The Little Girl Under the Bed.

The little girl under the bed was me. That is one of my earliest and most painful memories, so painful that I was only able to write it in third person.

I stayed there until my father came home. He was a policeman and was working shifts. He came home to find an empty house and all lights blazing. He had no idea I was there under the bed and, since I was asleep when he came home, he didn’t look for me then but found me in the morning when he heard me crying under his bed.

My mother resented me. She didn’t want to be married but being pregnant with me was why she was. Since she was an Irish Catholic, there was no chance of divorce. I was a premature baby, always ill, and learned my lesson early…that I would get no love. So, therefore, I became a prickly pushing-her-away child. Things were made more difficult after my sister was born two and a half years later. My mother had an easy birth {with me she was paralysed in what later was recognized to be the first manifestation of MS} My sister was chubby, cute and one of those babies who loves the world from birth. She never got ill or threw up and strangers on the street stopped and remarked how pretty she was.

So, when my mother left {and she did this and came back many MANY times} it was me she left and my sister whom she took.

Oddly enough, my sister and I have quite a good relationship now. This may have something to do with the fact that I am in the States and she is in England…

I can’t write any more about this now. Even after over 60 years, there is still pain…

To be continued…