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glennlovell · 7 years

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My Tragedy to Triumph Story

I recently watched a video online about the adversity and tragedy that Keanu Reeves has gone through in his life, yet despite all of it how he’s gone on to achieve massive success and is one of the biggest charitable stars in Hollywood. Now I’m sure he doesn’t act the victim with any of this stuff himself, the creators of this video were merely using his story as an example of how you can still succeed even in the face of adversity…

Here’s what the video said…

Tragedy to triumph the Keanu Reeves Story.

He was three years old when his father left. After his parents divorced they moved from City to City. He attended 4 different high Schools and struggled with Dyslexia. He eventually left without a diploma. His ‘struggles’ continued. At the age of 23 he lost his best friend to a drug overdose. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, his girlfriend gave birth to their daughter who was stillborn. Due to the grief of losing their daughter, they split up, 18 months later she died in a car accident. Despite all of the tragedies, Keanu kept pushing forward. He went on to dominate the box office with the film The Matrix. But probably the most important of all, he is known as one of the most charitable in Hollywood. At one point he gave £80 million of his £114 million earnings from the Matrix to the film crew. With all the tragedy he has dealt with, Keanu still decides to make this world a better place by caring and giving. So the question to you is, how are you going to respond to what life throws at you?

This got me thinking, thinking about my own life and the adversity I’ve endured specifically during my childhood but also in later years during my business life that led to success, but more importantly all that I witnessed my mother go through. The strength she’s had to somehow maintain throughout her life, to continue on, to grow and somehow learn something, anything at all from everything she suffered. To try understand and make some semblance of sense out of it all. By sharing my story with you my hope is to pass on some valuable life lessons to you in the process.

Here’s my tragedy to triumph story.

It starts with the cliché of my Dad leaving when I was a year old. Cliché maybe, but it’s true none the less. I was brought up living in various council estates and before I reached secondary School we had lived in eight different council flats across the City. I moved Schools five times before we eventually settled in the house I grew up in as a teenager. By that time my initial education was fucked and I walked into secondary School without even knowing my times tables. I’m by no means blaming my Mother for this because ultimately a lot of what happened was dictated by the circumstances she found herself in.

We lived in a very humble environment of council housing, even though I can’t say I ever felt like we went without, my parents struggled financially most of my life but somehow managed to feed and clothe us and always do us proud at Christmas and Birthday’s, BUT at a massive cost of huge debt to themselves.

I’m the eldest brother of seven immediate related siblings, let me explain. Lee, my first brother was born four years after me to another father. A man who was violent and used to beat my mother up. I have very vague memories of these events as I was still young at the time, but I do recall various incidents when he was aggressive with her and somehow those occasions have left an indelible mark upon me that has ensured I have never hurt or hit a woman in my life.

Although, I’m sure this has more to do with my mother’s stern vociferous education in how to treat a woman, in that ‘if I ever hit or hurt one I would have her to deal with!’, a threat that loomed large when I was younger, I can assure you. I am hugely grateful for this as an adult now though, as witnessing these acts of domestic violence could’ve quite easily had the opposite effect on me as it has with so many others.

Fast forward a few years and my mother had met another man who she has remained with ever since. A kind, generous and as giving a man as you’re ever likely to meet. They had their first son together, Andrew.

Andrew was only a few months old when tragedy struck. My brother Lee was knocked down and killed by a car whilst he was playing outside our flat when he was just four years old. Please understand, it was a different time then, it wasn’t uncommon for young children to be playing outside by themselves. I was eight years of age and I witnessed him lying in the road, blood pouring from his head. This is an image that will never leave me. Lee wasn’t killed instantly, he died in transit on the way to the hospital. The impact of the car had broken his ribs which punctured his lungs and he succumbed to these injuries by drowning in his own blood. Andrew, was merely a few months old when this happened so he never really got to meet Lee.

The loss of Lee had a massive impact on me and my life. He was my brother. My best friend. We played together all the time. Now he was gone and I couldn’t really comprehend or fully understand why at the time. My final - and has since become - repetitive memory of him is of us both waiting in the car one day, whilst our Mum was in the Dr’s surgery and we had a fight over a ball. I hurt him and made him cry and the feeling of guilt from this has lived with me ever since. I know we were kids and it’s what’s brothers do, but it still doesn’t change the fact that that’s remained my most prominent memory of my time with him.

Rightly or wrongly as I’m still unsure after all these years, I visited him in the chapel of rest prior to his funeral to see him off and say our goodbyes. I remember looking at him and hoping he would simply wake up. As an eight year old boy, to me, he looked like he was sleeping and he could just wake up at any moment.

The funeral was horrific. I can recall it in great detail even now, but specifically because my Mum broke down as they were lowering his coffin into the grave. She fell to her knees and was trying to claw her way to the grave to stop the coffin, whilst family members held her back. It was as if she didn’t believe he was dead and wanted to open the casket and he’ll be in there somehow alive still. This memory destroys me as I write and makes me cry even thinking about it. The hopelessness of not being able to do anything to help my Mum. Even at such a young age I felt somehow responsible and wanted to take my Mums pain away.

A couple years later my next sibling, Katie was born. My first sister.

For some reason my mother always harbored a yearning for two boys and two girls, so they tried for another baby not long after having Katie and her desire was fulfilled as she gave birth to another girl, Gemma.

She was set; two boys, two girls notwithstanding losing Lee of course. But little did we realise the joy of this baby was to be very short lived, as Gemma died of cot death two weeks following birth. I can vividly remember my step-dad almost falling down the stairs whilst clutching her in his arms as he was frantically trying to get help for her.

Not too long after grieving for the loss of Gemma, and I can only assume my Mum wanted to fill the void of that loss as quickly as she could, she decided to try again. This time she was carrying a boy. All was going well during the pregnancy until within an hour before he was due to be born, Guy which he was named, was stillborn.

Back to back, two of my mothers babies, taken from her with a combined eighteen months of pregnancy, and the gap of trying to conceive in-between of course. Not forgetting losing her second son, my brother Lee, to the car accident years before, this was now three of six children my Mum gave birth to all died under completely different but extremely heartbreaking circumstances and within a window of approximately eight years.

A shocking chain of events is an understatement. It beggars belief doesn’t it?

You would be quite right and forgiven for thinking that all of this should’ve been enough for her. That enough was enough right? No more trying for anymore Children. The pain is too raw. To my mind, how the hell could anyone endure so much pain and suffering, yet potentially put themselves through it all over again.

But that’s exactly what she did, she wouldn’t give in or quit. She still wanted her two boys and two girls. She fell pregnant and again her wish was granted, she had another daughter, Samantha.

Samantha was born with Down Syndrome!

Sammy Lou as we affectionately called her had many complications at birth, from hole’s in her heart to the tubes of her heart needing repair as is a very common occurrence with children born with Trisomy 21.

Now I’m sure you’re reading all this in disbelief and shock and probably feeling very sorry for my mother right about now. All those losses of children to emotionally contend with and now the ‘burden’ of a child born with Down Syndrome. Please don’t though. Sammy was an absolute blessing more than anything else, as she brought an amazing sense of balance and purpose to my Mum and Dad’s life.

Not that any of the other children could be replaced of course, but Sammy was a gift for my Mum and she certainly become an antidote to her grief and in a small way filled the void of her losses. She was a light to be around and could sense when any of us weren’t feeling yourself or if we were upset. She would sit and lay into my chest to comfort me as if she knew what I needed when I needed it the most.

My fondest memories of Sam is when she would lay on me when she was very young and I would sing into her ear, she loved it as much as I did doing it. Her favourite song for me to sing to her was Metallica’s Enter Sandman. It always helped me forget and ease the troubles of my day away. She had that magic effect on me and everyone she came into contact with.

Like a proverbial kick in the teeth, and I’m sure you’re not going to believe this next sentence, but we’ve since lost Sammy too. She lived until she was twenty one, but eventually succumbed to heart complications associated with her conditions at birth. That being said, she died a lot earlier than we expected.

In her few short years she lived a wonderfully fulfilled and fully loved life. As much as it’s painful to think about her, I am grateful for the time I got to share with her. The memories I have can never be taken. Her warmth and love was unquestioning, unconditional and without judgement. It’s a love you can never fully understand until you have a child with Down Syndrome in your life. Of which I too also have myself now, but more on him later.

For now, I want you to understand that this is the adversity I lived through as an eldest son and brother. Spectating, enduring and living a part of these individually horrific ordeals throughout my entire upbringing. Witnessing firsthand the feelings of huge grief surrounding circumstances of trauma, loss, pain and suffering of my mother losing four of her children, each one a brother and sister to me.

As a father myself now and knowing the huge depth of love you feel for your own children, when I take the time to think about all of this I literally cannot fathom the scale and enormity of the loss that my mother endured in her one and only lifetime.

If just one of these deaths and I mean literally just ONE of these child loses were to occur to any parent I’m sure it would be enough to crush them, but to lose four of your Children, each one carried in your womb for nine months, is quite simply devastating beyond comprehension and belief and makes you question the very meaning of faith; faith in a god, faith in a higher power and of all things ‘happening for a reason’. Because what possible reason did this one lady, my mother need to be put through all of that pain and suffering for? What lesson was she and all of us supposed to learn from it?

Even though I lived each moment of this with my parents and the deep profound impact I know it’s had on me and my personality, I know I can never fully comprehend my mothers pain and sorrow and what it would do to me if it was anyone of my Children.

But throughout all of that pain and suffering that it’s caused her over the years and the huge emotional grief and mental scars it’s left, she still stands tall after enduring everything. She was and is still available to anyone of us, at any time, day or night even through some of her own recent illness’s, she listens intently and when shit hits the fan, she offers advice as best she knows how and has never, never rightly or wrongly sought any form of counseling throughout any of it. Now that’s strength of character!

And yet somehow none of this has broken her. She’s still quietly standing after all these years and has raised the bar for the rest of us when it comes to strength under adversity and dealing with whatever the fuck life throws at us; quite simply we don’t fold, we don’t give in, we keep moving forward, because that’s how life is. As far as I’m concerned, she’s a fucking hero.

So let me put that earlier question to you again here, how are you going to respond to what life throws at you? When life gets tough. When life takes a turn and throws a huge fucking curveball in your direction and turn’s your world upside down, because I can guarantee that it’s going to one way or another, it always does or if it already has and you’re struggling to pull yourself back from it, will you let it be the breaking of you or the fucking making of you?

I can only hope that this story, my mothers story will give you some sense of perspective, that anything you might be going through right now, may not be as bad as you think. It may not be as bad as what you’ve just read. If so, you can call upon my little story, maybe in your hour of need and hopefully in some small way it helps you in your moment of grief. Or even if you are going through something just as traumatic in your life right now, let this be a reminder that you’re not alone. There’s others you can confide in. Others who have endured huge suffering and come out the other side. My hope is that one day, maybe one day someone will say to themselves and it may well be you, ‘what would Debbie do’?

Because you’ve got to keep moving forward. Everyday. Moving forward. You’ve got to find a way. Take each day as it comes. Regardless of the pain and suffering, light does, eventually always finds a way.

As the Winston Churchill quote says, ‘if you’re going through hell, keep going’

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