peter
“It happened back in my 20’s, I was just a stupid youngster. My brother invited me to this dinner dance at the hospital. I turned it down initially, I was very busy with work and I had a new girlfriend at the time so had no interest in going. Anyhow, somehow he persuaded me, so I tried to convince my girlfriend to come with me but she didn’t want to. I ended up just going with him. We were there, waiting for the band to start but they didn’t show up. So one of the nurses sat down and played the piano. She must have played for an hour by the time the band finally arrived. Then she just went back down and stood with the rest of the nurses. I watched for a bit and when I saw that she didn’t have a dance partner, I decided to ask her. I really just wanted to be nice and thank her for playing the piano for so long. We danced and it was lovely. She was very pretty but I was sure I will never see her again. After the dance, I went to sit down and guess what happened? About five minutes later it was the ladies choice, and she tapped on my shoulder… That caused all the trouble! I was married to her in a year! But listen, this is not a regular fairy tale story. We were married for a week when she had her first seizure. I had to bring her to a psychiatric hospital. It turned out she’s got manic depression and severe bipolar disorder. I had no idea what these meant at the time. So I rang me dad and I said: ‘Dad, I’m in trouble, my wife is in a mental hospital! What should I do?’ He says: ‘Just leave her there, the state will mind her.’ Imagine! I was only married a week, I loved her, so I brought her home and decided to take care of her myself. Oh boy, did I bring trouble on myself… She was a lovely person but she began to have all sorts of health issues, she had back problems, she’s got diabetes… It also turned out she was molested as a child so she hated sex, we barely got to have one child, but I couldn’t ever leave her. I loved her. She only died last year… I took care of her while running a full-time business for 59 years… anyway! Here I am, back on the chase again!”