Spirals

A story about love...and broken dreams

Tears blurred Aaron’s vision. They scalded his eyes before falling torrentially down flaming cheeks, finally being consumed in the dampness of his T-shirt. Slumped in a feotal position opposite the flashing screen of the television, his mind primed by alcohol and months of pain, he was unable to tear himself away from the horrors before him. He could not comprehend mans inhumanity to man as the pictures flickered from one obscenity to the next. He could not understand the sheer madness, as his own torment became complete. He stared into the face of terror and, as he could perceive only a world where love no longer existed, he was frightened and filled with despair. Why can’t people simply love one another? His body convulsed and he sobbed uncontrollably as this thought engulfed him. He wanted more than anything, to be able to reach out and save those whose bodies�?lay crushed and broken. In a surreal way, these innocents were reflections of himself - powerless, defenseless; the fragments of shattered dreams.

It was June 4, 1989. Aaron was witnessing the nightmare of Tienamenn Square.

And all he wanted at this particular time was for someone - anyone - to hold him, and take the pain away. His two-year-old daughter Emma

placed her arm around him. They wept together.

In truth, Aaron’s nightmare began long before he was to witness the Human Rights tragedy of China. And little did he realize that the pain that had finally broken his spirit was to haunt him, gaining strength, for the next ten years and more.

Aaron’s ordeal as described really happened.

In the three months that followed, his father died and his wife finally left him taking his daughter with her. She had been involved in an affair in the months preceding and culminating in Aaron’s capitulation and, as Aaron was for her a second marriage, it seemed quite possible that his surname could well have been Rebound.

A grieving heart, desperately trying to deal with the dual pain of a parent’s death and the loss of a partner to another found to be preferable, is just the fodder to which insanity is attracted. The mind tends to retrace in minute detail, moments of significance when in hindsight, alarm bells should have been ringing. Those bells rang many times for Aaron both before and after June 4, 1989. For ten years he chastised himself for his own naivete and weakness to face what soon became the harshness of reality. For ten years he carried his pain like some sort of banner, unwilling to set it free for fear of losing his own worth. For the same ten years he could not forget the nightmare he was forced to endure. His life spiraled out of control. He feared relationships and was unable to make the commitment required to fulfill the needs of his own heart. In short, though he was committed to love, he had forgotten how to love.

He lacked trust, and having been the target for deceit and lies he was to almost sacrifice himself in his vain efforts to champion the pursuit of truth.

Much of the detail of Aaron’s life has been overlooked. Some of it would give a greater insight into his plight but what would be the point. It has, suffice to say, taken all of ten years for him to find the secret to freeing himself from the torment and shame he has endured. It was not, as he had thought, in the hands of friends and their advice, albeit well intentioned. On the contrary, friends suffer along with you and find themselves drawn into depression as they realize their help serves little purpose. In the end some even resent the fact that they feel as helpless as the friend they are trying to help.

Nor was the secret to be found in therapy sessions with highly paid and well-intentioned psychiatrists.

The secret lay within himself, hidden among the ruins of his own heart. It had been there all the time as large as life, and certainly bigger than Aaron himself.

The secret was - forgiveness! Aaron had to face the fact that for the sake of love and his own happiness, all the hurt and all the hate that he had morbidly carried through a quarter of his life had to be let go. Only then would he free himself from the spiral. Only then would his heart be mended. Only then could he say that yes - I’m alive again.

*dedicated to my daughter Emma.......without your love..........Aaron would never had made it to this point sweetheart......thank you for loving him.