Is Love Blind | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Is Love Blind | Previous Challenge Entry
By Elaine Hemingway
09/07/17
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It’s almost midnight, why isn’t he home yet? I can’t go to bed, I need to be dressed. The kids are asleep. Please don’t let him wake them. Is that the car? No, it’s thunder. That means it will be a storm. It’s been building all day. He said he would be back before the rain started but it’s pouring. Why does this happen? Last night was so good. We sat and played games and the boys enjoyed their dad so much. They were laughing and giggling, rolling on the floor with the pup, Rocky.

2am. Has he parked somewhere? Has he had an accident? Are they still drinking at the club maybe? Should I phone? No, that might make things worse.

4am. He’s home. Will he come in and create havoc or will he fall asleep in the car? At least he wasn’t caught by the police.

***
Young, impressionable and away from home for the first time; I mean really away, not on holiday or just moving into a flat, or to another town, but in another country. That was me back in the 1960’s when morality was a considered norm. I guess I didn’t realize it in my naivety but I was a square peg with no hole to fit into, round or otherwise. I was “trouble waiting to happen.”

A sheltered upbringing with a father I idolized as a pattern for manhood was a dangerous beginning to my big adventure. And adventure it was, for a city girl to have a so called confirmed bachelor farmer chasing her, how could I resist?

Known as a man’s man, a self-designated misogynist and a hard-drinking hard living, working man, he was also a music lover with Danny Boy a top favourite, to be played when the night was fading into dawn and it was almost time for another day’s labour. Sentimental, a cat lover, and inexplicably attracted to me.

I went back home, husband to be planning to follow me and arrange a wedding in England. Three months made the heart grow fonder!
I travelled to London to meet the flight he should have been on. There was a letter waiting for me back home to say that he was still busy with crops badly affected by the weather but wanted me back there asap! Romantic? Possibly, but … I was yet to realise that a bachelor used to his own comfort and his own way expected his wife to conform to his own lifestyle and adjust accordingly. A special licence had us married three days after my return and married life on a farm with no electricity, no modern amenities like running water, and a wood burning stove was romantically idyllic - at first!

Children arrived bringing more responsibilities and more concerns. Life style changed from farming to Diamond digging. Our new home was an improvement – we had an indoor toilet and running water.

***

Pieces of chalcedony, small agates, rose quartz crystals and shiny Tigers eyes, all semi-precious but found in the gravel of the diamond diggings in the old Western Transvaal of South Africa. When the wash pans are overturned onto the sorting table, any diamonds lifted from the depths of the earth, shine translucent and dry in the centre of the wet pebbles. I was taught to sort by a rough diamond himself, my husband and the father of my children.

If I had known what lay ahead, would I still have married him? I don’t know. I believed in love and love never fails. I soon learned though what alcohol could achieve during a night out with the boys. It didn’t happen often, at first, until the novelty of a wife and family failed to hold his allegiance. Oh, yes, he loved us, but not enough. I prefer not to dwell on the problems for they are in the past, but they were all part of the lessons learned.

Love: It can’t be earned and the manner of showing it may differ, but patterned on the Lord’s agape love, it prevails.

Forgiveness: It’s not a choice but like love is a command and it carries conditions - Forgive as the Father forgives us.

Diamonds are not necessarily a girl’s best friend! But they are formed under pressure. Even when brought to the light they still need cutting to complete their beauty.

Romans 15:13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

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