Mia was in the hospital bed. I was by her side. Never did she look so beautiful. Even when she clenched my hand with the pains she had, she looked like an angel. The nurse told me to look at our baby was now on the way out. As it slowly came out, my heart was beating at the miracle of life.
Mia was tired and asked what sex was the child.
I told her we had a boy!
We decided to name him Christopher. It was now that the unique miracle of life hit me. We gave life to a boy. Now we were responsible for his life and his future. We had to make sure he was dressed, educated and had a good personality. The responsibility we now had was overwhelming! I would never have realized this if I studied to be a priest. There the idea of being a dad would be theoretical. One night, I went out to our small garden and lifted Christopher up over my head and prayed to God that we would succeed.
When I looked down at him, a tear would come to my eye as he was the perfect child. I was so honoured to be his dad and so proud. It is strange as this feeling grew more and more as he grew older, despite I did not always show it.
Christopher was an easy baby. He slept well, ate well and did not cry so much. I was the perfect dad at the start. When it was my turn to get up and see why he was crying, I would. I fed him when he was old enough and I used to sit with and play with and listen to Madonna songs. This dedication became less and less which is something I regret to this day.
The reason why I spent less and less time with Christopher was that I was becoming more and more depressed. Living in Denmark was hard. Mia had her daily studies, her family and friends. I felt like I was in a no man's land, void of friends and family and I felt so unproductive. This changed slowly my personality. I became more self-absorbed and more selfish. I knew Mia loved me. However, I wanted to show I was still a person and still had a purpose in society. I do not think others thought I was useless. The result was that I slowly was putting nails in the coffin that would potentially destroy the best marriage ever.
I picked on fights with Mia. Everything she did was wrong! I wasted no time in getting into a fight, and this happened over the least thing. Maybe it was because I was depressed, maybe it was because I wanted to show Mia I still was a person, despite I felt alone and worthless. These fights were over small things and led my personality in a negative ring, where I was selfish and believing Mia wanted to live in Denmark, so she would control me. This was not the case. Mia tried to help me in every way she could.
Once, when we were arguing, Mia stood up to me. She usually just let me explode and wait until I settled down, but now we had Christopher, and despite he was a baby, he could see everything. She could not take my mood swings anymore. I was so mad, and not even thinking straight when I took one of her most prized possessions, which was a unique hand-blown glass, and shattered it on the ground. This was one of the worse things I ever did in my life.
Despite this glass meant so much to Mia, she forgave me. I told her I did not know what was happening to me. I was in a strange country with no friends or family. I could not understand the language. Even the religion was not mine. Mia said it was about time we visited Ireland, so I could see my parents again.
We borrowed her mother's car and drove down to Holland to take a ferry to Ireland. On the way, our old relationship where we were in love slowly shone more and more. It was like things were when we first met each other. The trip was fun and the only problem we had was when the car got a flat tire on the ferry. I did not want to show that I did not know how to change a flat tire, so I held Christopher while Mia changed the tire. Some people that seen this thought it was very funny, that the husband was taking care of the baby as the wife was changing the wheel.
We stayed for a few weeks with my parents, and I was in heaven that I could speak the language and understand the customs. Despite this, I hurt my brother's feelings when we visited his house. His sitting-room was painted in a very strange green colour. I said innocently that it was good that he would paint it a better colour. He already painted it, and he liked the colour! He was so hurt over my comments that he did not speak with me for two decades!
I hurt my parents as well. One evening when we were talking, I told them that we are doing well in Denmark. Mia was studying and I was getting unemployment assistance. We had enough money and were not living off of cat food. I said this so they would not have to be worried about us living in poverty. My parents misunderstood this, thinking I was boasting of living off of social welfare. My mom went so far as to say they were embarrassed because I was so proud of being on unemployment assistance. She did not understand that you needed a third level of education to get a job in Denmark. Even people that cleaned streets had been at courses. She did not understand that I had to learn the language.
The Irish trip was a success as it helped me breathe, but it also made me believe less in myself. When you have parents that are embarrassed by you, then it not only hurts, but you doubt if they are right.
We did try to make friends. Mia was part of a Bible Study group in English. They discussed a passage from the Bible. It was here, I let some of my aggression out. I provoked the others over many things and after a while, they considered me to be a provoker. This upset Mia. She often told me to be nicer and not so controversial. The problem was that I never used the Bible as a foundation for my faith, and often my statements and questions reflected this. The Bible study group got us no friends, made me more afraid to say what I thought and made me feel more like an outsider,
Mia still used her dad for any practical problem she had. She never asked me to fix something. She used her mom for emotional things. Her dependence on her parents was annoying at times. It made me feel more like a child playing house.
We still visited her grandparents, which as I explained before made me sick and depended on Mia more. If she left the room, I would beg her to stay. This, of course, annoyed her. I found the solution was to sleep a lot. So in the afternoons I would get tired and sleep the hours away.
It was on one of these trips that I had my first argument with my mother in law. She was in her usual happy mood and we were driving somewhere. I by now substituted her for my mom and she knew this, telling me she considered me as one of her sons, and always will be. This, of course, made me happier and less depressed. The topic of her youngest son was discussed. I said what I thought which was not all that positive, as I basically said her son was weird. This got her mad and said bluntly she did not want to hear about it, as he was her son and when someone said something bad about him, they hurt her. I shut my mouth and did not say anything for the rest of the drive. I knew her son did not have a happy life as he was teased a lot. She did not need to hear it from me.
I found out when we were at the summerhouse that I could paint, as Christopher was with his grandparents and Mia usually just read or played games. For some reason, I hated playing games. I was no good at painting, but it kept me out of trouble, and let Mia have peace from me. It was also relaxing. Her grandparents hung one of my paintings in the bedroom, which was an honour. I do not know if it is still there, 25 years after I did it…
I also decided to become a Danish citizen, so I would not feel like I was such an outsider. This meant I had to give up my American passport and my Irish passport. We went to Copenhagen to give in my American passport, which was strange as so many people were there to get permission to live in the USA, and I was about to give mine up. I had to make a pledge that I would never harm the USA. I also had to give up my Irish passport. As I was about to do this, I had second thoughts. I considered myself Irish. I had family there. It is where I spent most of my life. I decided to remain an Irish citizen.
The Scouts remained one of the areas where I could be happy. We really did not have friends among the leaders in the scouts, but we were quite popular with the children. Mia and I worked together, and we worked quite well together. The fact that I got on best with the children meant that we did a lot of activities with them and went on lots of weekends. We also took Christopher. He was a bit like a mascot. The scouts loved that we took him!
Things were looking brighter for me as I was accepted into the college to study to be a pedagogue, which is a practitioner of pedagogy. The term is primarily used for individuals who occupy jobs in pre-school education (such as kindergartens and nurseries) in Scandinavia. But a pedagogue can occupy various kinds of jobs, e.g. in retirement homes, prisons, orphanages, and human resource management.
The first day I was there, I was so afraid as I would be trying to get a degree in something in another language, One of the teachers asked if she should do her course in English, which made me smile as it was not certain the others knew how to speak English. I told her that she should do it in Danish. I sat back thinking that this would be a strange education.
I did not have so many friends here, as many found it hard to understand me. These would be the people I would have to work in the future. I tried my best to be understood and tried my best to fit in. However, the time at school was a very lonely time.
One of our friends was working at the scouts. He was from Lebanon and was unemployed; He was a man of a lot of words and thought he had the answers to everything. On one of our weekends, a 13-year-old girl told us he tried to touch her chest. I told her she should be proud of herself for telling someone. The problem was that she did not want to tell the police. Mia and I spent a few hours telling her that she should at least tell her mom. She did not want to do this and made Mia and I promise not to tell. We kept to that promise, but we did kick the man out of the scouts.
The problem was that he was just about the only friend I had. Now he was accused of such a thing which meant I wanted to protect the girl. The girl never did tell the police, but she told her mother, I which I was pleased about.
The fear I had myself of being a paedophile was still there, and I had no one to speak to about it. As I wrote before, the experiences I had as a child were fogged out in my mind and replaced by this fear. I was working at after-school care as a practical experience in my education as a pedagogue, and I quickly became a favourite with the children. The test came when two girls I knew tried to pull down my pants. One girl actually showed me her panties. I quickly told them to stop and was quite mad and upset at them. I gave them a lecture on respecting their bodies and others. It quickly ended with two 9-year-olds that were in tears, ashamed of what they did.
For me, it was a victory. I could have played along, flashing at the two girls. I could even have taken advantage of one girl flashing at me. However, I was the adult that knew it was wrong and told them it was wrong. This lifted my confidence that was in doubt for years. I was so happy. It ended that the two girls established a relationship with me, one where they had an adult they could trust and confide in.
Things did not go so well in my practical experience. Even though I did well with the children, I did not have a working relationship with the adults. I had huge respect and fear of authority figures, so I kept out of their way. This means they could not really judge me and I was hard to get to know. I was told that I failed the practical work because I did not have a body language. They advised me to get some experience and to improve my Danish. This failure was very hard, as I never really failed anything in my life (except for two tests). I was in tears for days thinking my life was over.
I tried once again committing suicide while Mia was at her school and Christopher was at daycare. When they came home, I was sleeping it off.
I got some work at a nursery, where toddlers were. I was hoping that this could get me the experience that I needed and break down the fear that I had when working with other adults. I cannot say that I got a lot of experience with children and working with the adults, as they had me doing their practical work, like washing dishes, cleaning toys, tidying up etc. I was becoming more and more depressed with it and started taking many sick days.
It was at this time that a boy from the scouts became quite attached to me. He had no Dad and this bothered him, so he spoke to me what it was like having no Dad and a mother that always spoke badly about his dad. I couldn’t give the boy much advice, but I listened to him. He started ringing to me at home and this ended with that he visited me all the time. Mia was worried about it, as she said some people would misunderstand an 11-year-old boy that visited me all the time. It ended up after one scout meeting that he did not want to go home. He told us he would go when we went as his mom was not home. After an hour, his mom came and was quite mad. She told me I was not the father of her son, and he was no longer allowed to see me. The strange thing is this destroyed me in a way, as I did consider him to be like a son. It also taught me a valuable message of keeping the distance.
I had a son! He was the centre of my life and in a way, I could understand the boy's mom.
We moved to a little old house that was nearly falling apart as Mia was once again pregnant. This house was a cosy little house, with a garden full of flowers and fruit trees. Of all the places that I lived, it was here that I was happiest. We did not have a lot of space, but that is what I also liked about it.
We were sure that Mia was pregnant with a girl, and we had several girl names ready. The baby was very late in coming, so the doctors had to start Mia and the birth. Like Christopher, the baby came quicker than we thought. Mia was eating Pizza and the next thing we knew, she was giving birth.
We had another son
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