My Story

A simple message’s power to heal a terrible hurt lay undiscovered for 52 years

ABOUT TWO MONTHS AFTER MY WEDDING in 1960, I discovered that my new husband, Ian, had a problem managing his anger. I didn’t know why and he couldn’t tell me. It seemed in those days few people had ‘heartto-heart’ talks like we do now.

Our son was born in 1961 and I was in hospital for our first wedding anniversary. Our little boy was the apple of my husband’s eye. Having few children of his age to talk to, my son was very mature. As a three year old, he loved to hold conversations with neighbouring farmers who visited us at our home in the remote farming area of Kerikeri in New Zealand. He took centre stage and charmed everyone.

Two years later, I became pregnant again, and in the meantime my husband had taken up golf and played at a golf course quite some distance from our farm. He played with passion and was a very good golfer. In those days, no one knew if an expected baby was going to be a girl or boy, but someone waved a crystal over my stomach and told me it would be a girl. We were both delighted by this.

On the way to the hospital while I was already in labour, we had a terrible row over the fact that my husband was due to play golf in a tournament in Waitangi for the next three days and wouldn’t be here for the birth. He even told me he wouldn’t be seeing the baby or me until three days later. He knew the baby was due at this time yet this was the first I’d heard mention of the tournament.

He became very angry when I protested that his decision was very wrong, and it was then that he made the most shocking remark to me. He said angrily, “Well, we’ll split up – I’ll take the boy and you can have the one in your belly.” I was devastated. He dropped me off at the hospital – the same little hospital in Northland where my son had been born three years earlier. Then he headed home.

I entered the hospital and from then on my memory is a blur. I suffered a violent attack of asthma, brought on by the stress of the argument, and couldn’t breathe – or push. I remember everyone kept saying, “Push! Push!” but I just couldn’t. The result was that I had a difficult birth and almost died of asthma. My baby – a girl – also suffered and was delivered by forceps. The nurses were all large, happy souls who constantly sang as they went about their ward duties.

For days after the birth, I was in a bad way, slipping in and out of consciousness. I was very sick and focused on combating the asthma. I didn’t see my husband for the three days he had promised and this left me feeling terribly hurt. I was unaware that he had visited me and our daughter while I was asleep. During this visit he’d left me a note, but it was never given to me. It seems that when a nurse packed my things to eventually go home two weeks later, she placed the note between congratulatory cards from neighbours who had called in to the hospital to see me and my baby girl.

The bundle of cards was bound together with a piece of pink ribbon and for some reason when I returned

I didn’t see my husband for the three days he had promised and this left me feeling terribly hurt

home I put it at the bottom of a drawer of baby clothes, still tied up. But the incident was not entirely behind me.

Our little girl became the apple of my husband’s eye but sadly as the years passed his inner anger became focused on our son, even as a young boy, and of course on me – again. If there had been help in those days – a psychologist or some sort of anger-management group – I would have implored my husband to address his problem, but in our small, remote farming town there was no such thing.

Years later, in 1986, at the age of just 52, my husband was killed in a tractor accident. It was the most dreadful shock. I never remarried and I am 80 now. Lately, I’ve been going through all my belongings and sorting out old papers, cards and letters, box by box. In one very old box that hadn’t been opened since my daughter’s birth, I found the bundle of congratulatory cards, and in between them on a thin sheet of paper my husband’s note. It read:

Darling thing,

I wish to say how sorry I am for yesterday’s performance and for how I’ve been the past three weeks or so. I can only say that I will try to be better and grow up. I think you are very clever for producing a dear little girl. I know it will make you very happy, too. Maybe our luck will change now, for the better.

I love you darling, I love you very much.

Love, Ian

P.S. Don’t think me queer for writing this note, but I can say what I think better on paper. Once more, I love you darling, very much.

When I came home with my new baby, my husband never asked, “Did you get my note?” If he had asked, of course I would have replied, “What note?” but that didn’t happen and the row and his cruel words were never mentioned again. I carried the hurt deep inside me all this time and, never having read his note, I naturally felt he wasn’t sorry at all for causing so much pain and trauma.

It’s sad that I’d not seen my husband’s note of apology until now. What a difference it could have made to our marriage. I think I would have been able to better understand him. That note remained undiscovered and unread for 52 years. I feel sad for both of us that he wrestled with this problem and never had the opportunity to address it. The letter would have put it in its place.