This piece is raw and unedited. It was written straight from the heart.

Truth And Love

When I was a little girl, we had a black “houseboy” called John who cried when we left our home in Natal, to go to Cape Town. He had been my closest ally and loved us all so much, bending over backwards in so many ways to put our lives and needs before his own. Not only did that parting hurt, but so did losing my beloved pet cat, “Kicky” on the journey … and then our father disappeared from our lives a little while later … to reappear magically fifteen years later … but that’s nothing compared to what happened during those fifteen years.

No one knows my full story. No one knows the pain that I rise above every single day. No one else I know has walked a similar path – in Africa, Britain, Australia, and bumped back down in unfamiliar territory in Britain – and I have no one with whom I can compare stories or gain direction from. So I hang onto God and I never ever know what He’s going to do in my life each day … but I always know that He is there and he’s keeping me breathing through it all.

For about twenty years, I had a type of amnesia. After unwillingly leaving South Africa at the end of 1985, and then being totally immersed in British country life for almost two before taking myself on the next (challenging) adventure to London, without back up of any sort, I had completely forgotten the languages of the country where I was born and grew up. Survival mode had kicked in full ball. I had no contact with most of my oldest and dearest friends and many of my beloved relatives for most of the years since leaving South Africa, through no design or choice of my own, and over the past decade or so many have reappeared. This, in itself, has been a massive heart stopping exercise, one that has been on a curve and a roll and non stop for a considerable amount of time. I thank God for these people, every single one of them, and for the serendipity that has been working to repair the broken jigsaw puzzle of my crazy life.

In the meantime, all of life has to happen too.
And, by my God, it does.
Full ball.

Please understand that I’m still doing my absolute best to recover from the last nervous breakdown, the second of two which occurred in Australia over the fourteen years that I lived there, the last in the process of the chaos that was our leaving our home and life in Australia, putting my lovely business to bed ~ hoping to pick it all up again after a little soiree abroad …

One day I might write the full story.
The full story.
The full fifty plus years.
But. I’m afraid to expose those who have betrayed or hurt me ~ I realise that’s their indaba and not mine. I can only live with Truth and we each have to live with the consequences of our own decisions, choices and actions … as do I. We each have to learn to grow and mould ourselves into better shapes and treat others better and gain compassion, understanding, learn forgiveness and practise the loving art of grace … each of us … I do not manage the universe … so one day my story will come out, because it just might help one other person on their rocky path.

God bless those who love unconditionally and who do not judge. Your reward will be waiting for you in heaven … meantime, on earth we each get to experience that which we give out.

Choose LOVE.
It’s the most reliable, I’ve found.
In all its facets.

❤

~ Holly ~