A Lifetime of Goodbyes

by Samantha Touchais

  ‘Nothing really, but that initial spark we felt has gone, and now we have fallen into a mundane routine much too quickly for my liking.’ As he sighed, I thought about what a mess he was in.

  ‘I think you need to take some time for yourself to really figure out what you want to do,’ I said. ‘You can’t keep stringing everyone along.’

  ‘I’m not trying to!’ he rebutted. ‘But I am completely confused and am looking for some advice from a friend. You have known me for a very long time and know me almost better than anyone, so I am really hoping that you can tell me what to do!’ He slumped down further in his bar stool, utter hopelessness written all over his face.

  Again, I felt sorry for him. He was a good guy and was not trying to upset anybody. He was trying to make himself happy, that was all, but unfortunately that small indulgence had turned into something much bigger.

  ‘Dust off your rods and go fishing for the weekend,’ I said. ‘Alone!’ I added as he perked up and was about to invite me. ‘You need time away from everybody to think and really try to understand your feelings and what you want to do. You may not end up staying with Marilyn but that doesn’t necessarily mean you go running home to Geraldine. Sort yourself out and then we will take it from there,’ I said. We agreed to meet again when he had returned from his time away.

  A few weeks later, as we sat down to discuss his situation again, he seemed different. He wasn’t his usual bright and cheery self, but he seemed lighter than the last time I saw him.

  ‘I’ve come to a decision again,’ he said. ‘I did a lot of thinking about Marilyn and tried to really understand how this all started and how we ended up the way we did. I realised that while Marilyn was a breath of fresh air, and we could have fun together, she’s not Geraldine. Geraldine and I have been through so much together, and I suppose after so many years of marriage things just got a bit stale. But no one loves me as unconditionally as Geraldine, and I realised that when Marilyn started to try to change me. It was subtle at first but then became quite blatant. We had quite a few fights over it!’ He had a beer in hand, as he usually did, but he wasn’t relying on it so much this time. I took that as a good sign.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘So you want to call things off with Marilyn, right?’

  ‘Correct,’ he said. ‘And I want to go back to Geraldine.’ He smiled, and I thought He’s gone mad! Why would Geraldine take him back after everything he had put her, and Benji, through?

  ‘Do you think she’ll have you back?’ I asked, uncertain of the answer.

  ‘I certainly hope so. Do you think she’ll have me back?’ He looked at me nervously, expectation written all over his face.

  ‘What would you do in her shoes?’ I asked. His eyes dropped down to the counter. He didn’t speak for a long time, and I let him stay in his silence. He eventually lifted his eyes and said ‘I’d probably slam the door in my face, but then again, I’m not Geraldine. She is much more forgiving, and certainly much more understanding, than me. She has always put the family ahead of herself and I really hope she is able to do so this time.’ He sighed, again carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

  I advised him not to say anything to Benji and to again send Benji to us for the weekend while he tried to talk to Geraldine. I prayed she would find the strength to do the right thing, whatever that was. I had no idea what I would do in that situation, but I am pretty sure that my wife wouldn’t have been as understanding and accommodating. I know Harold never set out to hurt anybody but how do you move on from something like that? Isn’t that the ultimate betrayal, to find someone you supposedly prefer to be with than your own wife or husband? I know that some view monogamous relationships as going against nature, but swans do it, wolves too. If the mate of a swan dies, they never find another one, remaining committed to their partner for the rest of their lives. There’s something in that idea, hard as it can feel sometimes.

  I am not judging people who choose not to be together any more, certainly not, and having seen many couples around us break up over the years, I know it is not an easy nor pleasant thing to go through. But once an infidelity happens, how do you forgive your partner and take them back? Does the trust ever truly return? Can it? I didn’t know the answers to these questions and I am grateful now that I never needed to.

  My wife and I had long discussions about the situation between Harold and Geraldine. Of course, we wanted things to work out for them, for their sake and particularly for Benji’s, but ultimately Harold needed to accept whatever Geraldine’s decision was and move on. Benji needed stability whether than meant living with two parents or one, and Harold couldn’t keep changing his mind.

  It’s so easy for a couple to come apart from each other. Once the initial romance and excitement fades, and routine sets in, it is easy to lose sight of why you fell in love with each other in the first place. Add children to the mix and one can tend to get so caught up in the every day aspects of life, that the couple can forget to talk about their dreams and aspirations. Without realising it one finds oneself drifting away from a shared vision of life and the connection is lost. When the children grow up and move out of home, or retirement starts, suddenly two people together for decades find they now have nothing to talk about. No longer are school discussions necessary, and problems at work no longer exist, and a big cavernous silence takes their place. Two people find themselves looking at each other and trying to remember why they were together in the first place, or worse, discovering that those reasons are no longer valid.

  It is so important to always stay connected, to put the effort in from the very beginning. Sure, the working week can be tiring, and sleepless nights with young children exhausting, but it is too easy to slip into a routine that feels comfortable and necessary at the time, but that eventually takes the place of shared dreams and plans for the future. Conversation becomes solely about the children or domestic issues and no longer about each other as individuals. I suppose that is what happened to Harold and Geraldine.

  In the end, Geraldine took Harold back. It took a while for them to find their feet again, and Harold said that Benji was quite reserved at first, and very wary that Harold would leave again, but after a while things got back on track. Forgiveness is a truly beautiful and powerful thing and can lead to a lot of happiness if one lets it.

  I look at Harold as he marches along the footpath. He’s been a good friend to me, as I have to him, and while I didn’t really have friends in this life, I think that if anyone was to be my one and only true friend, there was no one better suited than Harold.

  ‘Take care of your family,’ I tell Harold one last time. ‘Enjoy the years you have left on this earth and really cherish those around you. It’s been a real honour knowing you and I’m truly grateful that life has blessed you with happiness and brought you forgiveness.’

  I ponder over that final word. Such a simple word to say but it is loaded heavily with meaning. Forgiveness gets me thinking about my brother and I find my legs heading in the direction of the cemetery.

  Chapter 4

  The Brother

  They say you can pick your friends but you can’t pick your family. Well that is certainly true and I learned that the hard way as I lived through years of an on-again off-again relationship with my brother. That man caused more headaches and more heartbreak than I care to even remember, but he was still my brother and I have often thought about him over the years.

  We were never really close. There were only two years between us and I think that created a lot of rivalry that my parents never knew what to do with. One of my first memories is of trying to get rid of him. We had a fish pond in our back garden and John was desperate to have a close look. Well, as any five-year-old would, I jumped on the opportunity to ‘help’ him, so I told him to stand on my hands and I pushed his little three-year-old body up and over the fence. It was no easy feat, but I was feeling very motivated that day. He landed with a big ‘thwack’ right in the middle of the pond. I don�
�t remember a splash, but I suppose that was because the pond fence was quite high, and he hit the water with a lot of speed and went right down to the bottom. I indulged in a moment of sweet satisfaction until he came up coughing and spluttering and screaming for our mother. Instincts kicked in and I knew if I was going to survive this episode I had to think fast. I searched for anything I could use to put against the fence to make it look like he had gone over it himself, but I couldn’t find anything. In my panic I took off at great speed with Mother’s words of ‘WAITTILLYOURFATHERGETSHOME!!!’ ringing in my ears.

  I got a wholloping that night. My father didn’t often lose his temper but when he did it was quite terrifying. I was very sore for several days but not as sore as my poor brother. He really did get a nasty fright but in his sweet and innocent three-year-old way he kept trying to play with me and seemed even more glued to my side than he had been previously. I don’t think he realised what happened that day, and I certainly wasn’t going to tell him.

  As we grew older, we went through the usual fights over toys which later on turned into fights over girls. There was one girl in particular that I secretly liked, and I confessed this to my brother late one night when we were both tucked up in our respective beds but not yet asleep. He took it upon himself the very next day to ask her out, and from that day on I decided I could never trust him again.

  As the years went on, we went off on our separate paths, him an architect and me an accountant. As the first-born son I was expected to follow in my father’s footsteps whereas my younger brother could do as he pleased. I never fully forgave my parents for what felt like pure favouritism toward my brother, but I suppose when you have your hopes pinned on one son, it takes the pressure off having to pin something on the other.

  We spoke on and off over the years and would see each other at Easter and Christmas. When our parents died we drifted apart and didn’t put much effort in. I called him the day we found out that we were expecting our first child and I remember being met with silence. He then quickly shared his congratulations and hurried off the phone. I didn’t understand why until a few years later when he and his wife announced they were to divorce. They had been trying for a baby themselves and after several miscarriages, one very late in the pregnancy, the stress all got too much, and their marriage broke down. I felt sorry for him that day. He had always been one for keeping up appearances, and so I was shocked to see what a shell of a man he had become.

  He came to me one day with a renewed enthusiasm that I hadn’t seen in years. He said he had a brilliant business opportunity. One that was too good to pass up. Now, I believe in hard work. I believe that we need to work for things in life and that nothing is given for free. But there was something in his enthusiasm, in his certainty that made me think twice. Get rich quick schemes don’t work, I kept thinking, and yet his arguments were irrefutable. He had an opportunity to invest in a new mining venture in Africa and all he needed was a small down payment and the rest could be paid in instalments. The opportunities for profit were too large to pass up and all we had to do was sit back and watch our money grow.

  Now I should have trusted my gut. God gave us instinct for a reason. But instead I got caught up in his infectious energy and excitement and didn’t really think things through. He was my brother after all and if he said he had checked things out thoroughly then I was sure that he had.

  So I gave him a large chunk of our savings. Even though I was the accountant, I reasoned that he would take care of the financial side and would ensure that all was above board as he was my brother and was heavily involved in the venture. I even planned for what we would do with the dividends we would receive. We had always wanted to take the children to Disneyland and I thought that by delaying the trip and investing the money we had put aside, we would still eventually be able to take them on their dream trip but also save for their future.

  I never saw the money again. Nor the profits. My brother took the money and used it all for himself. He travelled the world, he spent it on women, and he did Heaven-only-knows-what-else with it. It turns out there was no venture. There had been nothing to invest in except his own selfish lies. I had trusted him with my children’s happiness, and my children’s future, only for him to squander it on nothing.

  It took me six months to realise what had happened and by then it was too late. The money was gone and he had no way to pay it back. What do you do? Do you take your brother to court and display all your family’s dirty laundry for the world to see? To what end? To punish him for what he did to us? He showed no remorse, he was worth nothing and so going to court would not get back my children’s dreams.

  I looked at photos of us as children and for the first time truly acknowledged the divide that had always been between us. The divide Mother tried so hard to break down but only succeeded in strengthening. She had always said that all she wanted was for her boys to be close. Her boys were her world and she would do anything to keep us together. But she could not see the damage she was creating. The comparisons she made without reflection. The pressure she placed on me as the older brother to set the example and to be the leader. The advantages she allowed my brother to exploit because he was the baby. He was the charmer. He would look up at Mother with his big soft eyes and tell her what she wanted to hear. He needed her. He made her feel wanted.

  I, on the other hand, was ‘too independent’. I was too capable and didn’t need her for the little things that were so big for her. Isn’t that the goal of a parent, to create a child who is independent of the parent? Who can survive independently in this world and make a success of their life? Isn’t that what animals do? They don’t seem to question their role as parents, they do what comes naturally and when it is time for their young to grow up and move on wouldn’t they celebrate a job well done? Why do we put so much of our own dreams and desires onto our children? Why do we judge them for what they choose to become when it doesn’t align with the dreams we had for ourselves?

  I felt very judged by my parents. No, not my parents, my mother. But not knowing how to handle her, my father would often side with her and push the blame on to me. So while I was expected to be the older and therefore the wiser of the two brothers and to set the good example that he needed to follow, I was also expected to be dependent and vulnerable and in need of my mother which I never managed to reconcile.

  I digress but I realise now that I held a lot of resentment towards my brother, even from a young age. I felt that I carried all the hopes and expectations on my shoulders and he was free to be himself and to be the golden child who could do no wrong. He waved to me from outside the boundaries that I was confined by. He was free to roam in the fields and chase dreams and butterflies while I had to stay inside the fence and look after the proverbial homestead.

  I accepted this role initially with grace. I allowed myself to be moulded into the big responsible brother, into the creator of close family ties. But when I fully embraced this role and allowed it to speak to who I was becoming as a person, Mother questioned me and became disappointed in me, as I no longer relied on her. The person I had been shaped to be quickly became unacceptable. What was I to do? What could I have done? I chose to remain in this role as it was as much a part of me as the air I was breathing. Meanwhile my brother seemed to know what Mother wanted and seemed to be able to superficially shape himself to her needs. I watched as they became closer and closer and as I became more distant. The close brotherly bond my mother wanted so badly for us was slowly and carefully being pulled down brick by brick.

  One day I found myself standing face to face with the man who had betrayed me. Who had literally taken my money and run. We were at the airport both about to board planes but for different reasons; him to go off on another adventure, me to go to the funeral of an old family friend. I managed a few words that I don’t remember, feeling the bile rise in my throat. I wanted to punch him. I felt such anger. He just smiled. My fists closed into tight balls and my throat constricted.
Why did he seem to float through life, why did life give him no consequences to face? How could he not care? Our mother had died several years before and he barely made it to the funeral. He had been trekking through Thailand and had not been reachable. He begrudgingly boarded a plane to come home for the funeral and was gone again the next day. Good old reliable me was left to pick up the pieces. The responsible older child was asked yet again to step into shoes clearly too big for the younger brother to fill.

  The bitterness took me by surprise, but it was to be expected.

  ‘How could you,’ was all I could stammer. It wasn’t a question as I knew there would be no answer. How could you answer for a betrayal such as his? My children flashed before my eyes. The day we had to tell them that we no longer had the money to take them on their dream trip, their little faces crumpled and all I could do was thank God my brother had not been close by at that moment.

  So here I was before him, his face calm and completely guilt-free. He said he had to go as he needed to board his plane. I stood there frozen by anger and bitterness and bile. I watched his back retreat and I barely breathed. When I could no longer see him, I took a deep breath and walked to my gate where I half sat half collapsed into the seat. Why is it that the best comebacks occur after the person has walked away? I had so many things I wanted to say to him all of a sudden, but it was too late. I thought them anyway as I stared at the bright blue carpet and the pieces of old chewing gum that had been trampled further and further in to the ground. That’s like me I thought, with a strange half smile on my lips. I’ve allowed too many people to do this to me but no more. I resolved I would no longer think about my brother. I would erase him from my memory. I would recreate happy memories, ones where I could just be, no responsibilities and just a normal happy childhood. One where I wasn’t exploited and twisted and manipulated all for the supposed good of the family. It took me a while but eventually I was able to let go. I never forgave though.