Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: NEWS (07/05/18)
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TITLE: A Love Not Shaken | Previous Challenge Entry
By kate mackereth
07/12/18 -
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He was a quiet boy, with dreams so loud they filled the large Australian sky between us. His dad made hay bales for a living, drove trucks… nothing special. He wasn’t to know that the spare time he spent fixing his son’s bicycle would change my life forever.
He took that boy to every race he could and watched him ride faster and faster, leaving other boys in his dust. While they all bragged about their new bikes and fancy gear, David used cardboard and zip ties to fix his son’s bike.
He kept winning.
A BMX track was more of a home to him than a classroom and David was glad. He didn’t want his son corrupted by the world.
David would smile at me through his eyebrows. He’d watched me grow and he’d watched us play. He’s seen the scribbled envelopes his son had made for me. Love letters, gifts. David wasn’t one for words but even as a child I felt an understanding between us. A warmth.
My family moved but we kept writing, my country boy and I, talking occasionally on the phone. Sometimes we’d see each other when our families travelled. We exchanged our dreams in the back of his dad’s old Falcon.
‘I want four kids when I’m older.’
‘Yeah me too.’
‘How about a dog?’
‘Yeah gotta have a dog.’
He took my hand and we just sat.
He helped me climb the half pipe and showed me his tricks. ‘What do you reckon?’
‘I think you’re amazing,’ I beamed.
I remember answering the phone to him when his voice had changed.
‘You sound like your dad.’
‘I’m fourteen now.’
‘I’m fourteen soon too.’
‘I know. I never forget your birthday.’
By the time I was sixteen he was already traveling the world and being paid to ride as a downhill mountain biker. He wrote me another letter.
‘I have the job I wanted. Now it’s time for the girl I’ve wanted. I’m coming to see you.’
He proposed to me on a park bench one winter’s morning when the oak trees had dropped all their leaves.
‘So, you gonna marry me or what?’
I laughed. ‘Maybe when I’m older.’
We were married at Eighteen. Affection that starts in childhood is known to be strong. But it’s also dangerous.
‘I like how you loved me before I was someone.’
‘You’ve always been someone,’ I’d say.
But he had to be more. He always had to be more.
‘Be careful overseas,’ his dad warned me. ‘He thinks he’s got it all sorted.’
I didn’t understand.
The doctor did when I saw her about a skin disease ravaging my body in Vancouver.
‘The only reason you could possibly have something like this, is stress.’
‘What does she have to be stressed about?’ My husband snorted. ‘She gets to travel the world and watch me race.’
I looked down at my lap. When had he become so arrogant? Maybe it was when he started waiting for planes to call his name before he’d board. Maybe it was when women would talk to him and his smile turned into a smirk slung over his shoulder. Maybe it was when he’d started watching porn and using me as his play-thing regardless of how I felt.
Maybe it was when he forgot I had dreams as well.
He got angry when he sustained an injury to his hand. All his off season training… wasted.
‘I’ll go home,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you a ticket later.’
I cried.
I helped him carry his bags to the taxi. He said he loved me.
I never saw him again.
Back home an attractive journalist did a story on him. Their adultery was news to me.
I’d been abandoned by the boy I loved.
His dad called and said he was sorry and he loved me like a daughter. I never saw him again either.
But God, not one to be outdone, had news of his own;
‘For your Maker is your husband – the Lord Almighty is his name. He will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit – a wife who married young, only to be rejected. ‘I will bring you back,’ says the Lord God your Redeemer...’
Isaiah 54 verse 5 onwards.
God’s faithfulness has been the headline in my heart ever since, the truth I cling to.
He’s the one I love.
The one who won’t leave.
Non-Fiction.
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very difficult story. Very pleasing to know you have found
the source of permanent and
true Good News.
I loved your honesty and ability to share such an emotionally charged life experience with us. I wonder if your husband even knew you had dreams outside his own or he just thought you would be happy if he was happy. It doesn't sound like you had any children together which was probably a blessing in disguise. You are a gifted writer and I look forward to reading more.
Questions:
Are dreams loud?orlarge?
Are both the father and son named David? It was confusing in the beginning: I couldn't tell who was who.
I can see your confusion about the name, I didn’t want to give his name and should have made it clearer.
Yes dreams can be loud, and others can be drowned out. Dreams can yell at you when you lay in bed at night and whisper hope when you feel all is lost.
Dreams come big and small. Even the simple dream to be loved by your husband and have a close family is a valid dream.
He knew mine at the time but of course dreams grow and change over time, he doesn’t know me now.
He trampled my soul in every way a man can and certainly more than this rushed article voices. Even the end winds up too quickly, not really giving God the full credit of all the special things He did in my life to restore me.
The full story will come later! Happy to message you further if you like xx