I've written
this book in exactly the same way that I frantically scribbled down
car numbers fifty years ago in the London rush hour - typing
whatever came out of my finger tips, reading what I had written,
checking to see how few pages of my life I had left, knowing there
was nothing I could do to change the pages I had used or reclaim the
pages I had wasted... then I used up more precious pages.
As I read about
our lives, tears, spurts of blood even viscera, appeared from old
wounds I thought had healed and from fresh wounds as deep and as
painful as any of the old ones…like…I don’t know. I was going to say
like going to a psychiatrist but I wouldn't know. I’ve never done
that... like... like going to confession!
I used to be a
Catholic, I know how confession is supposed to work.
Retelling my
life through this book has been like going to confession. It has
forced me to face up to what really happened. See the warts, feel
the jealousies, hurt the hurts, hate the hates, lose the losses,
leaving me searching for the penance.
Trouble is,
there is no penance that can make good what families do to each
other and no penance means no absolution, no absolution means no
forgiveness and no forgiveness means hell, and ...regrets.
