We Did Our Best

My son, Derek had been displeased with me for quite some time. I have not been the kind of father that best suits him. I do not like football or rugby, indeed, i do not like any sports. I cannot think of anything in particular that he did, probably because it was always subtle, but he was constantly winding me up. In particular, Kay belongs to a family that have certain traditions. Some may not be what everyone one wants but I liked the traditions and wanted to keep them in our family. Just because we were married did not mean that Kay had to give up something as important as her family traditions. One of those tradi

tions was that the first born child is “always” named after their father, hence, Derek is named after me and Kay’s brothers have children where the eldest is named after them.
Derek had gotten Tiffany pregnant and they had a baby boy out of wedlock. I was blamed for that pregnancy. I could not have been chastiized anymore if it were I who got her pregnant. I thought that Derek would follow the traditions of his forefathers and name his son Derek. The prospects of that lessoned the blow of her getting pregnant in the first place. We had discussed the naming of the child on several occasions and he assured me that was the way it would be and the tradition would be maintained. On the morning of the babies naming ceremony at church Derek approached me at church and said that his boy would not be called Derek. In fact Derek was not to be in any of his names but Tiffany’s Dads name would be in it as a second name and his Christian name was to be James. Of course I objected to Derek and refused to take part in the ceremony, indeed, I went home in protest. They all knew how upset I would be and almost seemed to intentionally keep the name Derek just to offend me. They knew of the tradition but paid no heed to it. It was inconsequential to them, the did not care, offend or please. I never really forgave Derek for that. He broke centuries of tadition frivolously and without remorse. He had already disgraced his mum and I in an event, at age 17, that is too severe callous to talk about. He completely disgraced us and dishonoured us and has not repented for it as he has never tried to make restitution with us for it. He has never apologised for it. I think this disrespect to his mother was the straw that broke the camels back for us. It was a terrible, almost unforgiveable, thing to do to his parents, yet, on every occasion that he could he would do similar things to hurt and embarrass us. The last thing he did was intended to make us look bad to our grandchildren, and sadly, it worked.
It was coming up to Christmas and although money was tight we had organised things to insure that we had presents for all of our grndchildren and our unmarried children. Thing were looking great until just before Christmas Derek announced to us that he and his family would not be seeing us over the Christmas period as they would be spending it with Tiffany’s parents in Wiltshire. Of course I thought, another one of Derek’s attempts to upset us, so we did not take issue with it and just accepted it. The next week Honey became very ill so we had to take her to the vets. She had cancer in her breast and womb and had to have it removed as a matter of urgency or she would die. The cancer was aggresive. The cost of the operation was £1000. Well, with Christmas around the corner we had no spare cash to pay for it and we could not let her just die, we loved her. We managed to borrow some money from Naomi but it was nowhere near enough.
We then remembered that Derek said that we would not be seeing him over the Christmas period. That meant that we could not give his children their Christmas present until after Christmas. By that time we would have recieved another PIP payment that was unallocated. We, Kay and I, decided to use the money we had put aside for Derek’s children to pay for the much needed operation for Honey. We would then give them their presents after christmas, when we next got paid. They would not even know about our dilema. So, Honey had her operation, which was successful. Derek then text Kay to ask where the Christmas presents were for his children. Kay then explained what we were doing and that they would get their present when we next saw them without knowing anything about Honey. He then became hostile and accused me of writing the text from Kay. He said that I was being mean to his children because we were not going to see them over Christmas. He then told his children that we had not bought them presents because we did not like them. He never explained anything about Honey to them, because he did not believe it, he just told them that we did not like them because that is what he assumed. One of his many assumptions that he turned into a fact and got it wrong. I sent the money to them, as I promised, and none of the thanked us and they have not spoken to us since. They, or Derek, did not even acknowledge that we had set it and the had recieved it. I cannot remember the exact ammount buf it was several hundred pounds. Within weeks of that event Derek moved to Wilshire and has never given us his address or phone number. He has not answered any of our messages since. They then blocked us on Facebook and I have not had a conversation with him since. That was 9 or 10 years ago know. His children have blocked us on all social media and never answer any letters or messages we send them. Derek must have told them something horrific about us to induce them to cut us off so cruelly. It must have been a lie as nothing that we have done would have caused them to act so badly towards us. The entire Legge family took the same action against us so he must have perpetuated the lie to them. He did the same to Khadra and she is gullible so just accepted what ever lie he told her. Derek has been dishonouring his parents for 10 years plus and today he takes that dishonouring to the temple with him and it is with him when accepting callings and when taking the sacrament. That is sacrilege which greatly affects his eternal salvation and his chances of being together with his family for time and all eternity. Because I took the decision to postpone giving his children our Christmas present and in the process, saving our Honey’s life, he has turned against his parents and gives them the silent treatment that the Prophet has recently condemned. But not satisfied with that he has turned his family, his in laws and his siblings against us. He has much to answer for. What have I done? Disliked football and sports!