Book 5
aug2008
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Dedication
For a story like this that’s special in every way,
you might think its dedication would include a
lot of people. But this is a one-person
dedication only.
It’s not about what she contributed to make this
book come true; this dedication is about
friendship.
In the process of changing sex, your friends
easily disappear. And you can’t always count on
new friends. Although this person didn’t know
much about transsexualism before she met me
and I had no idea how she would react, she
started working with me because of her
professionalism. But this manuscript has made
us friends.
So this is for you Shelly.
Marianne sends her love too.
-Li
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— Introduction —
This story is based on a true event and its
complex implications.
It’s about transsexualism.
Even though this phenomenon occurs rather
commonly (1 out of 500 people are transsexual,
or even more) and therefore affects us all, most
of us don’t want to talk about it. And even
though transsexualism occurs worldwide,
regardless of sex, race, religion, society, and
upbringing, we work hard to deny its existence.
Even if you have heard about transsexualism
and think you know something about it, you
most certainly don’t know what this story is
about to tell you.
This emotional journey will take you beyond
what is generally understood, and even farther
beyond what modern science has included in its
understanding. Keep in mind though that it is
based on real events. In fact, what happens in
this book is happening to others right now.
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What we try to deny, hide, and even kill is an
inherent part of nature and very much a part of
ourselves as human beings. Gender is basic to
everything we are. Gender defines life. Why
deny the beauty of life, the persons we are?
If there is a message this story might convey,
it’s that you and people around you do have a
part to play in giving this story, and others like
it, a happy continuation.
I hope you’ll enjoy this colorful journey, as well
as my company along the way.
Yours sincerely,
Li Sam
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End of a Day (1/1)
Huge waves crashed ashore on a tropical beach
warmed by the midday sun, on a small island in
the middle of nowhere in the Indian Ocean.
Peter and Sara, a middle-aged, loving, Swedish
couple, had found a place, a spot on Earth,
where life was different, as if life meant
something else to them here. Their happiness
and relationship had grown stronger during all
their years together, but, as on any paradise
island, life changes as you follow the phases of
nature and let it take control. This time nature
was going to take Peter and Sara on a journey
beyond their known beliefs and imagination,
indeed beyond all possible understanding.
Peter and Sara had been on these islands, the
Seychelles, the year before. On this particular
small island called La Digue they had found a
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pretty, clean cottage with a kitchen where they
could be by themselves, cooking fish they could
buy from local fishermen along the small
village beach. On this trip, before reaching their
small paradise island they had planned to stay
a couple of days at the main island Mahé and
visit places they had enjoyed on their previous
visit traveling around the Seychelles
archipelago.
The airplane landed on Mahé in the middle of
the night, and as Peter and Sara stepped out in
the pitch dark, the warm, humid air
surrounded them. The airport was just big
enough for a jumbo jet, and only a small mobile
platform with metal steps led Peter and Sara
directly down to the ground not far from the
arrival building. It was a warm, pleasant night,
but it was windy.
And what was that smell? Peter and Sara
recognized the smell of paradise from last year,
but this time there was something else the wind
was carrying. They weren’t aware of it
specifically, and had they been, they would
have had no way of knowing its significance.
This time they had brought only clothes
suitable for this climate, so they didn’t have
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much to carry. They were met at the airport by
a woman working for a tourist company who
would take them to a small resort called Sunset
Villas near Beau Vallon Beach, one of the best
beaches on Mahé Island. The woman’s car was
small, and Peter had to push the passenger seat
all the way back to squeeze in because of his
long legs. He was muscular, but that didn’t
show: only his slimness and height were
apparent. Sara was fairly slim too, and of
medium height; she took the seat behind the
woman driving.
The airport where Peter and Sara had landed
was well protected from the ocean by several
small islands and reefs nearby, and with all the
other noises around they hadn’t yet noticed the
sound of the waves. As the small car had passed
the only real town, Victoria, and climbed over a
passage to the north side of the island, noise
from the outside vanished. As they came
downhill and closer to the beach the sound of
waves started mingling with the sound of the
car engine. The sound of the waves was
powerful, and the already small car felt even
smaller.
There was not much light outside the airport
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and along the roads, but Peter and Sara safely
reached the resort, where just one lamppost
struggled to illuminate the four-car parking lot
where they stopped. As the woman with the
resort turned off the car engine, the sound of
heavy waves rolling ashore was roaring.
Peter and Sara unloaded their bags while the
driver walked to a small house to get their key.
When she returned, she told them where to go
and gave them the key and a small torch, as
there were no lights along the path leading up
to their cottage.
The cottage itself was perched on a rather steep
slope, and the stairs to it seemed to lead up into
darkness. There were no lights coming from
within or from any of the other cottages on the
slope, so Peter and Sara had to rely on the
torch. It was a strange feeling, climbing the
stairs, as the sound of the car driving away
faded into the night.
The darkness amplified the sound of the waves
beneath them as Peter and Sara climbed the
stairs, and somewhere in the middle they
stopped together to listen. They could
remember the slow peaceful cycle each wave
continues as it washes up on shore, like an
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endless string of pearls fed by the sea, growing
and then disappearing as the string breaks.
But now, was that sound all they heard? As
Peter and Sara listened, they recognized the
cycle of the waves, but they couldn’t remember
ever having heard surf sound so powerful. It
seemed as if the waves were trying to climb up
to them, to grab hold of their feet, and by force
take them out to sea. Sara suddenly lost her
balance and Peter had to hold her by the hand
as they completed the climb to their cottage.
The cottage was nicely prepared for them, and
they were tired from traveling, so Peter and
Sara tucked themselves in bed while listening
to the sound of the waves filling each corner of
their bedroom.
The next morning came soon as the sun rose
from the sea, and Peter was quick out on to the
cottage veranda to have a look over the beach
and the waves that had been so present for
them all night long. Sara got up too and
followed him out. It was a beautiful morning,
and the wind had calmed down a bit. It was as
if the sun had broken the spell cast by the night,
the spell that feeds our deepest fears and most
vivid imaginings.
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Peter looked toward the horizon, smiling. The
waves that were rolling in on the beach were
not as big as he had felt them to be in the dark,
but they were bigger than he ever had seen on
this beach before. Sara came up next to him,
searching for his arm, first skeptically looking
down at the beach and the waves and then up at
Peter’s happy smile. Peter had learned body
surfing the year before and he loved to play
around in the water, waiting for the right wave
to carry him back up on the beach. Sara was not
that enthusiastic; in fact she was afraid. It was
not the water itself that scared her, but when
Sara felt the power of a wave grabbing hold of
her legs she panicked. Even if the surf was mild,
she often felt vertigo when the smallest bit of
water reached up to touch her where she stood.
Because they’d been here before, they knew
exactly what they wanted to do and where they
wanted to visit that day. For Peter this was
holiday, but he of course had to bring his
laptop, mobile phone, and other things that
would keep him busy. Because he was self-
employed, a contractor in electrical engineering
for the last twenty years, he never really
relaxed; he never did nothing. Even when it
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looked like he was resting, his mind wasn’t. It
had happened more than once when Peter was
trying to tell Sara about one of his new ideas
that Sara just moaned back at him saying, “Oh
no, not again.” If it wasn’t work that occupied
Peter’s mind it was renovating old houses on
the small farm where they lived, and if either of
those weren’t enough, Peter could always find
new ways, “impossible” ways as he called it, of
cooking.
In some ways Peter was different from other
men. When he and Sara first met, Sara was
skeptical, yet she didn’t know why. It wasn’t his
looks that made her hesitate, since Peter was a
very handsome man. He was also polite and he
didn’t force his way as many men Sara had met
before had done. Sara didn’t want to get tied up
in a serious relationship, but the sexual
attraction she felt when she met Peter she
couldn’t deny. Peter turned out to be a very
gentle, caring person, and there was even
something shy about him, but without him
backing off from situations or putting himself
in the shadow of others. Sara was an
independent person, and with Peter she felt
encouraged to be the person she truly was.
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Peter never tried to control her as many other
men had tried to do in her earlier relationships.
If Peter was different, Sara was not, apart from
choosing Peter as her life partner, of course.
Sara was pretty by normal Swedish standards,
with dark brown hair, grey-blue eyes, and
medium height and weight. In fact, everything
about Sara could be said to be normal. But it
wasn’t for being normal that Peter had chosen
to stay with her. What he liked was that she
never forced herself on him or tried to make
him do things he wasn’t comfortable with, and
most important was that she let him be.
Especially sexually, Peter had always had this
problem with women: they sort of waited him
out, and when nothing happened they lost
interest. Peter never felt that pressure from
Sara, and whatever happened between them
sexually always came naturally from a lovely
day together.
Even though they’d both grown older now,
their attraction from their first meeting was
still intact. They both had aged beautifully
together and had maintained their relationship
without any strings attached; they just enjoyed
being together, and sexually Sara felt more
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than satisfied. The confidence Peter projected
in public may not follow him in bed, but Peter
was careful to take his time, and to Sara he felt
safe.
For other people, Peter’s careful behavior was
sometimes seen as boring, and even if Peter
wasn’t directly ignored he was very much
avoided. It was just how things were and it
didn’t seem to bother him at all. It didn’t bother
Sara either, and the more she grew to know
him, the more she appreciated being with him.
Now they were out on their own again, this
time planning what they were going to eat on
this slightly familiar, still exciting island. Peter
was responsible for cooking, and he had made
up his mind that on the menu was fish and
whatever they could find locally. So one of the
first things Peter and Sara did, after signing for
a small rental car provided by the resort, was to
drive to the fish market in Victoria to explore.
Besides, they had nothing in the fridge so they
had to shop before they could have breakfast.
Exploring this part of Mahé Island (even on
empty stomachs) was fun, and Peter and Sara
enjoyed every minute of it. After a first tour
around the market it became clear: Fish, fruit
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and vegetables were going to be on the table
this evening. But which fish? There were a lot
of different types of fish displayed that Peter
had never seen before. And the ones he had
seen he didn’t know how to cook. But what
Peter didn’t know he turned into his
“impossible cooking,” thrilling in the challenge
of cooking something entirely new without any
safety net. Sara liked these cooking adventures
and she very much took part in whatever he
did, or at least, she tried to do.
Peter’s impossible cooking had become a sort
of hobby to him. He enjoyed using cookbooks
more as a source of ideas, not as rule books to
be followed word for word. Methods of cooking
were also something he enjoyed
investigating—once he had read that in the
Stone Age people cooked food in holes they dug
in the ground, so of course Peter had to try
that. He had dug a hole in their garden and
covered the bottom and sides with stones, and
then he filled the hole with logs he had chopped
to fit, and he lit it all on fire. When the fire had
burned out it left a red-hot charcoal bed in the
bottom of the hole. Peter had selected a pork
loin about two pounds that he wrapped in
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aluminum foil and placed on a flat stone on top
of the charcoal bed. Then he found a big flat
stone to cover the hole, and he sealed the hole
with dirt. “Four hours,” Peter had said to Sara
that it would take, but in reality he had no idea
how long the pork needed to cook in that hole.
After one hour a thin smoke pillar smelling of
pork rose from the ground, and Sara told Peter
to check it. “It’s okay, just as it should be,” he
assured her without knowing. After two hours
the smoke had increased and the smell of burnt
pork permeated the entire area. Sara didn’t
want to say anything, but she laughed inside.
Well, Peter just had to go pick out his now over-
cooked, black piece of meat. But even so, Peter
and Sara dined happily on side dishes, and
Peter repeated that “the wine is good anyway.”
Somehow his impossible cooking disasters
didn’t matter; what mattered most were their
moments together having fun. But Peter did
learn, and after several stubborn tries he got it
right and most often very right, surprising even
Sara.
That morning at the market they selected a big
fish, much too big for just the two of them,
without knowing what it was. Every fish on
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display was strange to them; the only fish they
could relate to was some kind of tuna, but that
was no sport for Peter, and anyway, they didn’t
want to eat just tuna on their holiday.
So they bought this strange-looking fish, some
vegetables, fruit, and other groceries: bread and
such they needed for their relatively short stay
on Mahé.
And then, well, what to drink? They bought
some bottled water, but they had no intention
of drinking water with their exotic meal,
whatever it was going to be. So they’d also
brought with them some bottles of very special
wines they had purchased on a small car
excursion through a wine district called
Franken in Germany. It wasn’t many bottles,
but it was wine saved for celebration. For Peter
and Sara there were never enough occasions to
celebrate in a year, and anyway, with whom
would they celebrate? They often celebrated
being together, and as Peter was leaking ideas
all the time, his ideas of celebrating something
were one of his specialties. These ideas Sara
never moaned about. Whatever would become
of this evening dinner, they should celebrate it,
and if it wasn’t for their first day on holiday the
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celebration could well be for the strange fish
they just had bought.
They drove back to their cottage and unloaded
everything on a kitchen table in the back of a
big room. The front room had a beautiful view
out over the ocean, with a few palm trees
between them and their view of the whole bay
and the beach below. Alongside the big room
serving as both kitchen and living room was the
bedroom, and in the back of the bedroom there
was a door to the bathroom. Outside was a big
veranda with a roof protecting it from the sun.
When Peter and Sara had sorted out all the new
groceries and put them away, they finished
unpacking from their very late arrival last
night. As they unpacked their light bags, they
prepared a breakfast of tea, toast with butter
and marmalade, some sort of cheese that
looked familiar, juice, and of course fruit. Local
fruit here was just delicious, and it also turned
out that the trees on the resort bore fruit. A
quiet young girl from the staff gladly provided
fresh papaya, some sort of grapefruit, melon,
and some other fruits Peter and Sara had never
seen before but loved.
Everything seemed perfect.
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After an exotic yet comforting breakfast Peter
and Sara cleared the table, putting everything
back in its place again, and then they prepared
for their first real island excursion in their new
rented car. The Seychelles Islands have left-
hand traffic, an inheritance from the British
who had left the islands to its natives not long
ago. Peter was used to left-hand traffic from
before, and their earlier journey out shopping
had gone well, so Sara didn’t worry that much
as they left. She knew though from last year
that most roads were very narrow, and the hill
and mountain roads could be steep. In fact
Mahé Island was a big granite mountain rock
sticking over three-thousand feet straight up
from the surface in the middle of the Indian
Ocean, with at least a three-hour flight in any
direction before anything else could be seen
that was not water. The space to live on was
limited, and houses often were climbing up
what seemed to be impossibly steep slopes.
Peter slowed in the car just after they had left
the resort. The road was curvy and went close
to the shore, with just a tiny little piece of beach
between it and the ocean. As the road turned
inland, he increased his speed a bit. He still
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couldn’t go fast though, as the road was just too
curvy, and when it climbed uphill the power of
their small car was not enough. At the other
side of the hill Peter and Sara had to trust the
brakes.
To Sara uphill was okay, but downhill on these
curvy roads was something else. Peter liked to
tease, and he tried to show off as if there was
nothing to it, but even so he realized this was
no game. Many cars they met drove full speed
and passed closely. Other cars coming up from
behind tried to pass and some even tried to
pass in curves with no view in front of them at
all. Peter often turned aside, letting other cars
pass safely instead of challenging fate. He
didn’t want to show Sara that he too was
anxious driving on these roads, but he never
did foolish things, and after a while Sara felt
safe with him behind the wheel.
So they drove around the coastline, stopping
here and there to visit places they knew from
last year. They had of course brought their
bathing suits and some simple snorkeling
equipment, but as they visited beach after
beach on the west coast, the waves were more
than they’d counted on.
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As they reached the southwest end of the island
they found an amazing beach, Anse
Intendance, that stretched wide before them. It
was fully open to the west, with no protecting
reefs in front, so the ocean had full access to the
beach and showed its entire strength. These
waves weren’t just rolling up on the beach.
Even though the wind had calmed down a lot,
the ocean had not. It didn’t look that bad far
out, but when waves reached the shore they
were pressed together rising from the sea, and
they threw themselves up on the beach with a
power that made even Peter think twice.
There was no way to get in to swim, Peter knew
that, but he just had to tease Sara for a start by
walking out to the edge of the water. He stood
there watching the waves, letting the remaining
water of a big wave wash up his legs. The
returning water was strong and the water wall
that was rising up from the ocean was
enormous. How high the waves were exactly
Peter didn’t know, but it wouldn’t be an
exaggeration if the highest waves reached
thirteen feet or more.
Sara was scared and called for Peter constantly
as he stood at the edge of the ocean. After he’d
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had enough of the wild ocean and the teasing,
he walked back to her, and then they walked
together along the shore a bit before turning
back to the car. In some spots on their walk the
water reached high up on the beach so that
even Sara got wet. One of these times Sara felt
something burning on her instep. A tiny
thread-like thing was attached to her skin, and
only after several attempts did she manage to
get it off. But it left a red, itchy, burning mark,
both on her foot and her fingers, proving that
an encounter with something unknown had
taken place despite her care.
The journey back was a pleasant one despite
Sara’s still-burning wound, and they made it to
the cottage well before the sun went down.
They arrived safe and in a good mood, so now it
was cooking that mattered. Peter enjoyed this
part of the day most: different and interesting.
Peter had always liked fishing since he was a
little kid. There had been a couple of small
lakes where he lived, and he had enjoyed
cycling out there with his simple fishing gear—a
rod, line, cork, and hook—just to be by himself.
As a child Peter had friends and had no real
problems in school, so it wasn’t a retreat, but
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sometimes he just felt like being alone. This
fishing interest had followed him as he grew
older, and when he married for the first time
and had children (before he met Sara) he
moved out from the town of Stockholm with his
family to be near the coast, where he could go
fishing whenever he wanted.
Peter had enjoyed fixing dinner for his family
when he caught enough fish for a meal.
Whenever he thought about back then, he
always smiled to himself, remembering the
children’s complaints to their mother. His wife
Ann had been much older than him and had
brought two of her own children into the
marriage, both teenagers. “Mom, why can’t we
have the same food as everyone else?” they’d
whine. Just a couple of months after Peter and
his family had moved out to the coast, his
daughter was born, and as soon as she got old
enough she too complained about his strange
cooking. This didn’t bother Peter though; he
just saw it as a challenge and he did everything
to improve his cooking, and that really included
everything.
“What are you laughing at?” Sara quietly asked
him with a smile as they climbed the stairs to
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their cottage.
“I’m just thinking of the first time when I
managed to hook an eel and tried to cook it for
dinner,” Peter said, and once again he started
to tell the story.
Sara didn’t mind hearing that story again as it
was so typically Peter, and she loved him partly
because of these kinds of stories. He’d been out
in a small boat very early in the morning and
was going to try a new way of fishing. He had
made himself a long line with loops every ten
feet, and on each loop there was a short line
with a hook attached. On each hook was a small
piece of fish as bait. The line was about 140-feet
long, and the evening before Peter had placed
the line at the bottom of the sea with two small
weights on each end, and with two other lines
with empty plastic bottles attached as floating
devices marking out the location. Now was the
time to take it all up.
The sea was rather deep there so it took a while
before Peter could feel some resistance from
below. And once he got the contraption up to
the surface he didn’t know what to do. There
was just this one eel but it had made a mess of
all the line and all the hooks—it was all like a
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ball of yarn impossible to untangle, and the eel
was rather big, three feet or longer. It was well
hooked but it was definitely not still. After a
while Peter managed to lift the eel inside the
boat by the short line attached to the hook, but
then he had to cut the line as he didn’t dare to
have the ball of line with all its hooks in the
boat at the same time as this now very wild eel.
The eel was heavy, and putting it in the plastic
bag he had brought with him was not easy. He
managed to get the tail in the bag and tried to
lower the rest of the eel in, but the tail quickly
was up again and out of the bag. Peter tried to
hold the eel firmly in his right hand and force it
into the bag, but that didn’t work either, and
now the saying “slippery as an eel” really made
sense to him. There was no way he could hold
the eel no matter how hard he squeezed. But
during this struggle Peter noticed that the
harder he squeezed around the eel’s body, the
more it used its tail to slip out of the grip
backwards. So with that in mind, Peter held the
eel high using the line, and with his other hand
he placed the plastic bag with the opening right
under the eel. When he got the eel’s tiny tip of a
tail hanging inside the bag, he quickly grasped
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the bag opening around the eel’s tail and
squeezed as hard as he could. The eel
immediately reacted, working itself backwards
into the bag. Peter then was quick to knot the
bag closed. Now finally the eel was trapped.
It was a very proud father who came home with
his catch that morning, showing the moving
bag to his wife and later the children. Still
though he was thinking, everything was good
and well so far, but how was he going to kill it,
and what kind of dish can you make with an
eel? For those in the know, you just don’t kill an
eel like any other fish; you have to empty it of
all its blood and kill it that way. But Peter didn’t
know that, so he took the eel bag with him in
the kitchen, and with the eel still in the bag, he
cut off the eel’s head. Out came the headless,
squirming eel leaking blood all over the
kitchen, even slipperier than before. When the
bloody, headless eel escaped the bag, Peter’s
formerly excited family escaped the kitchen,
shouting.
Dinner that evening was definitely not going to
be eel: that was a united decision by the family
without Peter having a say. However, Peter did
learn, and later there were many eel dinners
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enjoyed by the family, some dishes even the
children very much came to like, and years later
they asked him to cook these dishes when they
visited him and Sara.
Sara was very happy that this new fish they had
bought was dead for sure, no surprise there. As
Peter finished telling his story they had entered
their cottage, and he had opened a bottle of
their very special German wine. They now were
sitting on the veranda chatting, sipping the
wine, and looking out over the ocean. After a
while relaxing and getting in the mood for
cooking, it was time.
Peter had become quite skilled at preparing
fish, so this new one was no problem for him.
While Sara prepared the fruit and vegetables
and laid the table, he cut out two very nice-
looking filets and salted them, then melted
butter in a frying pan and added a curry he had
discovered last year at the market. First he fried
finely chopped onions in the curried butter and
took the onion out of the pan, and then he fried
the fish filets. When the fish started to turn
light brown, Peter took it out of the pan too and
added thick full cream and the chopped,
sautéed onion back again to make a thick tasty
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sauce.
Peter and Sara had a wonderful evening, and
the wine was just perfect. The night air had
gone pitch dark, with only a couple of lights
shimmering below their veranda, creating
shadows from trees and bushes slowly swaying
in the now soft, calm breeze coming in from the
sea. The temperature was exactly right, and
Peter and Sara stayed up as long as they could,
enjoying the scenery. Even at home they
enjoyed just sitting in the evening after a good
meal; they didn’t have to say much because the
silence spoke for them. A light touch and a kiss
conveyed their feelings this night just like
during their other nights together.
The love Peter and Sara shared had grown
during their almost twenty years together as a
couple. They had not married; it never had
been an issue for them. They were a pair
because they enjoyed and loved each other.
Peter was the one with children but Sara hadn’t
gotten that far. She had been married a short
while before she met Peter, but for Sara
marrying made her ask herself, “Is this all there
is?” After a few years being married, she
couldn’t go on cheating herself, showing a
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happy face when she was not. Marriage to her
became a mere institution, with a lot of things
she had to do to please her husband and family,
but nothing for herself.
Sara had lived by herself for three years before
she met Peter. Peter’s wife Ann had died from
breast cancer when his youngest daughter was
only three years old, and he had been left alone
with the children.
Life for Peter during that time had been hard:
It all started when his wife got the message
about her breast cancer, and only days later she
lost an entire breast to surgery. From the
beginning her condition was declared minor,
with the surgery being routine, and the doctors
told them not to worry. But watching his
beloved Ann die during the following year
made something die within Peter. The concepts
of faith and trust in people, believing that
people help each other in times of difficulty, all
became a dark ugly lie for him.
Sometimes people’s irrational behavior and
fear when confronted with unpleasant
situations really can screw things up. In Peter’s
case, he became unpleasant to be with because
his wife had died. What was there to talk
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about? Can you really invite a person who just
lost his wife to a party where everyone else has
a partner? People may have meant well, but
most times their half-hearted attempts to reach
out to Peter only hurt him further.
Peter had one neighbor friend who said to him
first off, “Peter, leave your kids with my wife
and we’ll go next door and drink some beer.”
For Peter, that attitude came as a shock. “What
does he mean? Am I supposed to neglect my
children and shove them aside for some stupid
beers?” No, Peter just quietly answered that he
couldn’t do that. And as a consequence he
became an odd person in the neighborhood,
and especially the men started to avoid him
from that day on.
Somehow though, he’d always gotten along well
with the women, and, even though most
women followed their husbands’ example,
there were two who kept in contact with him.
As it turned out, these two women provided the
only decent adult contact Peter experienced for
years after his wife died, until Sara came along.
Peter’s own family, his parents and his sister,
also weren’t close. Peter and his father had
never gotten along, so as an adult, his only
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contact was with his mother and sister. And
even after Peter’s wife had died, his father often
prevented his mother from helping. Peter’s
sister lived with her own family in a small
village far away so they didn’t see each other
often. During the summers though Peter’s
youngest daughter Jenny could stay with them
for a couple of weeks, and that helped him get
some time of his own.
If Peter’s family was a sad story, Ann’s family
was worse. They didn’t do anything to help,
and they didn’t visit or try to take care of the
children. What Peter got were demands by
phone about what he should do and blame for
when things didn’t work out between him and
the children, as often happens in situations like
that. So with no support, Peter had to manage
on his own.
This, however was a long time ago, and, as
people like to say, time heals every wound. Or
does it?
Out on the veranda, Peter searched for Sara’s
hand, and they inched closer. Just sitting there
smelling the air, hearing the waves down below,
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and feeling each other’s presence was holiday
for them. As they started to prepare for bed
they were treated to a memory from last year: a
six-inch-long, bright green lizard was on the
wall just above their bed. It was catching flies
that were attracted by the light and the white
walls and roof in the bedroom. Peter didn’t
bother to scare it away because he and Sara had
learned to appreciate the little creature. They
let the contended lizard carry out his work
catching flies in silence.
Peter and Sara snuggled close in bed. They
could carry on like that for hours, but the long
trip and their first day’s adventures forced them
to pay their dues. Even so it took some time
before they fell asleep. The slow roaring pace of
the waves filled the night, and Peter and Sara
fell asleep, holding each other by the hand as so
often before.