The story waiting to break

All of us keep some parts of ourselves behind locked doors; stories of hurt, failure, vulnerability and lack of love that lurk amidst the shadows of our otherwise 'ordinary' lives. And, most of the time, everyone else just walks on by, oblivious.

I'd walked past this particular door dozens of times, just at the exit of the forest close to where we buy our bread for breakfast each morning.  Always with my mind focused on other things, though, I never once gave a second thought to the lives being lived on the other side.

Then something changed and it caught my attention.  Candles.  Clusters of cheap night lights in red, plastic holders on every window sill, plus an old teddy bear or two. 

This area of town is full of artists, eccentrics, and ageing hippies in rainbow coloured jumpers, so I naively assumed that it was some kind of summer ritual, or the late-night remnants of a weekend street party.  However, a few days later, a note appeared on the door.  

“Thank you for your support and your love, but I need to be alone (all alone).  If you want to help, light lots of candles and GO HOME!”

The candles, by now, were too wet to light and the teddy bears all brown at the edges.  However, the story breaking behind this door was becoming clear.  This was undoubtedly a tale of grief, loss and human loneliness.  And so, each day, as I walked past the sign on the locked door, I spared a thought for the old man I pictured living there.

In my mind, he was already in his seventies, a local man, an artist - probably a painter.  Fortunately, his talent with the brush had enabled him to live comfortably once his children had grown up; and his days were spent enjoying doing what he loved to do in the company of his wife.

And, in my mind, the candles and the teddy bears were for her and the note was from him.

The story was a sad one, but not unusual.  So, after a few more days, I guess I thought about the old man less than before; comforting myself with the thought that it is just the way things are.

That is, until yesterday morning. 

Emerging from the trees at the forest’s edge, I saw from a distance that the door was slightly ajar and, as you might expect, as I got closer, I took this opportunity to glance inside.  I was fully expecting to see a somewhat grumpy old man in scruffy clothes going about the business of trying to get on with the remainder of his shattered life.

I noticed the children first.  Probably five and three, both gifted with plenty of bright red hair and smiles to fit.  The older one had a obviously just eaten breakfast as he still had the evidence of a pain au chocolat smeared all over his face.  They looked at the dog next to me and darted quickly back inside; leaving me to catch a glimpse of a very modern interior, immaculately kept.

Where was the old man?  Where was the artist that I had imagined, now struggling to keep pace the relentless tide of daily domestic chores?  Where were the dusty pictures of a marriage that lasted nearly half a century and children now grown up with families of their own?

When doors are closed I guess we all like to imagine what’s really going on inside.  To be human is to be curious.  We constantly make up stories in our heads and convince ourselves that this is how things really are.

But, let’s face it. Often we’re wrong. 

Aren’t we?

These three words

How are you going to be remembered as a parent?

Let’s be honest.  The legacy of love that we are all trying to lay down for our children is sometimes obscured by the day-to-day routines of modern family life.  That said, every now and again, most of us have taken a step back and wondered about the stories our children will one day tell about us.

And very occasionally, they give us clues.

Yesterday was Father’s Day in this corner of the world and, as is the annual custom chez nous, I was woken by the sound of the kids busily cooking a Full English Breakfast and laying the table in my honour. 

As I took my place in the ‘Chair of Cheer’, with the smell of fried eggs now making me hungry, a pile of home-made card and gifts were thrust into my chest.

 I wonder who first had the idea of creating a card for fathers everywhere in the shape of a shirt and tie?  Has this become a universal symbol of paternal parenting, or do children on the other side of the planet use scissors to create a different kind of image?

One of my shirt-shaped greetings had a list of words on the back, presumably where the teacher had asked my daughter to describe her father.

For a split second, I was worried.  What if we had argued that day on the way to school and the first words that had come into her mind were ‘unfair’, ‘miserable’, or ‘angry’?  Would the teacher have given her a second chance or simply encouraged her to write down her first, instinctive response?

Thankfully, we must have got to school that day without a fuss, because all of the words were clearly designed to make me feel good.

Three words stood out at the end of the list:

“Playful, Loving…  Skyping.”

At first, I thought that ‘Skyping’ referred to my recent, rather embarrassing, efforts to coordinate my entire body to jump over a rope.  But no!  Apparently it really was the attempt of a six-year old to label me as the Dad that skypes.

Of all the pieces of my story for her to capture in this simple list, I found it remarkable that she had decided to focus on this aspect of who I was trying to be as a father.

Looking back, I suppose that I had always been something of an early adopter.  As soon as Apple’s iChat was first released, I saw an opportunity to unite our family and lessen the distance between us all.  In the early days, when the children were all still young, we’d often eat with the laptop nearby – somehow convincing everyone that we were all,literally, around the table.  And then, with the advent of Skype, we found a reliable way of endlessly talking face-to-face about the funny things, the sad things, and everything in-between that filled our days.  When things went wrong, we even learned to have those more difficult conversations by arranging to meet in this virtual world.

Of course, it didn’t fill the gap completely.  However good it may have seemed at the time, we always felt the space where countless hugs should have been.  And no amount of technology will ever bring those back.  As a father, there will always be a sense of loss; but, my goodness, it could have been a whole lot worse.

Tucking into another rasher of bacon, surrounded by each of my young chefs, I smile to myself.  I guess I’ll never know for sure the stories that they will tell about me when they’re all grown up and out of sight.  If it’s anything to do with ‘Playful, Loving and Skyping’, though, I’ll be happy.

These three words pretty much sum up everything that ought to be said.

A real story and not just a remembering

Christopher Robin and Pooh both had a problem when it came to making sense of their past.

‘I do remember,’ said Christopher Robin, ‘and then when I try to remember, I forget.’ 

Pooh, likewise, was a bear of very little brain, so everything needed to be said more than once.

‘I do remember,’ explained Christopher Robin, ‘only Pooh doesn’t very well, so that’s why he likes having it told to him again.  Because then it’s a real story and not just a remembering.’

… a real story and not just a remembering.

Christopher Robin has really got me thinking on this one.  In fact, I am left somewhat perplexed about the difference between simply recollecting memories from our past, as opposed to turning these apparently disconnected, random fragments of time into ‘real stories’. 

What is Christopher Robin trying to get us to understand here?  Is this is a lesson in semantics or the subtle nuances of language?

Actually, I very much doubt it.  In fact, the more I think about it, the more I am left convinced by the thought that he just wants us to consider the possibility that remembering is never enough.  After all, as Christopher Robin himself acknowledges, the only thing that follows remembering is forgetting.

Talking of which…

Who of us could forget the devastating series of events in the Gulf of Mexico this year, spelling an unprecedented environmental catastrophe?  A spill 20 times the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, who of us could ever forget the human, ecological - let alone financial - cost of the Deepwater Horizon disaster that so dominated our media channels, day after day, week after week, month after month?

The fact is, though, we did forget.  Didn’t we?

As soon as that cap showed signs of holding, we let the whole thing slip from our minds.

For Ray Cooper, Director of Strategic Communications at the Heritage Foundation, who went on a fact-finding mission at the height of the crisis, this process of forgetting is only realizing his worst fears at that time:

“What worries me is that once it stops, and once the live feed stops showing oil spilling, people will forget about the oil that is already in the water, and the long-term environmental and economic damage that it and the drilling moratorium are having on the Gulf States.”

 He was right to be worried.

The story of Deepwater Horizon is in danger of becoming a memory for us to forget.  But surely it’s our responsibility to keep repeating what happened, until every detail of its impact upon a fragile eco-system, every human cry from those families who lost loved ones or whose livelihoods have been destroyed, every hollow soundbite from the Fat Cats in their luxury pads, have been woven together into a ‘real story’ that will never allow itself to be forgotten – a compelling narrative that commands our attention, demands our action, and forces us to write a different kind of future for ourselves and our children.

Families are elastic

Most of the time new friends pull strange faces when I tell them that I have six children.

Correction.  It’s all of the time. 

One minute, we’re simply passing the time of day and enjoying getting to know each other through polite chat.  The next minute, I’ve let the cat out of the bag (so to speak) and find myself waiting for the jaw of my new found friend to drop – literally.

The subsequent conversation is then every time the same: denial (‘Did I hear that right?’ ‘How is it possible?’), followed by practical  reasoning (‘How do you manage to fit in one car?’ ‘Where and when does everyone sleep?’), followed by disguised relief (‘Well I think we’re going to stop at two’ ‘I don’t know how you cope as well as you do’).

To be honest, though, I’ve grown used to having a supersized family.  To me, six is the new normal and anything less would feel something of a loss.

Browsing through a stall at a local flea market a few years ago, I came across a children’s picture book, the title of which was enough to immediately capture my attention:  Le papa qui avait 10 enfants.

Ten children!  (Denial, practical reasoning, disguised relief…)

But in case you haven’t come across this particular story, here’s the short version.

Once upon a time, there was a dad with 10 children.  Each morning, he would prepare 10 breakfasts before getting them dressed in 10 shirts, 20 socks, 10 pairs of trousers, and 20 shoes.  Then he’d take them to school before taking himself to work.

In the evenings, he’d put all 10 children in the bath, whilst preparing a dinner comprised of 10 eggs, 3 kilos of pasta, 20 sausages, 50 radishes – and 100 strawberries for desert.  Then, after cleaning their teeth, he’d read one story before putting them all to bed.

In the evening, whilst his children were sleeping, he’d secretly build himself a beautiful boat.

When the boat was finished, so the story goes, the dad decided to leave his 10 children at their grandmother’s house and sailed off into the ocean all alone.

The first day, he relaxed.  He fished.  He went to sleep… and woke up 10 days later.

Upon waking, he mistakenly began to set the table on his table for breakfast: 10 bowls, 10 spoons, 10…

Already, he missed his children.  So he went back to collect them, in order that they could join him on his grand adventure.

The end.

I admit that, in ‘real’ life, 10 children would be a bit of a stretch.  But what I’m thinking is quite how elastic modern family life is – in fact, needs to be, these days; which means that it can be stretched into all sorts of unusual configurations, whilst still holding a meaningful form. 

Let’s say that the perfect, circular shape of mum, dad and 2.4 children does exist.  Most of us have found that our families don’t hold this form for long.  We have more children, or less.  We find we can’t have children at all, or decide to adopt.  Extended family members come and go.  Family members pass away – leaving a space where they should have been.  Families break up and attach themselves to other families.

Before you know it, we’ve been stretched by our history in all manner of directions and completely broken the mould of a traditional nuclear family.  We’ve changed.  We’ve adapted.  We’ve grown into something unique and generally used to who we are.

And if we’re honest, we probably wouldn’t have it any other way.

An odd family day out

Mémé was a typically old-fashioned, old lady who loved the tradition of being given a sprig of muguet (‘lily of the valley’) on the first of May.

Apparently, this typically French tradition stretches back as far 1561, when King Charles IX of France received a lily of the valley as a lucky charm and subsequently decided to offer the flower each year to the ladies of his court.  By the beginning of the twentieth century, the flower had become a symbol of springtime, presented to loved ones who offer a kiss in return.

Mémé just loved that kind of thing and not just because it represented an age of chivalry and noble love that had so obviously been absent throughout her own unhappy marriage.  You see, it also meant that her doorbell rang with visitors for almost the entire day; and rather than constantly getting up from her favorite wooden chair, she would simply leave the key next to her window – so that those who knew her could reach inside, take the key and let themselves in.  By the end of the day, this simple home would be filled with the springtime scent of a person being loved.

Yesterday, we went as a family to take muguet again to Mémé.  This time, however, it took us by a different route to the gates of our local cemetery.

The fact that our youngest, five-year old girls still don’t quite understand was immediately apparent as we drove through the entrance of this huge garden of remembrance.

‘Wow!  Does this all belong to Mémé, now?’ asked one of the children innocently.

Personally, I still find it both disturbing and fascinating to visit these places.  As hard as I try, I simply can’t get my head around the terrible fact of non-existence – the fact that the person that I can still see and hear so clearly in my mind is now only kept alive by these fading memories of years past. 

The girls, meanwhile, continue to discuss and try to make sense of the situation between themselves.

‘So is Mémé under that stone?  Why is she there?’

‘Because she’s dead.  But she’s not under the stone, she’s in the sky.’

Suddenly, Léa is distracted.  She has noticed another gravestone with her name on it.

‘Look!  There’s my name: L-E-A.  But I’m not dead.  It must be another Léa.’

Driving back home, there a quietness in the car and I wonder how much sense this makes to the children.  How much can they take in?  How much, if anything at all, do they remember of their great grandmother while she was alive?  Do they remember the taste of her crepes or the stock of sweets she used to keep in the cupboard?  Do they recall the way she sat at her table all day, next to her phone, waiting for the next call? Or the secret stash of cash, bills and official documents, so obviously ‘hidden’ under the dining-room table cloth?

Over dinner, we found ourselves again discussing how it was possible that Mémé now ‘lived’ in the sky.  Was she flying a plane or living on a cloud?  Juliette suddenly interjected. 

‘She’s not in the sky, in fact.  She’s here now, sitting at the table with us.’

And who knows, perhaps in an odd way, she was right.