BEL MOONEY: How can we help those who suffered like me?

Dear Bell,

False letter from four weeks ago (May 6) about her cruel mother and loveless childhood touched me very deeply indeed. As an only child, I remember wondering from a very young age why my mother didn’t like me.

Like Val, I’ve been told she had a hard time bringing me into the world. As a young teenager, I asked my father if there was anything he could do about her, but as a quiet man and a Christian, his priority was only to help her.

The result left me a painfully shy young man who thought there was something wrong with me. I avoided social events and crowds because I was afraid.

I remember going camping with the Scouts. A new leader was present. When I was told he was a psychiatrist, I avoided him like the plague, afraid he would think of me as a bad or insane person.

Bearing in mind that I was a young man, physically strong from a working-class village, I had to compete and be strong or be bullied.

I developed an attack policy when someone messed with me and thankfully that helped keep the bullies at bay. But it led to other problems. Alcoholism followed with a terrible decade of pain and problems. Not only for me, but also for everyone around me.

Through Alcoholics Anonymous, I went into recovery a few decades ago, learned a lot, stayed sober, and found the joy of life.

I have now forgiven my father and mother and have prayed for them to forgive me as well. However, I still live with that petrified little boy in me, but now I cherish and care for him.

Most of my childhood friends still don’t want to know me, which hurts, but I understand it’s because I hurt them a long time ago – which is why I apologize when I can.

The point of this letter may be hard to understand, but all of the above makes me seem to see damaged people everywhere – and think about them so much. I wonder what can be done.

Are there answers?

GEORGE

Years ago I realized that a large part of me is drawn to, and sometimes awed by, what I describe as the battered majesty of human beings.

This, of course, relates to events in my own childhood – and is perhaps why I find your letter moving and graceful.

Without self-pity, in a matter-of-fact tone, you describe an unhappy childhood in which you were bewildered by your mother’s coldness and your father’s emotional neglect. But the thing is – you were motivated to write because of your compassion for another reader, Val, whose story touched your heart.

Now that same compassion brings you pain as you observe a world full of suffering and wonder how this could be. You wish you could do something to make damaged souls better – when in the end, against all odds, you managed to make yourself “better.”

Despite your painful – and guilty – memories, you think of others, not yourself.

You ask if there are answers to “the problem of pain” – as the great theologian and novelist CS Lewis called our human dilemma. Religious people will point to faith as a solution, but instead (or also) I will point to you. Yes you. For, in the words of a profound French thinker, Christian Bobin (1951-2022): ‘These people, wounded in soul and body, possess a greatness which those who carry everything before them will never reach.’

I despise the eloquence of saying that good comes from suffering, and I tell you honestly I have no magic wand, no ‘answers’, but I will present your own life, for all its pain and the destruction you have endured and inflicted can provide just one of the answers you seek.

You are honest about the past. If possible, apologize to people you’ve hurt along the way. You have forgiven your parents, but also admit that you need their forgiveness as well. In doing so, you offer all our readers an important lesson.

Then you acknowledge the damaged child still within you, but you don’t feel sorry for that “petrified little boy” – for that would be to trap him in a cycle of pain and guilt. Instead, you reach out to that bewildered soul and walk forward, acknowledging and accepting, taking full responsibility for past, present and future. I find in your email great kindness to yourself and others.

This is essential because to move on with our lives, we must trade resentment and self-pity for quiet acceptance of what we’ve done and righteous pride in how far we’ve been willing to change.

I admire how you rebuilt your own life despite everything that happened, and the resilience in your words. Your head is high and you look ahead.

In it, George, though you can’t change the world, you’ve given me one of those vital, elusive “answers” that we all yearn for. Thank you.

We are both 85, is moving house wise?

Dear Bell,

My husband was diagnosed with Parkinson’s 12 years ago and we managed well. Recently, however, he has slipped into Parkinson’s dementia and his short-term memory is significantly impaired. He has also lost weight.

His adviser told us last week that the decline is inevitable and will only get worse. I do everything now, handling pills, making decisions. I started driving again after years as a passenger; it’s hard, but it has to be done.

We are both 85 and go everywhere together. But for the past three weeks I’ve had an ear infection that caused terrible dizziness, so I couldn’t continue. My dear husband did not understand that I was sick. He couldn’t handle it when I got really sick.

We live in a beautiful village that has everything we need plus lovely people. As a born and bred Cumbrian I am in my right place and know I could make it on my own.

But most of my friends are old now, with their own problems. We have two lovely daughters – one unmarried in Kent and one in Lincolnshire, with three lovely, lovely children. They really want us to get closer to them.

I’m starting to feel it would be a good move for my husband and he wants to go. Also, selfishly, I think it would give me some respite. But we have so much support around us that I’m afraid to take such a big leap, to start all over again.

Then I think it’s better to jump than to be pushed. I just don’t know if I should start a new life for the sake of my husband. Please advise.

LIZ

How hard it is to weigh your alternatives: the known versus the unfamiliar, habit versus anxiety.

But we also have to throw another essential choice into the mix, certainly more important than the others. That alternative is loneliness versus love.

Your village sounds so pleasant and convenient. You built a life there, in a part of the country where you feel at home. That sense of belonging means more to some people than to others; it is obviously precious to you.

But even if it didn’t, the awful stress and strain of moving is bad enough when you’re in your early sixties (the last time I moved), let alone twenty years older. Change becomes more terrifying as we get older.

So I want you to know that I understand why you have written, but I nevertheless implore you to be brave and extend the loving hand that your daughter from Lincolnshire and her family extends to you. There are inconsistencies in your letter that need to be addressed.

Most important is your claim that you would “make it on your own” if your husband died first. Yet you admit that your friends are now “old, with their own problems” – and that you are lonely.

Not even the most perfect village can compete with that. Also, you idealize the present as “anything that’s comfortable,” but the reality is a “struggle” for a woman exhausted by physical and mental demands that are sure to get worse.

There is absolutely no need to criticize your own desire for help, for delay, as “selfish.” I believe that in an ideal world, children and grandchildren should help the older generation. It used to be so much easier, when it was normal for families to live in the same neighborhood.

But I realize that family care doesn’t always work out, and the situation can be very painful and emotionally draining.

Unfortunately, many adult sons and daughters don’t want to know. But you have a daughter who (with your three grandchildren) is urging you to get closer so she can help. Isn’t that more precious than anything else?

It seems that while your poor husband is excited about this move, “jumping” would be just as good for your own good.

So yes, the move will make you very sad and you will need the maximum support from both daughters to organize it. But after that, I suspect, you’ll find it will be a well-deserved blessing to be cared for at this point in your life.

And finally… Don’t miss wedding portraits

A new art exhibition in Bath has made me think about marriage. The 17th century poet John Milton formulated an ideal: ‘. . . the fit and cheerful conversation of man with woman, to comfort and refresh him from the evils of the solitary life. . .’ Hmm, let’s hope some women found “comfort” too. . .

In writing this column, I encounter the universal highs and lows of marriage. Times and laws change, and now divorce is easy (albeit still mostly miserable, especially for children), so that almost half of all marriages end in breakup, an estimated UK rate of 42 per cent. When I was in school, I hadn’t heard of anyone who was divorced; now every classroom will contain children with divorced parents.

Painted Love — Renaissance Marriage Portraits is a rich new exhibition in Bath, in my favorite museum The Holburne. The beautiful, glowing works of art (one even from the Royal collection) show that at a time when marriages could be a matter of political and economic expediency, it was still possible for couples to remain committedly in love.

Fifty items, including jewelery and exquisite miniatures, tell a complex story of marriage in 15th and 16th century Europe. A wealthy, middle-aged magnate posing with his 18-year-old bride reminds me of similar couples today: he’s confident and complacent; his arm candy looks pretty bleak.

A wall caption reads: “The institution of marriage was considered important to the stability of society and, for much of this period, a sacred union. . .’ Coincidentally, many of us still believe in her devotion as the foundation of society and the best state to raise children. Visit The Marriage Foundation’s website for more information on this important topic.

And visit beautiful Bath for the human stories (happy and sad) behind the rich clothes and jewelery of men, women and children who may have felt just like you.