Against All Odds: The Most Amazing True Life Story You'll Ever Read (25 page)
Read Against All Odds: The Most Amazing True Life Story You'll Ever Read Online
Authors: Paul Connolly
At first, I couldn’t find my father’s grave in the small cemetery because there were so many Connollys buried there. Eventually, I found it. I was completely taken aback by my reaction to the small, tidy grave. I had expected to feel nothing. Instead, I just fell to my knees and cried as I had not cried for years; big racking sobs that made my body shake all over. I cried like a baby, snot dripping from my nose and mingling with the thick, hot tears that poured from my eyes. I didn’t understand why I was crying, because my father had always been a stranger to me. Looking back now, perhaps the fact that he was a stranger was the source of my tears. I couldn’t stop. I cried for what seemed like hours. There had been a caretaker pottering about cleaning up the cemetery, and he made a discreet exit so as to give me some privacy.
‘I’ll come back later,’ he said as he passed me. I couldn’t say anything.
When I had cried my tears dry, I left.
Kilkieran is still full of family, and they welcomed me into their homes as if they had known me all their lives. It was extraordinary being with warm, welcoming people to whom I bore a strong physical resemblance, knowing that, if circumstances had been different, they could always have been part of my life. If my parents had never left Connemara, I might still be there, living in a similar bungalow, working in a local factory or shop. Few if any of my relatives seemed to know much about my family. But they all knew that I was the seventh son of a seventh son, and the old traditions are still very much alive in Connemara. Every time I went to a house afterwards, everyone wanted to hug me and shake my hand and they treated me as though I was lucky and charmed. They also truly believed that I had been blessed with the power of healing, and that I could cure whatever was wrong with them just by touching them with my hands.
I went to look at the family home into which most of my siblings had been born. It was in a modest but pleasant council estate dominated by a huge statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Two middle-aged men were sitting outside the house next door and I asked them if they had known the Connollys.
‘Oh, for sure I remember the Connollys,’ one of them said. ‘I used to play with Matthew. He was about my best mate when we were four or five, and then the whole family moved to London.’
If my parents had never left for London, we would all have grown up in Ireland. But it is never too late to work on a relationship, and I am determined that my little boys will know about their heritage and their extended family in Connemara.
Back home, when the children are out with Jo, I sometimes go and stand in their bedrooms. Ours is an ordinary, middle-class suburban home in Essex. To a lot of people, it would probably look like quite a run-of-the-mill house. But to me, it is a palace and the most beautiful place I know. Our children’s rooms are clean and nicely furnished and filled with toys. Their windows look out on to green lawns and orderly houses filled with decent, respectable, ordinary families who care for their kids and do their best for them.
Sometimes I try to tell Harley how lucky he is, how good his life is and how wonderful it is that he has nothing to worry about. He can’t even begin to understand what I am trying to tell him, because to him a life without fear or hunger or anxiety is natural and normal and right. Being able to provide an ordinary, safe childhood to my sons is the one thing that I am the most proud of.
I look at Harley, my first born. He is tall and strong, intelligent and sensitive. He can already read better than I can, and he exudes confidence. I see him with his mother, Jo, and watch how patient, gentle and kind she is with him. It makes me wonder how I would have been if I had been properly fed and clothed and, more importantly, cared for and loved by a parent who wanted me. One of the proudest moments in my life was when Harley, aged five, was voted ‘class councillor’ by his teacher and classmates. As he and Archie grow up, they will be able to become whatever they want to be, because they will know that they are loved, and that they have always been wanted. I will never understand why my parents allowed themselves to bring into the world eight children they did not want and did not love.
Thankfully, my children have helped me to become the better man I always wished I was. Much as I do for them, they have done so much more for me. Everything I give them is returned to me in spades.
Providing a safe, stable home for my children also means keeping my psychological issues in check every day. I know that I still have a real obsessive-compulsive disorder, and that I probably always will. I’m well aware of it, so I control it. This is one of my legacies from growing up in care. Because I never feel that I am capable of doing things properly, I check and check again. My house is very tidy, orderly and neat, and I cannot abide it if it gets messed up. The doors all have to be locked and all the lights that should be turned off are turned off. When I am stressed, my OCD reaches unhealthy levels, but most of the time I manage to keep it in check. Personally, I would see my OCD as my safety valve. Because I always want every thing to be in control to an extreme degree, I have never been attracted to alcohol or drugs in the slightest. They just aren’t my thing.
Today, I am a very happy man and I know that I have a lot to be grateful for. But I am very aware of the fear and rage that are just beneath my surface all the time. I will never be able to sit with my back to the door. I will always have to work very hard to manage not to lash out when someone disrespects me or gets in my way. When I come home in the evening, I lock the doors and then check and check again that they are still locked. I get up at night to check another time. I know that these are things that I will always have to do.
Like most parents, I have realised that my life is not about me any more. It isn’t even about whether I like myself or not. Deep down, I still don’t like who I am, because I know the depths that I am capable of and I know how vicious and relentless I can be. There is still bad in me. But that is no longer of any consequence. I have even reached the stage where I can see that blame is no longer helpful. At this stage in my life, does it really matter whose fault the whole sorry mess is? I could blame my mother for abandoning me at two weeks old or the state for not vetting people and allowing child abusers and paedophiles to bring us up. But it doesn’t make any difference any more. I just hope that today’s rejects are being treated better. Some of the clients I work with are social workers. I have asked them if abuse still goes on and if children are better protected, and they assure me that things are not as bad as they once were. I really hope that is true. But I know from my own experience that if children have no sense of identity and no sense of self-worth then any attempts to protect them amount to pissing into the wind.
What I want for my children is for them to be in a position to choose what to do with their own lives. They are bright and they are going to be educated. They will never be attracted to door work or security jobs or the dark side of the street because they will have a thousand other, more attractive options. I am not going to try to live through them, but I am determined for them to have the tools they need to have wonderful, fulfilling lives. I also know that I have to be a good example; that there can be no effing and blinding when someone aggravates me while I am driving or walking around town. I know better than most that children are influenced in every way possible by the things that they see going on around them. I want Harley and Archie to be influenced for the best.
As I have grown older, I have realised that I am not the person I thought I was. I did what I had to do to survive, but, far from being tough and vicious, I am actually quite a sensitive bloke. Don’t get me wrong though. If anyone tries to hurt me or mine, I wouldn’t think twice…
But, whenever I start to doubt myself or think that life is shit, all I have to do is look into my children’s beautiful, open, trusting eyes. Then I tell myself, ‘My life isn’t that bad. My life is great! I’m not jinxed. I’m not cursed. I don’t need to hate.’
And – against all odds – I have proven ‘Auntie Coral’ wrong.
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ePub ISBN 978 1 84358 203 8
Mobi ISBN 978 1 84358 923 5
PDF ISBN 978 1 84358 924 2
First published in paperback in 2010
ISBN: 978–1–84454–905–4
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