Perseverence rewarded

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Perseverence rewarded

Author: Testimony,
"Love One Another!" 40/2017
Testimonies

My husband on his own began to confide in me. He said that it was very difficult for him, and that he wanted to quit drinking, but he just couldn’t.

Perseverence rewarded

After I finished secondary school I started work in the municipal government of a small town. I lived in a room I rented from an elderly widow. I dreamed of marrying and having a family one day, but I really didn’t do anything to make it happen. I didn’t go out, and I wasn’t interested in a social life. I didn’t know many people, and I spent a lot of time in my room. My favorite activity was reading books.

One day after about a year of working in the office, a young man came in. I was very impressed with him. He was very polite and cheerful, and had a gentle, good-natured look to his face. He completed his business rather quickly, but came back again after a few days. He was a bit perplexed, and it was easy to recognize that he didn’t really have any particular business to conduct. Before too long he conceded that he wanted to ask me out. He said his name was Stan, and that he worked in deliveries. That’s how it started. Then, everything happened very quickly. Within a year of meeting each other, we married. The wedding was in my town.

From the very beginning I liked Stan’s mother. She was overburdened with work, but like her son, she had a kind, angelic face. She had the same character. My husband’s father was a farmer who suffered a bit of a weakness for the bottle.

Our life at the beginning went rather well. We had an apartment and work, and in time, with the help of Stan’s parents, we built a small house, and then children appeared in our life. My husband had to travel around the country a lot on business. After a few years, he started coming home more and more often not completely sober. He used the excuse that in his work you couldn’t conduct much business without a little vodka being involved. In fact, that’s the way things were in those days: with a bottle of liquor, you could work out practically anything. At first I didn’t worry too much, because my husband was never aggressive, he loved the kids, and we had enough money to cover our needs. At family gatherings he drank with all the other men, but he never drank himself unconscious.

Unfortunately, over time he was getting more and more drunk, more and more often… Occasionally it got to the point that he had trouble with the front stairs, and I had to go out in front of the house and help him up… Our kids – two daughters and a son – were already in primary school by then. I complained a lot to my mother-in-law, and she would help calm me down and encourage me to pray. She said that I had to hang in and ride it out, especially for the sake of the children. After a while, it became apparent to me that my husband was already an alcoholic. Fortunately, he didn’t neglect his duties at work. His boss was happy with him because Stan knew how to work out everything that the company needed. And even though my husband was becoming a stranger to me, I didn’t complain to him about it. Once in a while, when he was eating breakfast in the morning, I would ask him not to come home drunk, because it was an embarrassment in front of the neighbors. He would promise to come home sober, but he never kept his word…

Fortunately, my children were a comfort to me. Our son, Chris, was an altar server, and even went to serve at masses during the week. Both daughters left home after finishing high school to study at university. The older daughter once told me that I shouldn’t put myself through so much trouble, and I should just throw my husband out of the house – “let him go home to his mommy” (my father-in-law was no longer living). At the time I rejected the idea strenuously. I told her that he was my husband, and that once I had married him, I intended to stay with him for the duration. It was the last time we talked about it.

Throughout it all my motherin-law was very supportive of me (my own parents and siblings lived a long way away). Her example showed me that it was possible to live through it, that God would give me strength. During one of our conversations she told me that one day God would reward me for tolerating my husband and staying with him. But it wasn’t easy… It must have really been a great grace from God that throughout everything our children never went astray, and I managed to endure everything.

My son was studying at a mechanical school, but he never talked about his plans for what to do afterwards. I expected that once he graduated he would find a job. I didn’t want to tie him up at home. Then, after his final exams, Chris told me that he wanted to enter the seminary. I burst into tears when I heard it. Not from regret, but from the joy that I felt for him. I was so grateful to God that I couldn’t calm down for a long time. That Sunday we told his father about it. My mother-inlaw was at dinner with us. She also burst into tears, and then told us that from the time of Chris’s baptism she had prayed to God for the gift of a call to the priesthood for him. We were all crying, even my husband. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t protest, he was just very sad, as though he wasn’t even there.

In September Chris left to start seminary. My husband and I were alone together, just the two of us, so I suggested that we bring his mother to live with us. He was grateful for the gesture, and said that he had been thinking of it himself, but was afraid to ask me.

It was a good time to talk about his drinking. My husband on his own began to confide in me. He said that it was very difficult for him, and that he wanted to quit drinking, but he just couldn’t. He wanted to stop for me and for his mother, but mostly for Chris, so he wouldn’t be ashamed. It was very difficult for him. We decided together to seek help. It started with a visit to a clinic, and then proceeded to a stint at the detox center. There, he met people from AA, and started going to the meetings and working the Twelve Steps Program.

My mother-in-law died when our son was in his fifth year of seminary. Stan never returned to drinking. We now have 43 years of marriage behind us; our daughters have good lives and happy marriages, and our son has been serving God and man for seven years as a priest. This is a great gift from God.

Zofia

Source: https://loamagazine.org/archive/2017/2017-40/perseverence-rewarded

The article was published with the permission from "Love One Another!" in May 2021.