Lies of life part two

Continuing previous post, here is what she told me about her problem.

She was 22 when she knew a quite shocking story about her father that she and her family didn't knew. Before marrying her mother, her father had been married and abandoned his first marriage. He just left his former wife and children without bothering about divorce and any other tidbits about family. He just simply vanished from his former family.

To make thing short, he then went to another town and start a new life there. In his new life he met her mother until finally married and had her and her siblings as children. For more than twenty-two years, he kept about his former marriage as secret, nobody in his new life ever knew him as a married guy, at least he was.

What bothering my friend's feeling is not about her father's deeply kept secret about his marriage. It's about his attitude toward his former wife and children. It's about responsibility as a husband and father. As a woman herself, he couldn't accept a man abandons his family without any sign of responsibility. In brief, it's about her father's ignorance. He was irresponsible man in her opinion. And an irresponsible man is not worth as a father.

Maybe some of us just simply think that kind of problem is only part of buried past, but once again she couldn't and still can't accept it. She feels ashamed about her father, especially after knowing her father's former family member. How a man with responsibility could just ran away neglecting his family and leaving them in desperate condition?

She also had a talk with his father's former wife, this made things worse. Her father's former wife is a nice person, she didn't mention about how cruel he is. She only told my friend about her struggles and hard times because of being a single parent. She told my friend about her endless struggle to keep alive in her early marriage. Even before she and her children were left behind, they're in difficult condition, socially and economically. Socially because they're living in absolutely alien society in another island, economically because they just started a family for four years but already had two children. They didn't even have their own house; they only rented a very small house. Once they're left, they had to move from one place to another, and the most difficult task was finding a job for a woman with two small children that she had to raise and take care of. Sometimes some people in her new place had negative opinion about her and didn't believe about her husband's irresponsible attitude. They said it's just her excuse to make life easier.

My friend also gave a strong point about two children being risen only by their mother in difficult and hard condition without ever remember seeing their father. Day by day they're being told by their mother that their father is missing and cannot be found. From waking up in the morning until going bed in the night, they pray to meet their father someday. This happened for more than twenty years.

Her father admitted what he had done, including what his former wife had told to my friend.

She couldn't continue telling me about anything he heard from his father's former wife. She can't imagine what people said about fatherless child. Maybe it's now a common thing not to know a child's father, but this happened more than twenty years ago, when there is only rare case about unknown father. And surely people opinion is different in twenty years time span.


After my friend told me almost every single piece of frustrating particle out of her mind, I asked her about the night before, about why she wanted to die. Ooops that was one time mindless illogical wish. So it seems, even a really logical and rational person, an emotionally hard-shocking event can bring someone out of mind, even for only short period of time.

Again, this time I said nothing about her story whatsoever. I only positioned myself as a good listener. Too bad I couldn't gather her dropping tears and return it to her :)