Remembering and Forgetting

Tonight there was an empty seat beside me in the theatre. 48 years ago, Saskatoon Summer Players put on their first production, Oklahoma, at Walter Murray Collegiate. It was a beautiful, warm summer night like tonight and my husband to be and I attended that first production and many, many productions since. Tonight he wasn't with me and I missed him. He would have enjoyed "The Producers", outrageous, totally politically incorrect, and hilarious.

I'm starting to remember the good times and forgetting the bad times. I think a lot about his sister, the one who caused so much damage to her mother, her siblings and us. She appeared to be without conscience or compassion. I once asked her older sister if she had always been that way and her sister answered, "Yes". She could be charming and destructive and her family permitted it.

My husband's sister's first husband had warned him before our marriage to look out for H... and B..., as they would cause trouble, which they did, not only for us but for the rest of the family. In another sense, his sister's efforts to break us made us vow that we would never let her see us separated, so through thick and thin, we stuck it out.

In the end, his sister's efforts to destroy us, led to successes in life that we would never have dreamed of before her campaign. It felt like living in a war zone, and it was, for a number of years. In the end, we built a good life together, developed many good friendships, raised a family we could be proud of and had many good times together, like the summer evenings attending musical performances.  It ended up being a much better life than we might have had, had she not done the things she did.

We were blessed and protected. We had much to be thankful for , and I still do.