Do you believe in God

Do you believe in God?

I was recently asked if I believed in God.

This is my answer…..

At the same moment the Japanese Imperial Empire attacked the American Naval base at Pearl Harbour the world was also delivered of a beautiful baby girl. It was December 1941. My mother Ethel Pauline Ellis was born on the 8th December to Alice and Thomas Ellis. She was the last born of seven children.

Even though I never met her, people told me my Grandmother Alice was the most caring, loving and peaceful person you would ever wish to meet.

My Grandfather, as many men of that time, a time of poverty, insecurity and fear, was a drunken bully. My mother was born on Cwm Farm a small holding rented by Thomas from the council. To make ends meet and as he had no farming skills he sublet the fields to local farmers. So now he was learning to look after animals, making money and had none of the overheads involved. The house my mother was born in was later used as the stables. It is gone now replaced by a very large Mediterranean style Villa. The fields are now new build family homes.

History gone.

The house was a three storey house built with no running water and electricity only in the bottom room. This was the living, kitchen and entrance room all rolled into one. The first floor was for best and then the top floor was the two large bedrooms. Being the last born my mother was ten years younger than her nearest sibling, her sister Sonia. Also at home was her brother Armyn. Just like their father Armyn was a drunk and a bully. They both had been banned from most of the pubs in the area.

Surrounded by the district of Cockett, Cwm Farm was at the bottom of a deep valley surrounded by Oak trees and steep muddy lanes to the main road. The nearest life was the Asylum at Cefn Coed just above the farm. The main track from the road down to the farm was very steep, very rough and guarded by three heavy metal gates. They were called the funeral gates so called because they were only opened for a funeral. Only a horse drawn hearse could make it up and down that route. There were no phone boxes, no internet, and no mobiles. Once down the farm you were completely cut off from the rest of the world. One of my mother’s earliest memories was of a time she had tried to forget, was as a 6/7 year old running up the muddy track, usually barefoot from bed, in the middle of the night, in the pitch black and terrified to try and find a Policeman, anyone on the main road to get some help to her mother. She would eventually return to the farm house the same way down that scary track to return and face whatever punishment given to her mother by either her father, brother or both for not making food in time or for saying something they didn’t agree with. The pain this small child had to deal with affected her for the rest of her life.

As an adult and visiting the farm with my mother many years later she couldn’t go near the house. Alice, my Grandmother was raised as a devout Welsh Baptist. My mother followed her in the worship of their god.

Where was God during the beatings?

As a teenager my mother Pauline, got a job at the local Smiths Crisp factory. It was here she met my father Keith Aleman. Of European decent Keith didn’t want to settle in Swansea and indeed the dripping tap of sexual adventures which ran constant during the early 1960’s he wanted to drink from as often as possible.

Soon after they married and after my brother 3 years later I was born. It was 1968 and my father once again had an itch he needed scratching, he left us all when I was 3 months old. After living away from Swansea for 5 years or so and returning with her tail firmly between her legs with two very young kids in tow it was 1970 and the start of a horrific time for my mother. Returning to Swansea she was shunned. Not only a divorcee, but with no money, no home and two kids she was just going to be a burden to everyone. The only person who did eventually help was her eldest sister Ruby. She was lovely. All my Aunts and Uncles had good jobs, nice homes and plenty of money. My mother had the clothes she stood up in and two babies.

Where is God now?

After a year living with Ruby and her husband Herbert the bullying and threats from Herbert became too much for my mother. After month after month of begging the council gave us a 2 bedroom flat in the Mayhill area of Swansea. 23 Byron Crescent. We had nothing in the flat not that I can remember much. There was no bathroom, no fridge and no heat other than a coal fire in the living room. As with everyone then you only used the back door which led onto a veranda on which was housed our outside toilet. Then there were steps down to the back garden and eventually the road. We weren’t allowed near the windows on a Tuesday if we weren’t in school as that was the day the Rent man called and we had to hide. My mother had a couple of cash in hand jobs but nothing secure, she was smoking heavily, her health was bad. When I was six years old it was announced that Byron Crescent was to get a complete facelift. We had the choice of moving into a hostel and then back into the flat when the work was done or move to somewhere new entirely. We moved. I think one of my earliest memories was both my brother and I sitting on my mothers lap eating biscuits. We moved to Creidiol Road, only a mile away but for the first time in my short life we had an inside toilet. Until now I didn’t even know toilets could have lights in them. What next could we even get some toilet paper or was that just too farfetched?

After a while her family started to make an effort and pretty soon every Sunday meant a family trek to church. We would sit with Sonia her sister. A church snob. Had to have the best hat, best clothes and had to have special prayer services in her house.

Church had now taken over my mother’s life.

Was there really a God?

After my mother’s death in 2005 two things shook me. One a memory and one a complete surprise.

The memory.

In 1976 and as an 8 year old all I wanted as with my brother and friends was to see the new film coming out, Star Wars. Nothing like this had been seen before it was a must see for everyone. Not know to me or my brother Yan, my mother for months and months scrimped and saved every penny she could to get us tickets for the film. She was determined she wasn’t going to let us down, we weren’t going to be left out. She even saved enough for a bus home.

To get home we would catch the bus outside the dentist’s in Orchard Street then the bus laden with passengers would struggle its way up Mount Pleasant Hill at a snail’s pace until our stop at “Leaker’s”. Haven’t got a clue why we called it that. The bus actually stopped outside Eagan Fish and Chip shop. My mother had saved for months for cinema tickets, bought sweets and still had enough for a bus home and now my brother and I gave her hell because she couldn’t buy us chips. The mile or so walk home from the bus, we whinged, we moaned and we kept on and on. To this day I can see her sitting on the couch breaking her heart because we were so horrible to her.

I didn’t remember any of this until after she died.

The surprise

Going through her paperwork after her funeral I found loads of appointment cards for various hospital visits in I think about 1971 or 1972. It was a private hospital. Sonia my Aunt for 37 years was married to Ronald. When they divorced my mother who had again fallen fowl of her family became Ronald’s partner. I would often visit him as he was the only link I had with my mother. I asked him all about these hospital visit’s and he explained that my mother miss-carried twins heavily into the pregnancy. She never told who the father was but he obviously had money to afford a private hospital. Neither my brother nor I knew anything. How she must of felt. Being abandoned by her husband leading to divorce, being ostracised by most of her own family, being a single mother with no money and now to lose two babies.

Where was God now?

As I grew into my teens and now flatly refusing to go to church and with my brother now living in Germany my mother threw herself totally into her belief in God. In many ways she became obsessed. She was a “Bible Basher”. Every conversation was about God, about forgiveness about Jesus and how he saved us all. She was going to three services on a Sundy. A prayer meeting Monday night and Wednesday night. Thursday morning was bible class in her sister Sonia’s house and on a Friday afternoon another prayer meeting.

As a single parent with poor health, she smoked very heavily which was now affecting her chest functions; she couldn’t hold a full time job. The powers that be decided for her to keep her benefits she could however do a 12 hour a week job. So now she got her perfect job, a cleaner in her church. When she wasn’t worshipping in it she was cleaning it. Very soon she was one of the fixture and fittings of the church and soon she became sucked into the whole fashion parade and one up man ship that grew in the church. As part of this she fell head of heels in love with her Pastor. He was everything. He was married and I think really my mother was just awe struck by him. It wasn’t reciprocated. One of the funniest events of this time was my mother’s baptism. My brother was home from Germany so we both agreed to go and watch this strange event. As her pastor lowered her backwards into the water my mother panicked and having then took a large mouth full of water coughed violently sending her false teeth flying through the air until they settled floating away from the two of them stood looking in terror at her plastic Gnasher’s. Yan and I were sat upstairs directly above the well and couldn’t help ourselves from dissolving into a lather of laughter, tears and embarrassment for my mother. Soon after and with Yan back in Germany in the Army and with me putting more and more pressure on my mother to move house as I was too embarrassed to tell my college friends I lived in Mayhill, she had a complete nervous breakdown. On her return home her Bible bashing became worse and worse. She was constantly quoting the bible and praying and spending all of her spare time in her church.

What was her God doing to her?

Then the worst

My mother Pauline had a very close friend, Lilly. Lilly had terminal cancer and so my mother spent most of her spare time now caring for her at Lilly’s home. Sometimes she would stay overnight and even though they both knew the end was near their friendship grew and grew. One afternoon my mother entered Lilly’s to find her solicitor sitting there whilst Lilly amended her will instructing him to sell the house upon her death and make sure my mother was left a comfortable amount of money. My mother had never had money and so even as the thought of losing her friend was painful, Lilly’s kindness was overwhelming. Two days before her death Lilly was visited by her solicitor once again this time accompanied by the Pastor from my mother’s church, her hero. Lilly died and very soon the will was read, it transpired that Lilly had left everything including the house to the Pastor my mother received nothing. It was obvious in her dying state he had convinced her to change the will. It also then emerged he was having several affairs with various female parishioners and so very quickly he was hounded out of the church completely breaking my mother’s heart.

She had another breakdown, she was devastated.

Where was God now?

Several years and several breakdowns later my mother was smoking very heavily still and was depending on several inhalers a day to survive.

After visiting my mother on December 26th 2004 and watching on TV the terrible events of the Tsunami which killed thousands she told me she had been quite unwell had some tests and the results were going to be ready New Year’s Eve. I took her to the hospital. It was confirmed she had Bronchial Carcinoma, Lung Cancer. It was very small, pea size but was sitting against the heart valve in her left lung. It was unlikely to kill her but would make her breathing even more difficult. She wasn’t fit enough for any invasive treatment so they would try and help with drugs.

She just gave up.

Can you see her God?

As the weeks past as long as she had her fags, her coffee and the odd cheese sandwich she was happy. Her weight dropped dramatically, her strength disappeared and she grew paler by the day. From being an active 63 year old she suddenly became a little old lady.

Come on God do something!

Two days before my Daughter Olivia’s 4th birthday Ronald phoned me to tell me to come down to Swansea as he was really worried about my mother. When I got there I called an ambulance and she was rushed to Singleton Hospital. The staff there was amazing I have to say. They probed, poked and prodded and eventually said her oxygen levels were dangerously low. They put her on a mask and said give her 48 hours and she should be home. That was a Saturday. Sunday she seemed a little better and late in the day I was told that Pneumonia had settled in her right lung. By the Monday afternoon she was in a coma.

They kept her comfortable with drugs and oxygen through the week and then on the Friday I was told that nothing more could be done and it was only a matter of time. They stopped all treatment. By now different members of her church were coming into her hospital room and sitting around her either praying or reading from the bible. I hated it. It was the end of the football season and there was football constantly on the TV so every time one of her church buddies came in I made sure the football was on full volume.

During the evening of Saturday 30th April for the first time in a week she opened her beautiful crystal blue eyes and a single tear flowed like a Tsunami down her cheek. I broke down and cried for hours.

She was looking for her God

I was shattered and alone.

The next day on my last legs I knew I had to go home, shower and eat and sleep. Not wanting to disturb anyone I slept on the sofa downstairs. At half past midnight the hospital phoned and asked me to attend. Nothing more was said. The 48 mile drive to the hospital was terrible. I was alone, scared and tired. I entered her room terrified but when I saw her she looked beautiful, peaceful and pain free. She was dead. The nurse asked me to remove her jewellery and watch and explained what happened next. The nurse was obviously heavily pregnant and so I felt really bad that she should be doing this.

I hugged my mother, I kissed her and I told her I would always love her. I told her Olivia would always know of her and I would always talk about her to Olivia.

Where was her God now?

Almost every conflict that has ever been has had a religious biased controlling it. There have been over a million ‘reported’ cases of child sex abuse by members of the church in the past thirty years worldwide. Just those reported?

So do I believe in God?

A entity, my mother gives her life to him but he is nowhere to be seen

An entity that shows no apparent compassion

There is so much death in the world in his name

How can such a selfish, uncaring and arrogant entity exist?

Do I believe in God?

No!