationship wouldn’t survive what her conservative parents had been exposed to because it’s hard to believe that a parent isn’t acting with their child’s best interests at heart. Equally, I needed to accept that society should listen to women who all too often struggle to speak about their abuse. Just what was I supposed to think about someone who thinks nothing of using the pain of others, including what my grandmother silently endured, to protect themselves from being exposed for who and what they really are. Aida seldom surprised me, but this time she had. Knowing just how much Aida valued her privacy, she surprised me with just how far she was willing to go.

ALTERNATIVE REALITY
Another birthday and another Father’s Day passed without hearing from Samuel. It hurt so much that I’d get a knot between my shoulder blades that simply couldn’t release. I understood that after the last argument he must be under incredible pressure to prove his loyalty. However, it felt like I was being physically punished. When Samuel called, I wasn’t sure if they’d had a minor disagreement or if they were at war again – before remembering there is no such thing as a minor disagreement with Aida. Strangely, he needed to know how long he’d lived with me. It all sounded like Aida was attempting to rewrite history by suggesting he’d only been in my care for a relatively short period when she had been having trouble with Martin. I wasn’t sure about giving him the information he needed. If they were arguing, even documented court records wouldn’t change her thinking. It would only subject Samuel to unrelenting twists and turns of the truth, accompanied by bouts of rage, until he agreed with her version of events and apologized profusely for not believing her in the first place.

Aida might have wanted to present an alternate set of facts. Out of pure necessity, I’d carefully dated and categorized all our correspondence, including our messages and emails, letters from attorneys and all their emails, and copies of all court documents. I’d also maintained a ledger of all child-support payments with attached copies of bank statements. For many, it might sound a touch obsessive. However, I never knew when, or for what reason, I’d end up back in a courtroom trying to defend myself. I had all the detailed evidence, and the truth was that she’d never taken care of him, not from the very first day he was born. While we were married, it was an au pair’s job to take care of the kids and I’d be balled out for wanting to spend time with them. Even taking ten minutes to read Ellen a bedtime story could easily erupt into an argument that would last all night.

We separated in April of 2000 shortly before Samuel’s third birthday. Then, according to an affidavit signed and submitted by Aida in a later court case, for the next sixteen months I had both Ellen and Samuel for eight out of fourteen days of every two-week cycle. This arrangement continued until nine days before Ellen’s eighth birthday when she was painfully removed. Our arrangement was changed in October of 2001 through a letter from Aida’s attorney, in which I was given de facto custody of Samuel. In March of 2002, when Samuel was only four years old, he was abducted by Aida. I lost an urgent application with the High Court for his return pending an investigation. Fortunately, he was returned six months later. Those six months represented the only time Samuel was not in my care.

Two months after Samuel’s sixth birthday, on July 31, 2003, the High Court of South Africa granted me full legal custody of Samuel. I couldn’t have made access any easier, yet despite our best effort to accommodate almost all of Aida’s requests she barely made any effort to see Samuel for the next six years, until she left Martin for Grant. I don’t need to say more because I have already gone through those details – but barring those six awful months, Samuel had always been in my care. With their previous argument Samuel was expected to believe that I was physically and sexually abusive, and now what? After more than seventeen years of me filling both parental roles, Samuel was now expected to pretend that I hadn’t been there, or perhaps Aida would like him to believe that I had never existed at all?

I thought he deserved to have a copy of his own history. So, I compiled a dated summary, added copies of all the important legal documents, and sent it to him to keep. In a way, I felt proud he was attempting to stand up to his mother, while at the same time I felt duty-bound to warn him that confronting her with the facts simply wasn’t worth it and wouldn’t change a thing. Naturally, I was concerned, because I knew that even a minor disagreement with Aida could easily escalate and bring out the very worst in her. In my experience, there are a number of reasons to avoid any argument with Aida. Firstly, she’s incapable of ever admitting fault, and on the rare occasions when she does it’s usually part of a strategy that’s meant to distract you or to get you to drop your guard. Secondly, facts, including affidavits signed by Aida herself, will not change her new narrative which she expects everyone to believe. Thirdly, trying to pacify Aida doesn’t work. With Aida, if you pivot to consider her perspective it will only lead to an endless litany of admissions that you’ll be expected to make, and the more you concede, the angrier and more resentful she will get – ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ or even an outright admission of guilt: ‘You know what, I’m wrong, I’m so sorry, I’ll do better next time.’ – it’s never enough.

The best advice I could think of was to suggest that he didn’t engage, and wherever possible do his best to politely walk away. But I also knew that when Aida wanted to discuss something she was unhappy about, she’s incredibly hard to avoid. And there is also her behaviour you have no alternative but to confront for your own sanity: nothing, including you, is ever enough or good enough for Aida; the subtle erosion of your values where you must draw a line; the endless lies and the infuriating flip of projecting her own behaviour on you so you stand accused of the very things that she’s been up to; her insistence on absolute loyalty to the exclusion of all others; and the bulling and relentless raging used to enforce compliance to her will. I reminded Samuel to read the books I’d previously suggested and to remember that his mother wasn’t well. And I reminded him that she’s reacting out of a perpetual, heightened state of fear.

NOT HEARING
Perhaps I went too far. I’d given Samuel everything I could think of that I hoped would help, but it could have been too much. I didn’t hear from Samuel for another few years and I was stuck with so many unanswered questions that I could only speculate about. It could be that Samuel had decided he no longer wanted to have anything to do with either of us, or he could be going through a healthy rejection-of-the-mother phase – which, as far as I was concerned, meant me. Or perhaps Samuel was seeing something in his mother that I was not privy to. Just maybe she had made an effort to change. For his sake, I certainly hoped so. He may have read the books I’d suggested, done some more research of his own and decided, without being manipulated by his mother, that he’d be the person who’d always be there for her. If anyone should be able to understand his decision, well then, that person would be me.

I was going around in circles and not getting any answers that made sense. Until I read ‘We are almost always in collision with something or somebody, even though our motives are good.’ from page sixty of AA’s Big Book, the source document for all Twelve Step programs. I was in a lot of pain, and if I wanted that to change I’d need to re-calibrate my thinking. And the only thing I knew that worked was to look for my part in what had happened. For thirty-two years, being a parent was not only the biggest job of my life: it was my identity. I’d sacrificed and made an incredible effort to be the best parent I could, and that won me the legal right to take care of my children. But I’d changed paths. I can say that from the day I first got sick, it no longer felt like I was in charge, or that I had a choice, and I never believed it would negatively affect my children. However, we always do have a choice. And while I believe that I continued to prioritize my role as a parent, I had to ask myself if I was the main reason Samuel wanted or needed to go to his mother?

LETTING GO
After selling our home, I attempted to maintain the standard of living that Samuel was accustomed to. But I probably went too far and overcompensated. I thought I’d hidden most of what I’d been going through because I was there for all his activities, including those with his friends. But after Samuel asked his mother if he could move in, I wondered if I’d have been deluding myself about how much Samuel knew and how it was affecting him. On the other hand, it could have simply been that he wanted to make the most of his final year of high school by being closer to his circle of friends. But I couldn’t be sure.
For most of Samuel’s life, I’d relied on Kathy for guidance, so I encouraged Samuel to spend some time with her. After eight or nine weekly sessions with Kathy, she reported that he knew and understood what he might be in for, and she felt confident he’d be able to handle his mother. I trust Kathy implicitly and perhaps it was a poor choice of words, but I don’t think that anyone can learn to handle Aida. At seventeen, Samuel was already over six feet tall and physically a fully grown man. But then again, he was only seventeen and he’d always be my baby. However, the move was maybe in Samuel’s best interest. Kathy had always been concerned that Samuel would most likely be attracted to emotionally unavailable abusive personality types and that he’d probably experience a string of painful relationships before he discovered the reason why. However, if he spent a year with his mother, he might get this devastating pattern of attraction out of his system once and for all.

As a parent, there was nothing more important to me. My mother could have easily married one violent alcoholic after another. In marrying my father, she’d managed to break free from what should have been her core relationship theme. But I hadn’t been able to do the same. The best I’d managed to achieve was to quite quickly recognise I’d once again attracted the same personality type, then tell myself that it was time to leave. It wasn’t an ideal solution, and at times I felt desperately alone. However, for thirty-two years I’d had my children to focus on and that had always been more than enough for me. I felt extraordinarily lucky to have so much time with my children and thought I possibly needed them more than they needed me. Now, it looked like my days of being a parent were about to end and I wasn’t sure how I would cope.

Even Samuel’s personal request had previously been rejected by his mother. So, just how were we going to get Aida to take Samuel for a year when she’d never shown any interest in having him before – even for a short school holiday? I decided that the only way this could possibly work would be when Aida’s parents were in town. I’d pack up Samuel’s belongings and when they asked to see him I’d send all his things along with a note thanking Aida in advance for taking care of Samuel, while clearly stating that I was temporally unable to continue. But I had to ask, just how did I fuck up so badly for it to end up like this?
I was a relapse waiting to happen when a few months later Samuel got invited for Christmas and I simply couldn’t follow through with our plan. Instead of calling my sponsor, I screamed at the heavens proclaiming, ‘I’m not fucking Abraham.’ Then I got up to join the year-end party that was happening a few feet away from Samuel’s bedroom at the complex’s swimming pool.

The next thing I knew, I was being shaken awake by Samuel who happened to have Aida with him. Aida – who’d never been to our apartment before – walked into the remnants of the previous night’s party which happened to include a few half-naked bodies who hadn’t made it back to their own apartments. Fragmented, I couldn’t work out what Aida was doing there. She must have called for me to collect Samuel, and then decided to return him herself. Aida must have been shocked by what she walked into because she uncharacteristically offered to take care of Samuel for another two days if I returned him later that day. I’m not sure why she chose to leave him, but it did give me another opportunity to ask Samuel if he really wanted to spend a year with his mother and whether I should proceed with our plan. In my disoriented state, I heard Samuel tell his mother something along the lines of ‘This is how I had to live.’ In the fourteen years that he’d lived with me I’d never had a party at home, and I’d seldom brought someone home. But since we’d sold our house, I had been drinking a lot more than I was willing to admit. And I had to wonder if I’d been living in denial and was that really how Samuel felt?

However, Aida had never visited our home before so she wouldn’t know if I behaved like that regularly or not. Still, what she’d walked into, along with Samuel’s comment, could only add weight to the letter I’d prepared – it might even help convince Aida that I was unable to continue on my own. Which from my perspective now looked decidedly closer to the truth. I contacted a friend who helped me pack, and the next day I sent Samuel’s things together with the letter I’d written. But her parents must have already left, and Aida refused to allow the transport company to offload and threatened to call the police. Ultimately I had to involve Aida’s parents, and after discussing my situation with her father Aida agreed to take delivery of Samuel’s things. Despite knowing that I’d have to revisit my part in what happened and just how much my drinking may have affected Samuel, I felt was sure I’d acted in Samuel’s best interests. I knew it would be difficult for both of us, but I had no idea just how much I’d struggle to live with the decision that I made that day.

FINAL SESSION WITH KATHY
I’d relied on Kathy for most of Samuel’s life. Most of our weekly sessions had been about Aida and Samuel. But she’d also had helped me to work through my childhood memories, and she’d been there for me when I thought I was losing my mind. And wherever the opportunity presented itself, she did try to encourage me to open up about my mum. I was meant to take two years to recover, but two years had turned into four and instead of recovering I’d only gotten worse. I viewed the migraines, and the depression that followed, as part of a spiritual war being waged against me to stop me from completing what I’d been asked to do. I hadn’t got that job done yet and it’s not that I didn’t try. I invested a lot of time, money, and energy on an expensive ghost-writer before I realized that the story was far too personal and if it was ever going to be written, I’d have to learn how to do it myself. So no matter how I was feeling, I committed myself to a minimum of six hours a day researching, planning, and doing my best to write. As much as it hurt losing Samuel, I thought I was walking in faith. I thought that if I was ever going to get there, I’d have to substantially reduce my costs. With that in mind, I made a final appointment with Kathy.

After letting Kathy know I was going to have to stop seeing her for a while, the rest of our last session together consisted primarily of her reassuring me Samuel would be okay. He had a solid foundation, and he clearly understood what he was getting into. Then, when my time was up and we were busy saying our goodbyes, I blurted out, ‘I went back.’ seemingly out of nowhere. I’m not sure what possessed me, but to date I’d simply never been able to share what I suspect was the real source of my unwarranted shame. In all the years we’d spent together, I hadn’t said a word about it to Kathy. Nor had I included this crucial bit of information in any of my Step Fours or shared it with my sponsor. This session probably felt like my last chance to off-load in a safe environment, or possibly I was simply more comfortable with bumping the information and running.

So I finished what I’d started: ‘I went back, and it was only when Juno, Emilio’s younger brother who must have been seven at the time, asked me to have sex with him, that I never went back.’
It was my final session with Kathy and she wouldn’t get a chance to work with me on what I’d finally decided to reveal, so she emailed me her thoughts:
‘Desire is usually understood in an erotic sense. But desire, as an emotion, is a powerful force that spans our emotional landscape. We desire a home, we desire to be touched, to be acknowledged, to be loved; we desire to love. Perhaps the most powerful desire is the desire of the parent for the child. The mother’s desire for the child could be seen as the driving life force: to hold the child, to hear the child’s voice, to watch the child, to hold the child’s hand; to stroke the child, to carry the child.
‘That desire is so strong that the mother very often turns away from everyone else in her life. Many husbands speak of being bereft, abandoned: knowing and feeling that the mother is not wife or lover or even friend anymore, all her desire is directed towards her child. The child knows/feels it is desired. The child desires the desire and desires the mother. Much later it desires the father, but in a different way – it desires the father’s approval, teaching, and support. The father’s physical strength and touch.

‘The child who has not been desired seeks desire his/her whole life long. So often, the undesired child becomes the victim of sexual abuse – willingly so, returning to the abuser because however unpleasant the experience may be, at that moment he/she is desired. As desire is the force that keeps a child alive in an emotional, and very often physical sense, it is completely understandable that the child is compelled to return and seek out the one who desires him/her – even though that desire may be dangerous. The child is not able to distinguish between dangerous/inappropriate desire and the desire of appropriate love. Desire is a life force – the child, therefore seeks that life force.

‘Most children know instinctively that the erotic desire and the sexual abuse that accompanies it is wrong. The child, however, does not judge the abuser as wrong but only him/herself. The shame felt is directed at the self, and as the child grows older the blame is directed toward the self. The child struggles to understand why he/she returned – not understanding the pull of the emotion that was denied to them in babyhood, and therefore directing the anger to the self instead of the abuser.’

I don’t know why it took me so long. Intellectually I already knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that no child is ever to blame – and I was only eight years old at the time. But emotionally, that shameful feeling that I’d somehow been complicit just wouldn’t go away.

BACK TO WORKING THE PROGRAM
Unable to face the consequences of the mess I’d created, for the next two months I totally trashed myself. I found a using friend that I was supposedly taking care of, and in a way I was. But when she started experiencing bouts of psychosis, I knew that instead of helping I’d actually been enabling her addiction to spiral out of control. When I was first introduced to Narcotics Anonymous it was my confusion over how quickly I’d become addicted that kept me going back to meetings. In Kathy’s professional opinion, my unmanageable experience with drugs had been purely circumstantial and a part of me wanted to know if that was true. Though after another two months of suicidal binging I still didn’t know whether I was an addict or not, mostly because I can’t relate to whenever someone shares about finding some form of utopia the first time they were introduced to their drug of choice. Yes, I’m initially a lot more talkative, but I almost immediately feel so self-conscious that all I want to do is run and hide. But I can relate to part of the preamble that says, ‘We could not live and enjoy life as other people do,’ and that’s always been good enough for me.

Perhaps it was my ego, but I first cleaned up at home. Then after thirty days, it was back to doing ninety meetings in ninety days. I did my best to get up, show up, and shut up while listening to anything that I could relate to. I found a new sponsor who was passionate about the history of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I’d already re-worked Steps Four and Five with my new sponsor when I started having panic attacks. At first, I wasn’t sure what the hell was happening until I intuitively reached for a bag. I was taking it a day at a time and still managing to stay afloat. By working with freelance designers I was still securing the odd small deal and employing a crew from a halfway house for recovering addicts, and somehow we were able to deliver. I’m not an expert and I no longer had Kathy to ask, so I simply had to accept the panic attacks were a part of the consequences of either the pharmaceuticals I’d been prescribed, the illegal drugs I’d taken, or both.

SAMUEL’S FIRST YEAR AWAY
I hadn’t been able to get hold of Samuel for months. I’d emailed Aida and her husband separately to ask them if they could please encourage Samuel to make contact, to which Aida responded with a monstrously cruel, ‘He doesn’t want to see you.’
I’d been dealing with Aida for close to twenty years and I’d been through this before. I had been lucky enough to get Samuel back after six months, but I had to wait till Grant and Aida were in the honeymoon phase of their relationship before I briefly got to reconnect with Ellen. Still, I had hoped beyond reason they’d come to their senses and realise it’s seldom in a child’s best interest to be alienated from either one of their parents.

A few months later, I would get an opportunity to see Samuel, but not under the best of circumstances. I’d just finished an appointment at the dentist when I received a call from a sheriff who’d been asked to see if he could get hold of me before the court issued a warrant for my arrest. Aida had used a different court that I didn’t even know existed, but as it turned out I wasn’t too far away. When I arrived, I was surprised to see that Aida had brought Samuel with her, and as uncomfortable as it must have been for him it did give me an opportunity to ask him how he was doing and if he was okay.

Thankfully they contacted me because, unbeknown to me, Aida had been up to her old tricks. I knew from past experience that if it was possible, Aida wouldn’t hesitate to have me thrown in jail. And I guess she was also hoping for another default judgement that would once again entitle her to attack whatever assets I had. Surprisingly, the magistrate assigned our case wasn’t too impressed to discover that Aida had fraudulently used our original divorce order as the basis for claiming unpaid child support. Even though I knew I had the law on my side I couldn’t help feeling like a delinquent, so I asked if I could quickly collect my file from home. I wanted to prove to the court, and Samuel, that while there wasn’t an order in place to compel me, I was effectively continuing to financially support Samuel by not pestering Aida for the money she still legally owed me. But I didn’t have to, because it only took another two questions – which Aida struggled to answer – for the magistrate to realise what Aida had tried to get away with and what she very nearly did. She’d once again attempted to have me arrested or to have my assets attached, or both. The courts don’t appreciate being lied to and judging by the magistrate’s reaction, I suspect that if Aida hadn’t decided to drag Samuel along, she could have been the one they arrested instead of me.

I felt awful for Samuel. It must have been incredibly uncomfortable for him. I would have loved Samuel to know that when I hadn’t had to, I’d paid to support Jeremy when he spent time with his mum. And even though that hadn’t worked out so well, if I thought it might help Samuel, I would’ve given Aida anything she wanted. But she’d already gotten away with more than a million from me and I knew that whatever I gave her, it would simply never be enough.

I missed Samuel terribly and I hadn’t yet come to terms with the fact that I’d allowed this to happen. Because of Ellen, long before I made my decision, I knew that a simple carving knife could be viewed as an act of unforgivable disloyalty. I’d also been told by Kathy that after years of painful neglect by his mother, Samuel would be willing to do almost anything to win Aida’s affection. That could include believing anything she said and having to reject me. Still, I had hoped that because Samuel was a lot older, and because I’d taught him to always remember his mother’s birthday and every other special occasion, he might find a way to remember me the same.

MUM PASSES
Not knowing what to do, I threw myself back into Twelve Step programs, and around the anniversary of Samuel’s first year away I had the opportunity to be with my mother for her final few months. After a lifetime of smoking she was suffering from emphysema, and it had taken its toll. Abigail was keeping an eye on her at night, and I’d take over when she had to leave for work. We’d take gentle walks around the garden, stopping often to appreciate the flowers and shrubbery, and I’d get to assure her that as far as I was concerned, she’d done well. With her childhood, she should have repetitively married violent men just like her father. But she hadn’t. Mum had married the gentlest person. Dad was pretty much the very opposite of the deranged alcoholic father who she had survived. She may or may not have been able to love him, but in choosing and sticking with Dad she had essentially broken what could easily have been a lifetime relationship pattern – and what a difference that made for all of us. As an adult, she’d never asked anyone for help. With only a primary school education, she’d managed the family’s limited income and I never felt like I’d gone without. She’d saved all her life to ensure we were all provided for, and she still had enough to cover frail-care should it ever come down to that.

On one of our walks, Mum once again apologised for neglecting me for my first two years as a child. Her previous admission had already been enough for me – enough for me to begin the process of accepting my vulnerable child state and to start identifying its lasting effects. But that wasn’t the mother who I remembered. She’d made sure that my sister and I were provided for, and while she didn’t believe that she knew how to love or be loved, she’d spent the majority of her life caring for others. She took care of Dad, her siblings, and her grandchildren, and she was always available to all her extended family for doctor, hospital, and even their hair appointments. Even so, she’d never forgiven herself – and I’d much rather she did that. Her condition deteriorated until she couldn’t or didn’t want to eat. Then one day, as she slipped in and out of a morphine-induced haze prescribed to keep her comfortable, holding my hand she turned and said ‘Daniel, you do know that your father couldn’t afford his children.’ I was kneeling next to her attempting to hide my sobbing in the woven linen I’d purchased when I was still expected to see Samuel on weekends. I couldn’t have been distracted for more than a minute or two hoping and praying to see Samuel again, but when I looked up, mum was gone.

HIGH SCHOOL
After court, I had already accepted that Aida was no longer in a position to contribute. I guess I just wasn’t paying attention when she offered to pay for Samuel’s school fees on the condition he remained at the same school. Had I taken a moment, I would have realized it was going to cost me more just in fuel than the fees she’d offered to pay. But I didn’t. So now, if we ever wanted to change schools I’d have to subject myself to another year of court proceedings – or whatever else she might think of. Why she would want us in the area was beyond me when it soon became apparent she had no interest in having Samuel for a weekend or even an afternoon cup of tea. Unless Aida’s parents were in town or another family from their church invited Samuel for lunch, for the next four years we never heard from her. With Samuel’s school and many of his friends practically in their backyard, we were naturally spending a lot of our time in and around their neighbourhood. We’d politely say hello when we occasionally ran into each other, and my heart broke for Samuel when he pointed out their house to tell his friends ‘That’s where I live.’

While I might have hoped to see some positive change, we’d been through this all before. I was disappointed for Samuel, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand Aida’s lack of interest. I was used to not hearing from Aida about alternate weekends and school holidays, and her not showing any interest in how Samuel might be doing at school. However, something felt a little different this time. While I hadn’t said much to their pastor, I’d given one of her attorneys a detailed record of all we’d been through. Thinking that it was up to Aida and her attorney to decide what they wanted to share, I’d intentionally kept Grant out of the loop. But while I may have hoped Aida would get the message that I’d had enough, I think she went to work on discrediting my reputation. Now I wondered if it had been a mistake to exclude Grant, as he was an active member of NA.
What would have happened if we’d just sat down with a mediator of their choice? Surely, all of this could’ve been avoided. But perhaps I was just dreaming because I already knew the moment Grant stepped outside to tell Samuel to go away that he’d surrendered his values to her will. While I will always remain grateful that Ellen has Grant in her life, I can’t understand how anyone in Aida’s sphere doesn’t question or challenge her about the obvious neglect of her son. Then again, I couldn’t afford to be taking Grant’s inventory when my own life was becoming decidedly unmanageable.

SALE OF OUR HOME
Instead of worrying about Aida and Grant, I needed to get my own life in order and very little seemed to be going well. No matter what medical or homoeopathic advice I followed, I never regained my energy. When I was first diagnosed with chronic fatigue, I took a step back and thought Okay, my body’s trying to tell me something. Then with everything else that followed, I started to believe I wasn’t going to recover until I’d done what I’d been asked to do. To do that without disrupting Samuel’s life any more than it already had been, I needed to find the right partner – one who could handle or take over the business from me. That turned out to be a lot easier said than done. Firstly, it took a lot more energy and time to train someone than just doing the job myself. Then finding the right team proved to be more difficult than I imagined. And I tried every combination I could think of, from young, recently graduated students with a master’s degree in design, to overqualified experienced production crews from the film industry who were tired of being away from their families. Out of desperation, I was offering incentives and a path to ownership that I had only dreamed about in my career. But nothing I tried seemed to work; no one seized the opportunity or brought in a single new client on their own.

In fairness, there were other factors at play. For one, the world was still recovering from the 2008 banking crisis. Then our target market, comprised mainly of large corporate companies, was facing increasing pressure to comply with South Africa’s policy of black economic empowerment. For decades, African, Indian, and coloured people were systematically excluded from meaningful participation in the country’s economy. I’d like to believe that most South Africans morally understood that something needed to be done to redress the wrongs of the past. Large corporations employed procurement specialists to reassess their supply chain. Ultimately, as a supplier we had to be at least fifty-one-per cent black-owned.

The new reality finally hit home when one of our key clients called me in for a meeting with their new procurement team. I’d been on their preferred supplier list for more than fifteen years. By all accounts, they’d always been more than happy with our service. Year after year without fail, they’d walked away with the best stand design award for the work we had delivered. None of that mattered. The meeting that I was meant to have ended immediately as he turned on his heels and walked straight back out after the simple statement: ‘You’re white.’ I went downstairs to see the marketing team I’d worked with for years. After being complimented on our new proposal, I was told, ‘So sorry that happened. But that’s how it works around here now – you’re male and you’re pale, so you’re out.’

I’d been too distracted at a crucial time, and I’d relied on an initial carve-out in the Act for smaller businesses which should have protected us if applied correctly. Despite all the changes in South Africa, the racial divide between rich and poor remained the same. Most white-owned South African businesses that I was aware of had successfully managed to use the assets they’d accumulated to adjust, or they’d found a way to circumvent the new rules. Many of them seemed to be doing a lot better than before. I couldn’t help regretting that I hadn’t considered selling the business when I was first diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. But even though there were times when I didn’t want to be in this particular business, it had been brilliant to me. It hadn’t taken long before I was able to purchase our home, and I’d managed to remain bond-free while maintaining a two-year reserve. But I burnt through my reserve when I chose to put my energy and resources into finding the right person or team to keep the business going. What I probably should have done is sold or explored other markets.

While others manage to successfully grow their business by using their creditors’ or the bank’s money, I’m just not comfortable with any form of debt. I don’t even like someone paying for my cup of coffee, and I feel like I must immediately reciprocate. I think I’m competent with most aspects of business: design, sales, marketing, and production. But when it comes to borrowing, I’m far too fiscally conservative – I just don’t have the stomach for it.

I’d bought the house we’d been renting, and with the help of our design team I’d managed to turn it into what I believed to be one of the best houses in the area. Then I subjected myself to the painstaking process of subdividing the land which substantially increased the value. It might have been a bit clingy, but a part of me dreamed that the boys would take over the business and we’d build new homes for their families, and I’d be there as grandpa. Our home sold the first day it hit the market and I wondered if I’d undervalued the property. Even so, the agent responsible for the sale assured me that it sold for the highest recorded price.
I had decided to sell mainly because I hadn’t found anyone to run the business and I felt too tired to put myself through the process of training someone new. Then, despite the economic recession and everything else, I started to believe that anything I chose to put in front of what I’d been asked to do would simply be taken away from me, and I had prioritized keeping the business alive instead.

I calculated that if I took two years off to get the job done perhaps I’d recover, and still have enough left over to start all over again. We moved into a high-security complex attached to a popular mall, which happened to house several of Samuel’s favourite restaurants and an enormous gym I thought he would enjoy. We had a longer school run, but it was so much easier to keep Samuel safe, happily fed, and occupied, while I attempted to get on with the job of writing – as I believed I was meant to do.
Except, within days of moving in, I experienced relentless headaches that wouldn’t allow me to sleep. For the next two and a half years absolutely nothing I was prescribed worked for even an hour, which left me severely sleep-deprived. While I could hardly open my eyes, taking a brisk walk did at times bring me some relief. But I couldn’t do that at night, so I’d end up splashing my face with cold water and jogging around inside like a madman, hoping for the same relief. I was losing my mind and driving Samuel to school with only one eye open. I simply couldn’t go on like that.

BIKE
I wasn’t thinking clearly when I bought Samuel a motorbike. Few parents want their children commuting to school on a motorbike and neither did I. And certainly not in a country where roughly one and a half million legitimate driver’s licenses are illegally sold each year, and where just about anyone can obtain an official roadworthy certificate for a truck that doesn’t even have wheels. On the bright side, I got to teach Samuel how to ride. I enrolled him in the most advanced riding lessons that I’d been told about and continued taking him for lessons until his instructor called me aside to tell me, ‘I’ll keep taking your money, but there really isn’t anything more we can teach him.’

I went and bought him an 883 Harley Iron, which to any observer must have seemed quite insane, and under normal circumstances I’d probably agree. But from my perspective, if he was going to be riding a bike to school I wanted him to be safe, and I’d noticed that the traffic generally treated bikers on a Harley with just a little bit more respect. I added the loudest Vance and Hines exhaust pipes to amplify the Evo’s low revving distinctive sound so if anyone didn’t see him coming, they’d certainly hear there was a loud bike somewhere around. I had so many reasons that all seemed to make sense. Samuel was no longer happy being a pillion. I hoped we’d start hitting some country roads together and popping in at bike rallies like we used to do. And with his grandfather’s love of restoring vintage bikes, I saw the bike as another opportunity for the two of them to stay connected. For the first few weeks I rode next to Samuel, and I’d be there waiting when he finished school. On weekends, we’d follow the backroads and I loved having him next to me while showing him a different perspective of our farmlands and spectacular coastal roads. Still, the very first time he rode to school on his own I was way too anxious and believed I’d made an awful mistake.

DEPRESSION
It had been more than ten years since I was first diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. Back then, I was presented with two schools of thought. As I understood it, the cause of my fatigue could be either virus related or the physical manifestation of depression. I didn’t know if the fatigue and the headaches were in any way related, but there didn’t seem to be a solution for either. I kept telling myself I was just feeling tired and it was only a headache, a migraine, but wasn’t cancer or anything serious. Yet those relentless headaches made my life almost unbearable. Then after two and a half years of little or no sleep, just when I thought that I couldn’t take any more, my headaches simply disappeared all on their own and I couldn’t have been more relieved! As part of my initial treatment for chronic fatigue, I’d been on an eighteen-month course of antidepressants. But when I couldn’t tell if the antidepressants were making a difference or not, I asked to be weaned off – which could have been a mistake, but I didn’t know. After the headaches disappeared, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was dealing with depression.

After a few sessions with Kathy who seemed a bit reluctant at first, she referred me to a psychiatrist – someone she’d worked with before, and who apparently had an incredible record for accurately determining a patient’s needs. So many people swear by their antidepressants, and two who I knew wouldn’t even want to think about coming off their meds. Personally, I’m scared of the stuff. Still, in desperation, I surrendered myself to the psychiatric process of trying to find the right medication which would hopefully work. We tried various brands, increased the dosages, and added some pretty scary psychiatric pharmaceuticals to the mix. But everything we tried only seemed to make matters worse. Fourteen months into this process, my world was becoming increasingly dark. So much so, that I could hardly peer through the blinds, let alone go outside. Eventually I realised that instead of helping me, as I’d witnessed them work for others, these drugs were making me suicidal. All too often, all I could think about was how to kill myself while making it look like an accident.

As a last resort, I reluctantly agreed to be institutionalised for three weeks. I hoped that in a safe and protected environment we could give this experiment with antidepressants one last go. I emailed Aida detailing what was going on for me and asked if she would consider taking care of Samuel for the three weeks. I added my concern about him using a motorbike to get to and from school and asked if she was still open to the idea of him staying with her during the week so he could easily walk to school. I was almost always surprised to get a reply, but she did reply rather formally: ‘After careful consideration, my decision remains not to make changes to any of the current agreements that we have in place.’ And I couldn’t help but wonder, what agreement is that? One in which you’ve decided you never have to be there for your own son unless there’s something in it for you?

Either way, I was beginning to feel like a bit of a lab rat, so I wasn’t too keen to be hospitalized in the first place. For the next few months, I kept asking to be responsibly weaned off until the prescribing psychiatrist reluctantly agreed. I felt awful for quite a while, but the suicidal thoughts I’d been having almost immediately subsided and eventually disappeared.

SAMUEL ASKS
I must have been kidding myself, thinking that Samuel hadn’t been affected by what was going on for me. Without telling me, he arranged to see his mother after school. I was strangely and cautiously optimistic for him when he reported that Aida would be happy to have him. Apparently, she hadn’t made an effort to see him only because she wasn’t prepared to deal with me. According to her he wasn’t the problem, but I certainly was. That said, Aida was happy to have him provided they’d have nothing to do with me. Furthermore, if he ever wanted to see me, I’d have to meet him at the Mac Donald’s outlet about a kilometre away from their home. I didn’t say anything to Samuel, but couldn’t help but think what the fuck, you’ve never had a problem before? On the rare occasions when Aida needed to have Samuel with her, usually only when her parents were around, she invariably expected me to drop him off and collect him from their home.
I shouldn’t have gotten upset, because it couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes later that I received an email from Aida, which read: ‘My Conversation with Samuel. Please bear in mind that this initial discussion must not be construed as any agreement on our part to change the arrangement that is currently in place. The biggest obstacle in this process is not Samuel or me, but in fact it’s you Daniel, and our past dealing with you in regard to Samuel.’ And again, I had to wonder what dealing was she talking about when I had rarely said no? Except, it wasn’t an initial discussion, as her email suggested because neither Samuel nor I ever heard anything more from Aida about him spending time at their home.

I was pissed off for Samuel, but I honestly didn’t care about her ridiculous spin. Still, each time I was blamed I couldn’t help but wonder if I was missing something or in denial. I even questioned if I was the narcissist who always needed to be right. I know I’m not perfect, and I might even be certifiably insane, but I’ve never been aggressive, and I’ve never neglected my children or denied their mothers’ access. But I know Aida couldn’t say the same. Yes, I handed her over to the court for unpaid child support, as any responsible parent should. By the time the court reached a decision, she was more than eighteen months in arrears. But if anyone cared to calculate, they would quickly see that Aida had successfully managed to avoid contributing to Samuel’s financially well-being for more than fourteen years. And I never actually said no when they had asked if Samuel could start high school with them – it was all in our correspondence. Yes, I did suggest she’d have to continue with Samuel’s child support, but it was only a test. Perhaps one shouldn’t test others. Even so, considering our history, I needed some way to determine whether Aida was sincere about building a relationship with her son or if it was just another one of her ploys.

Children often end up idealising the absent parent and resenting the one who stayed, so I completely get why Samuel would want to believe Aida. I also understand why parents are more inclined to side with their children, even when they’re aware of the truth. Some say there are two, perhaps three sides to every story. Despite what Aida may think of me, how could she possibly explain not seeing her son for another three and a half years after she didn’t get her way? That is punishing her son for her resentments about me. Frankly, I can’t comprehend how anyone buys whatever bullshit she’s chosen to spin. If I’m guilty of anything, it’s that I’ve probably been too accommodating, and I ended up knowing too much. And therein lies the real reason why I’m a problem, especially for those suffering from a borderline personality disorder – the Border Lion.

THE PASTOR
Samuel was about to graduate from junior school and we were busy considering high school options, when out of the blue Aida asked if I’d consider letting Samuel spend a year with her so she could re-establish a relationship with her son. And it just so happened that they’d recently purchased a home within walking distance of one of the schools we were considering. Ever since she’d met Grant, there’d been an improvement. They’d been fairly reliable regarding alternate weekends, and more importantly Samuel was regularly getting to spend time with his sister.
Naturally, I had my reservations. Another year had passed since I received her letter of apology and her promise to do better. While she was entitled to alternate school holidays, Aida had not yet thought to include Samuel. I could’ve done with a break, and I would have been a bit more comfortable with the idea if Samuel had previously spent a bit more than a weekend with them. And I was particularly aggrieved when they didn’t include him in their family holiday to Europe. They’d recently been reborn, and on weekends they’d introduced Samuel to their church, which would’ve given me a reason to hope except that it immediately became my problem. So now I was not only expected to deliver and collect Samuel for the weekend, but also had to include his Friday evening youth group, Sunday services, and other church-related activities.

As much as I tried to remind myself that it was about progress and not perfection, I didn’t understand why – in a household with three independently driven vehicles – no one was available or interested in offering Samuel a ten-minute ride home. I was still sick, and I was still worried about the business. And with everything else that had recently been revealed I was feeling incredibly vulnerable. I wanted, perhaps needed, to believe that Aida’s newfound faith made a difference. I was looking to see if Aida had realized that occasionally Samuel’s needs just might be more important than her own.

Then there was the annoying issue of Samuel’s child support. Before I was granted custody and I was only a few days late with my support payment, Aida hadn’t hesitated to have me arrested. But now that the tables had turned and she was six months in arrears, she didn’t find it necessary to even respond to my emails asking for clarity. Not to be petty, but little things add up. They hadn’t thought to invite Samuel when they travelled aboard, but when we travelled Samuel would be handed a shopping list – and the items would be collected before we had a chance to unpack, and the receipts would be ignored. But more importantly – and I could be wrong here – I don’t recall hearing a simple ‘Thank you, Samuel.’ or ‘We’ve missed you and would you like to spend next weekend with Mum?’

My frustration with having to consider her request finally blew up when Samuel was abandoned after a church camp. I was already annoyed I’d been expected to pay for the camp, and I should have gotten the information directly from the church. But as Aida and Grant were involved with the camp, I trusted them to get him home safely or to let me know when he would need to be collected. I don’t really know what happened. Even though it hadn’t taken me long to get there, he’d been left entirely on his own. I reacted and made an appointment to meet their pastor.
The pastor suggested we meet at Common Ground, a sister evangelical fellowship. Their upstairs bistro conveniently overlooks the Common. Pastor Richard was busy sipping on a cappuccino when I arrived. After the usual pleasantries, he opened with ‘Samuel is such a wonderful boy.’ Then he went on to tell me Samuel had volunteered to take care of their kindergarten kids during Sunday services and had received wonderful feedback from their parents. Additionally, Samuel’s ability to include others had made him a popular member of their youth group. He concluded his report by saying ‘He’s such a blessing to us.’ Remembering my own experience, and the difference the church had made in my life, I couldn’t have been happier for Samuel.

While thanking the waiter for the near-perfect cappuccino, he’d switched to talking about addiction by letting me know that several recovering addicts from their congregation were looking into developing a recovery program of their own. Then he bravely volunteered that he’d once struggled with an addiction to porn. ‘Born in sin,’ he said. Even as a minister, he hadn’t been able to stop himself from spending hours trolling from one site to the next. While I appreciated his willingness to share, my insecurities screamed, and I wondered just exactly what this guy had been told about me. But then I thought he could have been referring to Grant’s recovery and not mine. Either way, my defensive ego had kicked in and I couldn’t stop myself from trying to somehow impress him with my sober thoughts on the history of porn.
Most of what I had to say came directly from a documentary I’d watched only two days before our meeting. The creators hypothesised that humans have been, and always will be, predisposed to visual arousal. From ancient Greeks and Romans with their frescos and sculptures that illustrated every imaginable sexual position and the Kama Sutra from India seen by many as the original sex manual, to the oldest surviving photo taken in1846 of a middle-aged couple having sex, porn had always been a part of our lives. But like so many parents, I was becoming increasingly concerned and wondered what my child’s first introduction to sex would be, given today’s easy access to the internet. As a survivor, how could I process the fact that the word teen is the number one keyword searched in a ten to fourteen billion-dollar a year industry? Or that it’s now perfectly legal for the industry to produce and distribute computer-generated, life-like graphics of children simulating child sex, incest, and paedophilia? And what was I supposed to do with the knowledge that an alarming percentage of porn stars were once child victims of sexual abuse?

Feeling like a bit of an ass, I attempted to switch back to the purpose of our meeting – which I was no longer sure about. I told him I’d made the appointment in anger, and I’d thought about cancelling it. But seeing that we were here, I hoped he could help with a decision I’d been asked to make.
‘You may or may not know that Aida and Grant have recently asked if Samuel could move in with them when he starts high school next year. They’re members of your congregation, and while I’m happy they’ve gotten Samuel involved, I’m becoming increasingly annoyed that I’m expected to do the running around for almost all of his activities at church. By now, I’m sure you’ve heard, I was pretty annoyed after Samuel was left alone at the end of his youth camp. Well, that’s why I made this appointment in the first place.’
He listened and waited for me to continue. ‘Anyone can make a mistake and I’m certainly far from perfect.’ He apologised and said he’d look into what happened.

I’d told myself that I wasn’t going to go there, but I didn’t know how this pastor could help without knowing something about our past. I told him that, as far as I was concerned, I’d always done my best to encourage a healthy relationship with Aida. We’d never missed any of Aida’s birthdays and we’d never forgotten to get her a gift every Christmas, Mother’s Day, and even Valentine’s Day. Even though I’d made sure that all of Samuel’s schools had a record of Aida’s contact details, I additionally forwarded her a copy of all his school reports and any notification that I received. To date, I’d never denied her access and I’d gone out of my way to accommodate her odd, haphazard requests to see him. But sadly, until very recently, Aida had shown very little interest in Samuel.

I didn’t think it necessary to mention the one and only occasion that I did say no to her. She’d made no arrangement to see him, and I had informed her he’d been invited by a close friend to join them on a trip to Italy. But after everything had been booked and paid for, Aida expected us to cancel because her brother would be joining her for Christmas Eve dinner, and she needed Samuel to be there. Their pastor, who’d patiently listened to me, interjected, ‘People do change, with Jesus all things are possible.’
I couldn’t help but responded, ‘Yeah, that’s kind of what I’ve been hoping for, I’m just not sure I’ve seen enough. Not enough to feel comfortable about letting Samuel move in with them. No matter how much I might need their help.’
‘We’ve been praying for you, trusting that Samuel’s attendance will bring you back to God.’ Then he suggested we pray for our enemies.

‘Oh fuck,’ I thought I’d held back. I also felt like I was done with turning the other cheek and kowtowing to Aida’s fears. I quite possibly came across as a disgruntled ex-husband. I had to think about it, but I’m not sure I viewed Aida as an enemy. He needed to leave, so he wrapped up with an invitation to join their Starting Point program, where I could explore faith and get to know their community. We ended our meeting by praying together.
‘Lord Jesus.’ he began, as we bowed our heads, ‘Thank you that you died on the cross for us. I pray that you will reveal yourself to Daniel, that he will come to know you as his Lord and Saviour. And I ask that you guide him with the decision he needs to make. In Jesus’ name. Amen.’

Walking home, I thought about the year Jeremy spent in Australia with his mother. It had also been his first year of high school. It wasn’t perfect, but then what is? He had re-connected with Gareth and he’d gotten to know his mother a bit better. But this was Aida, and I hadn’t had a conversation with her since before we got divorced. So, while I had hoped that the church, along with Grant’s recovery program, would have a positive effect on Aida’s behaviour, I knew from personal experience she could turn on a dime and it could very easily go the other way. This brought me to my primary concern: if I let Samuel go, just how would we communicate when she doesn’t even answer my emails? Or would Aida try to cut me out, as she had with Ellen? Then there was the question of whether Aida had actually changed or was she doing all of this to get something she wanted. Ultimately, I decided the only way that I’d be able to tell was if I raised the issue of child support.

HOW IT’S GOING TO BE
The next day, I emailed Aida and offered her the same deal she’d once offered me. I stated that while I remained open and willing to consider their request, I’d like them to consider that I’d still need to maintain his primary residence and she’d have to continue paying his child support. Essentially, it was the same de facto agreement I had accepted when she had custody but decided Samuel would be better off living with me. No matter how much I might have been struggling at the time, I had to make damn sure Aida got her payment before all else. I thought about mentioning her attempt to have me thrown in jail but decided her new husband didn’t need to know that. However, I did reference my previous unanswered emails asking for clarity about Samuel’s child support which was still in arrears.

I was surprised to receive an almost immediate response that was signed off by the two of them and copied to an attorney.
It started politely. ‘Samuel is welcome to reside with us during the week, whenever the need arises.’ But then went on to dictate their terms: ‘Each of us will be responsible for maintaining Samuel and meeting his financial needs whilst he resides with us in our respective homes.’ I wasn’t quite sure what they meant by whenever the need arises, or whether Aida was still interested in having Samuel or not. But whichever the case may be, Aida would no longer be contributing to Samuel’s upkeep. And once again, there was no mention of the child support which remained in arrears or what she planned to do about it. They’d obviously gotten some legal advice and I didn’t know if they chose to ignore it, but I couldn’t imagine an attorney advising anyone to ignore an order from the family court. I felt sure they would have been told that if for some reason they were unable to pay Samuel’s child support, they had to apply for a reduction and had to supply proof. Why they felt the need to involve an attorney made no sense at all. I still couldn’t understand why we just couldn’t talk. If they needed a mediator, I would have been happy to accept their pastor or better yet, Grant’s sponsor.

I was still hopeful because for the first time in Samuel’s life Aida had asked to have him for a part of the holidays before starting high school. So with that in mind, I chose to enrol Samuel in the high school in their neighbourhood. It wasn’t my only reason, but keeping the door open for Aida was an important part of my decision making. But as usual, she only had him over for Christmas Day. I can’t say for certain whether they decided to go travelling or whether they stayed at home. All I do know is that Samuel was returned two weeks earlier than expected. He did get to see his grandparents though, who thankfully took him camping for a few days.

I can only describe what followed as a vindictive tantrum thrown by two entitled toddlers who hadn’t gotten their own way. They stopped inviting Samuel for weekends and they wouldn’t even give him five minutes to collect the PlayStation that he’d left behind. Having already replaced a few of the games he’d borrowed after three months of hearing that it wasn’t convenient or that they weren’t going to be at home, I’d finally had enough. When we arrived I wasn’t too surprised to find that they were indeed at home, and they didn’t seem to be terribly busy but were lounging around watching TV. But even though we could all clearly see each other, they chose to ignore us until Grant finally stepped outside only to tell Samuel to go away. Watching and experiencing these adults take out our differences and their perceived rejection on a child, I very nearly jumped over their fence to beat the crap out of him until someone returned Samuel’s things. Strangely, it was the look on Aida’s face that stopped me dead in my tracks – it told me that was exactly what she wanted me to do.

But ignoring Samuel wasn’t enough for them. While I’d thought I was keeping the door open for Aida by enrolling Samuel in a school that would be convenient for them, they decided to involve Samuel’s new school and accuse me of fraud. A letter from their attorney read, ‘You seem to arrogantly accept that we should be a party to your fraud committed against the school. Mr and Mrs Clark (Aida and Grant) met with the school’s headmaster and his teacher yesterday and the outcome was as follows: 1) Samuel will be allowed to remain at the school for now, despite not residing with Grant, Aida & Ellen. The school is now aware of the circumstances under which Samuel’s placement occurred; 2) The above is dependent on proper parental supervision being exercised as regards your son’s schoolwork. Samuel has made a poor start and generally lacks discipline. This falls squarely at your door.’ Yes, I’d given the school Aida’s contact details, just like I’d always done before. And yes, I did hope that their address would help facilitate his application. I did live in arguably the best school district in the country, so did they really think we had no alternatives? Perhaps, a school that might have been a bit more convenient for me?

For me, it was obvious Aida had never really been interested and Samuel and I had simply been used as pawns in one of her games. And now that she had Grant locked and loaded and willing to do her bidding, she could comfortably be herself again. True to their letter telling me how it was going to be, Aida simply stopped paying her court-ordered child support. This left me with no alternative but to hand to matter over to the family court. Fourteen months of court postponements followed, mainly because the court allowed her attorney to call the prosecutor assigned the case to let them know his client wasn’t available. Each time, I’d have to be at court before eight only to be told at lunchtime that the case had once again been postponed.
I don’t want to make this a gender issue, because men do represent the overwhelming majority of deadbeat parents. It can be quite an enlightening experience waiting at the family court.

The corridors are filled beyond capacity with women hoping to get some assistance. I got to meet some inspirational grandmothers taking care of as many as five toddlers, astonishing caretakers from historically impoverished townships without any easy access to running water and having to share portable communal toilets. For many, simply getting to the court involved a substantial walk to the nearest taxi rank, a train ride, and a second taxi. But they’d show up with children in tow, hoping to be granted a garnishee order – an order that empowered the sheriff of the court to attach a minuscule amount of the father’s weekly wage. And they’d have to start the process all over again each time the father changed jobs. It was embarrassing being the only man there with my seemingly luxury problem. But if these saintly grandmothers could do it, then so could I.

I was beginning to understand why deadbeat fathers are purposefully arrested on Friday afternoons. I guess like anywhere in the world if you can afford an attorney, you can simply postpone the procedure for months. It finally came to an end when Aida’s attorney, while continuing to represent her, informed the court he had decided to sequestrate Aida for non-payment of his legal bills. Her attorney’s involvement sounded somewhat dubious to me, but I was taken aback to learn she’d been sequestrated. So much so that my immediate reaction was to ask why the fuck she didn’t speak to me? As if I would’ve been able or even allowed to help. Of course, my next thought was hold on a moment this is looking suspiciously like a pattern.

To the best of my knowledge, this would be the third time that she’d declared bankruptcy. The first was shortly after we got married. The second, when she met Martin and I was left with no alternative but to liquidate the business that we’d once shared. And now for the third time after recently getting married to Grant? Each time, the creditors ended up losing and we felt obligated to empty our bank accounts. As suspected, Aida reopened under a new name and less than a month later they had two new Porches parked in their driveway. I got so pissed off that I thought about asking my cousin, a senior prosecutor with the Receiver of Revenue, to investigate her. But Kathy had warned me and what was I going to do? For better or worse, she’d always be Samuel’s mother.

LEY LINES
When I unpacked, at the bottom of my luggage I found a box of incense and a cut out picture of Mother Meera and placed them next to some candles in our living room. I’d burn some incense and meditate on Mother Meera’s parting words, ‘I suggest that you wholeheartedly and joyfully do your duty.’
I started to spend hours parked outside the Elizabethan semi-detached house that was once my early childhood home. In the evenings I’d sit in the field, where neighbours used to find me. I’d pray, meditate, close my eyes, and try to remember the smells, the music, the horse-drawn vegetable carts, and the fish vendors. I’d visit where we spread my father’s ashes near Rhodes Memorial and peer through the cathedral window of wind-sculptured pines down to where I used to walk Ellen. But I also felt inexplicably drawn to the hospital where I’d first met Gareth. A friend suggested it could possibly be a ley line – a geographical alignment between historical structures and prominent landmarks which some esoteric traditions believe demarcate areas of earth energies where healing flows. I wasn’t too sure about that; all I knew was I found myself drawn to, and positioned myself along, a line that ran from Rhodes Memorial straight through to the Red Cross Children’s Hospital.

So, with Pugsley by my side and Max bounding about the thicker brush on the Common, I’d position myself on this imaginary line and turn towards the mountain to greet my father. I’d breathe in the ground below and try to be present with wildflowers, and then turn towards the hospital. This weird ritual seemed to create an amplified sense of my father and an assurance that I needed to be there. But it could also have been the magic of walking the dogs among the Common’s rather unique collection of wildflowers.

Moritz Benedikt, an Austrian physician of the late 1800s, believed the cause of hysteria to reside in a painful secret, and his studies determined that the majority involved sexual activity. He believed confessing secrets could cure most patients. The Roman Catholics have confessionals, and in the Twelve Steps we’re told secrets keep us sick. Then in Step Five, we’re asked to admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs. Hysteria or not, secret or not, this strange one-hundred-and-twenty day trust us journey, which had started on the evening of Ellen’s sixteenth birthday, seemed to be preparing me for something.

I’d kept in close contact with Kathy throughout the process and I had done my best to describe what I couldn’t understand. They weren’t voices in my head, but rather overwhelming compulsions I slowly and tentatively grew to trust. Finally, in the middle of the night, I was taken back to the Common where I once again positioned myself on this supposed, mystical ley line. I’d already experienced four transcendental experiences – for want of a better expression. The first was when Jeremy was still a toddler when in the blink of an eye, I was given a glimpse of the universe. The second and third happened more recently on my final evening with Mother Meera. And shortly after that the fourth, which took place on the Bergeralm ski slopes when the entire building suddenly became transparent.

Now, alone in the early hours of the morning as I aligned with my father and the Red Cross Children’s Hospital, I was instantly transported back in time. Snapshots upon snapshots of history spliced across time and I could see my mum in labour and the premature birth of my younger brother who we’d named Shane after his burial. Then I witnessed Shane being transferred to the children’s hospital and placed in the same room where I’d met Gareth. I saw myself transported back in time to the afternoon when I had inexplicably returned to Gareth after dropping Valeria off. As if time was an illusion, the two periods were spliced together. In what must have been a forty-five-year time difference, I found myself sitting next to Gareth with my head on his hospital bed as my mother entered the room to attend to Shane. Gareth had been hospitalized with a severe case of croup and as I listened for his breath, I watched my mother hold a pillow over Shane’s face till she was sure that he was no longer breathing.

I’d never been able to comprehend why I’d been drawn to Gareth’s bedside, but this wasn’t an answer I thought I could live with. Back on the Common, I discovered that I was no longer alone. What could previously only be described as an overwhelming compulsion somehow guiding me had changed, and a figure stepped out of the early morning shadows. My father was with me, holding the hands of two incredibly beautiful olive-skinned children who he’d brought with him. Although I’d never actually met either of them or even seen a photo, I knew exactly who they were. I’d survived being prematurely born, but neither my younger brother Shane nor my sister Jennifer had survived for more than a few weeks.

MUM
I spun like a windblown side-walk sign, thinking I must be the most awful son any parent would regret having. For a couple of years in therapy, I thought that my father may have sexually assaulted me. So how was I supposed to react to this new version of my mother that had been revealed to me? For years, Kathy had unsuccessfully tried to get me to talk about my mother, but I simply couldn’t. In my head, I was my mother’s support, the one who’d always listened to her story and who held the brave little girl that she’d once been.

By talking about my father in therapy, I’d come to trust that I’d made a terrible mistake. Perhaps hoping I’d reach a similar conclusion I became willing to talk to Kathy about everything I could remember about my mother. But it felt like I was intentionally framing my mother as a villain: how she had comfortably admitted to discarding me with the trash because she’d been told that I wasn’t likely to live; how she’d dragged my sister and me to the bathroom to watch her drown our kittens in a bucket after they had damaged her couch; how she screamed at me while I tried to tell her I’d been raped before she launched into her story about how lucky we were compared to her childhood; how she’d asked me to stand in my bath so that her friend Dorothy could take a look at my privates while Mum said, ‘Now, who would want to do anything with that little thing?’

In therapy, it felt like I was intentionally framing my mother by regurgitating the very worst that I could remember about my childhood with her. But it wasn’t just my childhood – I was starting to wonder if there was something more sinister behind her telling us about Valeria’s lunchtime affair and her belief that Jeremy was not my son. And I couldn’t help but question if there was something more to her mumblings: ‘I don’t take care of the sick, I’m wicked’ and ‘I want to die.’ Strangely, none of this had ever bothered me before.

POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION
Shortly after Samuel’s birth while trying to understand Aida’s rejection of her son, I looked into the causes of postpartum depression. I found an informative paper written on the subject which helped me understand the delivery, the lack of sleep, and the need to be perfect, combined with feeling overwhelmed by changes in work and home routines brought by a newborn can easily lead to depression and a loss of interest in the baby. With
Samuel’s birth, I believed that as soon as we settled into our new routine and if our business continued to do well, Aida would soon enough recover and bond with her son. Sadly, sixteen years later, she still seemed to show very little interest in Samuel other than when her family were around, or more recently with the start of her new relationship with Grant. I’d completely ignored the part which said it can lead to the mother having thoughts of hurting herself or the baby. At the time, I don’t think I considered the possibility that postpartum depression could be deadly to the baby or mum.

I contacted the hospital’s archives to see if they’d kept any records of my brother’s stay. Perhaps I just didn’t want to know, but I decided that it would be a fruitless exercise because forensic testing can rarely distinguish between misfortune or murder. And just how would they possibly make that determination, fifty years after the incident and from mummified remains?

FINAL CLUE
Vernon popped in for a cup of coffee almost every day. He was essentially retired and I kind of suspect that he was a bit bored. Our friendship had evolved into a form of mutual sponsorship. It couldn’t have been more than two weeks, or possibly three, after I was given the last clue when we decided to take a drive to Constantia Village – a leafy village with cobbled paving set between vineyards in what is considered to be one of the most prestigious suburbs in South Africa. We opted for an espresso bar on the outer perimeter that embraced European coffee culture. While he savoured a classic Portuguese tart sprinkled with cinnamon, I told him about the Adult Child meeting I’d recently started attending. Vernon’s recovery story is inspirational – after more than twenty years of partying and using, this former athlete wandered into the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous weighing less than fifty kilos. And as he liked to share, ‘I was living in my ex-wife’s basement, and I didn’t even own the teeth in my mouth.’

In a nutshell, he quite quickly re-established himself as a leading real estate agent. He remarried, and they had a delightful young son. He’d wisely invested in a portfolio of properties and while he still did the odd sale, eight years after he’d walked into his first meeting of Narcotic’s Anonymous, he was essentially retired. Through working the program, he’d remarkably let go of most of the rejection he’d experienced as a child. As he saw it, he was left with his grandparents because he wasn’t white enough to be included when his father and brothers immigrated to North America and was too dark to be publicly acknowledged by his mother.

We both grew up in Woodstock and we attended the same high school, but we’d always been pretty much the opposite of each other. While using public transport with classmates I’d experienced a tiny bit of the abusive attitude from ticket collectors, but I looked decidedly European so there was no way for me to possibly understand what Vernon had been through or what it must have taken for him to let go of his resentments. At school, he was the popular partying athlete, and I was the nerdy head prefect and leader of the Christian Union. He’d spent most of his adult life pushing every conceivable boundary and I’d always felt too conservative to even be in business. I’d spent most of my adult life raising children and he regretted not being there for the children he’d had in his previous marriage. But the tables had turned. While I was struggling to navigate my way around South Africa’s new affirmative action laws, Vernon decidedly knew how to make the most of the new system. He’d gotten involved with an evangelical pastor and they were running a leadership program for high school kids together, whereas I seemed to have unwittingly stumbled into the realm of the esoteric. With his new family Vernon had turned into a wonderfully engaged father and husband, and he was busy making amends to the children from his previous marriage, while I felt like I was losing my mind and letting my children down in the process. It’s a beautiful thing, how polar opposites often connect through Twelve Step fellowships. Having trust in Vernon, in addition to Kathy, was an immeasurable help.

We settled our bill as the subject changed to our fathers. I relayed my mother’s recollection of his father’s heyday and that she still calls him Cape Town’s Omar Sharif. ‘He taught me how to fight.’ Vernon said. In the parking lot, as he checked to see if he could reverse, he added ‘He was a 5th dan martial arts instructor and no one messed with him.’ Flexing his grip on the steering wheel, he finished his thought with ‘Everyone knew those hands could crush you.’

I’d been given a final clue as to who might have harmed me as a young child. I hadn’t thought about it again since that night on the Common. At that moment, there was just too much else going on for me to absorb everything that I’d been shown, so I hadn’t been looking and I might have even forgotten it if Vernon hadn’t mentioned his father’s hands. I’m not sure if clue is the appropriate word, but I was left with an overwhelming sense of incredibly powerful hands, a mechanic’s hands, and the sound of the fifteenth letter in the English alphabet, the letter O. Vernon’s father’s name Theo, and it hit me between my eyes. But to the best of my knowledge, he’d always worked in the clothing industry. So, when Vernon took a breath, I asked ‘Wasn’t your father in clothing?’
‘Yeah, yes he was. He opened his own clothing production company in Canada.’ he replied.
‘And before getting into clothing, did he do anything else?’
‘He started as a mechanic. I think he did his apprenticeship with Leyland at their Blackheath plant. After, he worked for Opel in the centre of town.’

I like to see myself as a fairly logical individual that’s been schooled to analyse complex financial structures. Besides focusing on a client’s needs, I believed my ability to understand and interpret a client’s financial statements had given me a competitive advantage in the world of design. However, this recent esoteric journey I’d been on had completely overwhelmed my sense of logic and my conservative belt-and-braces approach to life. I loved Vernon like a brother, and I couldn’t begin to imagine my mother having an affair. Only now I couldn’t help wondering if we were related, all be it through my brother and my sister.

MUM
I visited my mum regularly, at least once a week. Despite being disappointed she hadn’t told me about Valeria’s affair, I still believed we shared an incredibly open relationship, one in which we could tell each other absolutely anything. But today would be something else. I needed to ask her about Jennifer and Shane and about what really happened to them. On my way over I thought about our contract, much of which was grounded in Mum’s words ‘My whole life I’ve been scared. Of what, God only knows. If I show affection, I’ll get hurt, so I don’t. How do you change that? You can’t.’ I’d brought along a digital recording device. I thought I’d lost my mind and I desperately needed Kathy’s professional opinion.

Mum made a cup of tea and we caught up on each other’s news. It started normal, but then I produced the device I’d specifically bought to record our conversation. I asked if I could record us speaking so my therapist could understand my mum’s world and the nature of our relationship. She reminded me ‘Those people put all kinds of shit in your head.’ I once again apologised for accusing Dad, and after I explained I wanted to avoid repeating the same mistake, mum agreed.

We went over her the horror of her childhood and her abusive father; how afraid they’d all been and how none of them had finished school. Then she added two bits I hadn’t heard before; how her father had also terrorised her mother’s family and even they were afraid of him, and how she’d nearly lost an eye when she was only four years old. She had to do the shopping because her mother wasn’t allowed to leave the house. It happened one day while running to the shop. She said, ‘I don’t know how that bicycle didn’t see me but I nearly lost my eye for a bunch of carrots.’ She spoke about the delicious roast lamb her mother would prepare, only to have it thrown on the floor and how they’d end up eating oats if they were lucky.

I interjected ‘Mum, but you have looked after everybody?’ I went on to ask, ‘Was it your mother who taught you to be kind and was she kind to you?’
She answered, ‘My mother just did what she had to do. No one was there for us. No one ever kissed us. My mother shook my hand for my birthday. Daniel, you can show affection, we can’t. I tried to make my mother’s life better, but nothing ever did. So, I expect the same in my life.’
‘Dad loved you.’ I said after she’d finished.
She responded, ‘He taught me to cook. I had no idea. He’d show me something once, then he’d leave me to get on with it and he’d never do it again.’

The subject switched to, ‘Prostate cancer is a bugger. From the time he was diagnosed, six months later he was gone. He never used to moan, he sat there in pain and said nothing. The eighteenth was always his favourite day because you and Abigail were both born on the eighteenth. It was the eighteenth when you helped me. We upped his medicine and he said, “Where are they, they said they were fetching me?” The next day, on the nineteenth at 2 am, he was dead.’

Our conversation became a little more charged when I asked about Jennifer and Shane.

‘Jennifer was stillborn,’ she replied, ‘and Shane lived for a couple of days. He couldn’t breathe, there was something wrong with his lungs, they kept hitting him on the chest to make him breathe, I thought it was quite cruel. No good thinking about it, it’s gone.’ She added, ‘I was happy you and Abigail survived. Both of you were premature. You were tiny. You weighed 3 pounds and 4 ounces. Very small.’

‘Your father couldn’t really afford his children, Daniel.’ Pam continued. ‘He earned three-hundred Rand a month at the best of times. He had no confidence whatsoever. He had wonderful handwriting and wrote beautifully, but he didn’t understand basic arithmetic. When I came home with you, we didn’t have a cent. He’d spent it all. From that day on, I handled his money and gave him an allowance. His pocket money. Otherwise, we would have had nothing.’

I tried to reassure her that I meant no harm, but I questioned whether I was manipulating my mother when I told her what I honestly believed.

‘I’m not here to point a finger at anyone. With your father and your childhood, as far as I’m concerned you did exceptionally well. You married Dad and kept us together. You looked after brothers and sisters and you were there for Abigail and me, and all of your grandchildren. You’re always checking in on your extended family, and even though they have grown children of their own, you’re the one picking everyone up for their hair or doctor appointments.’
Mum muttered under her breath, ‘Their children have jobs or they’re not living in this country.’

Thinking I was never going to do this again, I pressed on. ‘I just don’t get why I’m losing my mind. Why I’ve started to see things that I really don’t want to see. It’s very confusing. Like when I thought that Dad had hurt me. I made a mistake about it being Dad, but I’m still convinced that something did happen to me when I was very young – around my fourth birthday. I think all my crazy is somehow connected. I’m taking care of the children, which I believe I got from you, but what I don’t understand is why I married two women who seem quite comfortable letting me get the job of raising the children, and why I’m still attracted to the most damaged person in the room. You understandably don’t like therapy because of what happened to your brothers. Don’t get me wrong, I love taking care of the children and I often think I probably need them more than they need me. But I honestly don’t want to spend the rest of my life alone, and that’s why I’m in therapy.’

Mum straightened up, looked at me with her smoky green eyes and said, ‘I wasn’t a good mother, Daniel. You’re the one who cares and shows affection, and I can’t. My father made us that way.’
I interrupted, ‘You might not be able to show it, but you do care Mum.’
‘No, I don’t,’ she insisted. ‘All I wanted to do was sleep. You weren’t supposed to live, you were too small and should have stayed in the hospital. But they had a virus and said you’d have a better chance at home. I didn’t feed you or take care of you, and I couldn’t listen to your crying. I just wanted to sleep, so I put you outside, hoping someone would take you away. Neighbours would try to wake me up, the old couple from across the street took you and covered you from head to toe in a red potion and put you back through the window.’ Looking away she concluded softly, ‘I wasn’t a good mother, Daniel.’

I should have ended our conversation, but I still had a few more questions. I asked her about what she’d said to Dorothy in the bathroom, which she vehemently denied saying, ‘That never happened.’
‘Yes, but I was eight at the time and that was the week that Juno’s brother got hold of me. You told me not to think about it. I’m not judging you. For most of my life, what you said to do actually worked. I might be in denial here, but I honestly believe that I haven’t thought about it until now when these other memories started surfacing.

Everything about that time is still absolutely clear to me.’ Having started this, I couldn’t seem to stop myself, ‘Something happened when I was much younger. Someone hurt me when I was about four years old, and it wasn’t Dad.’
Then I had to ask, ‘Did we have any visitors, someone we were friends with that used to come around?’
‘We had our monthly poker night, but your father and I hardly saw anyone, and you know that, Daniel.’

Finally, I asked, ‘What about my friend Vernon’s father, Theo?’
This really angered Mum, and she suddenly denied ever knowing him until I reminded her that it wasn’t that long ago that she’d called him Cape Town’s sexy Omar Sharif.
‘I’ll get the Bible and swear on it. You’re dreaming, or your psychologist is putting shit in your head, Daniel. They do that you know. I never got visitors.’
I switched the recorder off. We’d both had enough.

JEREMY FINDS LOVE
It wasn’t easy letting go of Jeremy and watching him leave for Australia. He hadn’t dealt with his abandonment issues nor Granny Pam’s Christmas day revelation. I’m not sure if anyone ever truly deals with these types of issues. However, I could only hope that with time and support he’d find a way to reach some form of acceptance. I knew that Jeremy would confront his mother, but when he finally did I wasn’t sure if it helped. She admitted she didn’t know if I was his father and that it could have been Andre. Then she added that she wasn’t attracted to Andre and hadn’t willingly slept with him because she found him rather repulsive. Finally, when pressured by Jeremy, she claimed to have been raped. I was pissed off: not because she hadn’t told me, but because I couldn’t understand why she had to say his father could have been a rapist, and because she hadn’t considered what her accusation might mean to Jeremy.

Thankfully, with today’s technology, it’s so much easier to stay in touch. However, Jeremy’s social media updates were somewhat disturbing. They were difficult to understand, and they were depressingly dark to read. At times I wasn’t sure if I should encourage him to come home, or if I should get on a plane to go check on him. Then with the next call, he’d scan his rural setting to show me where he was living, and thankfully he’d appear to be absolutely fine. While he continued to struggle with the effects of his mother leaving he had forgiven her, and in a way he was grateful that her move had made it possible for him to go to Australia.

I remained open to taking a paternity test, but he never raised the subject again. However, what neither of us could understand after she’d told him the truth in our kitchen was why she continued to paint me as a monster who’d supposedly caused her to abandon her children in South Africa. Then one evening after Jeremy had repeatedly asked his mother to stop, it all blew up in front of her husband – who up until that moment had been blissfully unaware of the affair and the question of who Jeremy’s biological father might be.

After Ellen was taken I’d often close my eyes to remember our Eskimo kisses and her unforgettable giggle, and trust that she could feel me holding her. With Gareth, I’d focus on teaching him to water-ski or the times we spent sliding between rock pools. With Jeremy, I’d remember his playful interactions with Samuel, and now I wished and prayed I could repeat what had automatically happened between Samuel and me, but I simply wasn’t able to. I found myself googling the areas Jeremy had shown me and the Queensland beaches where he’d go for walks. I imagined he could feel me with him as he grappled with his decision to leave. I knew how disappointed he felt that he hadn’t been able to develop the relationship he had hoped for with his mother and that he somehow blamed himself. At the end of my marriage to Aida, I thought he’d harm himself. I knew how vulnerable he was before leaving South Africa, and I was terrified he might want to harm himself again. I thanked God when he finally escaped the darkness and decided to join the Aussie backpacking trail.

The Australian backpacking trail offers opportunities to see the country while working and earning at the same time. With the country’s generous minimum hourly wage, it’s even possible to save while having fun, seeing the country, and making new friends. Jeremy, who often slept all day, was now going to bed early and getting up before dawn for physically demanding harvest work in dusty locations. On a watermelon farm, he befriended a

captivating backpacker from Korea. Tae wasn’t his type and nothing like any of the girls he’d dated before. She was lovely, accepted his quirks, and turned out to be exactly what Jeremy needed. With delightful enthusiasm she photographed everywhere they went, where they worked, what they did for fun, and every meal they ate. Slowly, she drew Jeremy out of the past and into the present, enjoying every moment of their adventure together. I was able to fly them home so Samuel and I could get to meet Tae. She’d get to see Cape Town where Jeremy had grown up, visit the hot springs, travel the Garden route, visit an African safari park, and get to know many of Jeremy’s childhood friends.

Two years later, Samuel and I were winging our way to South Korea to attend a traditional Korean wedding. I’d hoped we could schedule our layover in Istanbul because I’d long wanted to see some of the early architecture, such as the Hagia Sophia, and it would have been great to catch a performance of whirling Sufi dancers. But the cheapest option took us via the stifling heat of Doha, where we caught our connecting flight to South Korea. Tae is from Suwon, which is known for its fortress from the 1700s with its commanding stone wall and four pagoda arched gates. What started as a small settlement has become a major industrial and cultural centre, and home to Samsung Electronics and several leading South Korean universities.

I should have done a bit more homework. Thankfully Jeremy and Tae, despite their busy schedule, soon enough had us fitted with hanboks. Ceremonial hanboks were designed for ease of movement. Men wear a jacket and pants combination drawn from the angles of traditional Korean homes. The women wear a slim top and waistcoat, together with a wide skirt designed to give the wearer the appearance of floating. Typically the bride will wear vibrant red and the groom will wear contrasting blue, to depict the yin and yang which complement, connect, and depend on each other. There was a gift of a wooden goose as a symbol of good intentions and commitment to each other. Then it was my role to toss some chestnuts for Jeremy and Tae to catch. The number caught signifies the number of children they’re likely to have.

We needed to get home for Samuel’s year-end exams, so we couldn’t stay long. We were shown the historical fort and wall and a traditional village – and a theme park was included for Samuel’s benefit. We learned that a night out in South Korea invariably ends with a few hours of karaoke. I definitely can’t sing, and I’m not being modest. Still, in one of the private rooms, called noraebangs, I was willing to give it a go. And, with Samuel’s passionate love of tinkering, especially with his extensive collection of Lego, I totally over-spent on master grade Gundam figures with featured internal skeletons and articulating fingers. On the plane home I couldn’t have been happier for Jeremy and Tae. With my marital history and that of his mother, I truly believe Jeremy had outperformed both of us in choosing Tae as a life partner.