Exploring the concept of growth.

When she was a small girl, her mother took to her bed and not long after her stepfather took to the girl’s bed.

So began a messed up life, a life where what one might consider normal growth of a child from childhood to adulthood turned upside down.

Her mother claiming she was too unwell to fulfil her motherly duties meant the young girl grew up as the carer for her younger siblings, she read her mother’s cheap, sleazy novels, she was subject to the role of a comforter and the victim of sexual abuse that was the haunt her all her life.

As a child, she should not have been subjected to shame, but that is now part of her life, a burden she deals with daily.

As a teenager, she rebelled as kids do, with no great guidance in life she sought comfort wherever she could find it.

Pregnant at an early age with plans to keep and nurture the child she found others conspired against her and the child was stolen.

This left a huge hole in her life, she found ‘solace’ in religion, which ironically turned into a hell on earth.

Two children later and an abusive husband she stepped away, determined to give her children a life she struggled against all the odds until she met a man who like her was damaged but in whom she found trust and devotion.

In old age, she still bears the scars of a life where growth was often a steep curve and where today she exists day to day in a world where making the best of what she has is about as good as it will get.

Growth is individual to us all. Some of us have been lucky to grow as nature might dictate, but not everyone is so fortunate. The school of hard knocks often fortifies us for the rigours of life, makes us strong in ways we never would envisage and teaches us the value of love and compassion.

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2018/07/19/tale-weaver-180-growth-19-7-18/