Exile

 

Exile

Definition

“the state of being barred from one's native country, typically for political or punitive reasons.” 

I would add "religious."

I am an exile from Ireland. I have been so for fifty six years.

It’s a strange word, exile.

Me, I left because of religious intolerance – which infected entire families – of a woman/girl who became pregnant outside of holy matrimony. Back then, if this happened, there were three choices for a woman in that condition.

(1) Get married if the fellah was honourable and didn’t vanish or deny his responsibility. A choice not available to raped women or girls who were blamed for their condition and were now “spoiled” and deemed unmarriagable for any decent man.

(2)Be incarcerated in a Mother and Baby Home, run by nuns, giving birth in agony (suffering being a reparation for carnal sins committed) and then have the baby whisked away immediately and sold to a decent Catholic family in the U.S.

(3)Become a slave for life in the infamous Magdalene Laundries, mocked, beaten, demeaned and the baby yanked and sold immediately post birth.

 (4)Emigrate to the UK, Australia, South Africa or Canada.

I chose options 1 and 4. I was twenty three years old.

To be pregnant and getting married (in a side chapel away from the prying eyes of relatives and friends who would be counting the months) was no joyful event. Disgusted judgment would be wrought upon the family of the bride for raising such a tramp. Fathers would forbid the errant daughter from darkening their doorway so the neighbours could observe their disapproval as would her siblings as a signal as to what could happen to them.

I hid my condition from everyone. I was, luckily, tall and carried high.

My wedding was a grand affair. Absolutely no one knew of my four month’s pregnancy and the Canadian Embassy blessed my potential emigration with free passage to my new country along with free rent on an apartment until we “settled in.” Many employment positions were lined up as Canada was in need of more bodies in the work force. Economically then, Ireland was dismal.

Shortly after the wedding we vamoosed on the SS Carinthia.

The SS Carinthia.

Standing on that deck, looking down at the tender taking my grieving family back to Cobh Harbour, I finally realized why it was known as the “Irish Wake”

Cobh - also the last port of call of the Titanic.

I didn’t cry. I turned my face to look west, to the new land that awaited me with open arms.

I had exiled myself and my little one to Canada.

Death and Fair Maidens

I'm second from the right. My oldest friend still with us, took the photo.

I have very few remaining friends in my life from way back when. Those I have are precious with a layer of melancholy spread over us all like a protective shield. My layer, I have no idea how they're feeling.

As many of my readers know, I have no belief in a life everlasting somewhere up in the sky or parts unknown so the finality of death breaks my heart more deeply than those who believe in the pubs and singing and birthday parties continuing in the great beyond. (As an aside though, none of those believers embrace death as the escape route from earthly challenges and pain, am I right?)

Suffice to say I have emails from all three of my surviving circle when I hit the Oul Sod in the late autumn.

One has been a dear friend since we were eleven years old. So yeah, close to seventy years of friendship there. We never lost touch. She has beaten cancer twice.

On a trip to Niagara Falls with Daughter and my "Emigration Liner" friend.

Another is a dear friend now living in New York. I met her when she was twenty and I was twenty three. Where? On the emigration liner pulling out of Cork Harbour in 1967 our heads turning to our new life ahead and then turning back to the tender leaving the ship holding everyone we held dear behind forever. She is flying into Dublin so we can sit and yabber to our heart's content.

Another still is a long time friend I made here, from Dublin originally, who turned tail when her mother died and her father needed her and her husband deserted her and her only choice of safety and comfort was returning "home" as she felt there was no home in Canada anymore.

I believe nurturing friendships of such long standing takes effort. I know so very many who can't create the time and let these trickle through their hands. But how can the connections survive if not given the life breath of a card or an email or a phone call? Often just a stamp and five minutes of one's time is all that is needed. Surely they are worth that? And like I've said before a piece of paper or a card in one's hand is more sustaining than a quick email or message or whatsapp.

It's a joy to meet those who knew me back then, who knew my secrets and our youthful exuberance. Our fearless looking ahead, our love affairs, our hopes and dreams, our music, our humour.

My connections with those of such long duration are drowned in laughter and delight and, yes, poignancy. And gratitude for the unexpected pleasure of being alive.

Still.

A Girl In Ireland

There are all kinds of forces in our childhoods that form us as adults. I was forged in an Ireland that today sounds like the Taliban. Men and women were separated in all kinds of ways starting with church.

A mantilla

In my time - late forties early fifties in the last century - men and women sat on opposite aisles of the church. As soon as a girl hit puberty her head had to be covered in a mantilla in church. I was one who always asked why and the answer was that a women's hair could tempt a man. We had to be vigilant about throwing any temptation in a man's way as they quickly "went out of control."

Education was an awful waste for a woman as she would throw it all away when she got married, which was the end goal.

And speaking of end goals: There were 3 options for a girl's life:

(1) Become a nun (highest calling, a girl would be the bride of Christ. Chirst was obviously a polygamist but saying that was blasphemy of the highest order - hell fire and damnation were yours.

(2) Married, giving god all the children she possibly could and even more, if one of her sons was a priest she could go sit on the right hand side of god once she died (usually early being worn out from constant pregnancies.)

(3) Staying single but dedicating one's life to (free) community work in the church and supporting the clergy's housekeeping, etc.

Careers for women were frowned upon severely as
(1)If it was outside the norm (teacher, nurse) it could be offputting for a man who might be interested in you.
(2)You refrained from buying a car as you might as well say goodbye to any good man finding and marrying you.
(3)Keeping your intelligence to yourself, men find "smart" women saucy and forward. "Intelligence," said my father, the youngest of the family of six - all girls until his precious self, "Is always wasted on a girl."

Sex education was strict.

(1) Tampons would "destrioy" you. Why? No man would want you. Why? Tampons destroyed his pleasure.
(2) Never let a man touch you below the neck or above the knee - see "out of control" section from church rules.

From the beginning I saw that I was more of a worry than my four brothers. For I could "fall" pregnant. By any stray man. I remember living in fear of toilet seats if a man had used it prior to me. I could "catch" a stray pregnancy. And I was told about these dark and smelly places where girls who fell were incarcerated scrubbing sheets for the rest of their lives with their hands covered in chilblains and carbolic soap, dawn to dusk, living on bread and water and beaten by the nuns if they complained.

I remember looking at my brothers and thinking they have absolutely no idea how much freedom they have. None. The most they were told was not to climb into cars with strange men offering them sweeties. They didn't have to fear endless laundry work and were free to spray any female with an "unwanted" pregnancy and walk away.

the most imporant rule of all: I had to avoid these lurking pregnancies as I could wind up with carbolic hands in a dark damp dungeon for the rest of my born days.
To be continued.

Catch up.

Having a wonderful time with friends from Ontario who are staying in St. John's for a few days.

We were out at Cape Spear yesterday - the furthest easterly point in North America - and they took the shot below among many others. They are entranced on this, their first trip to the Edge of the Atlantic, and are already planning another one!

A whale bounced up to greet them. And they were in awe.

The weather is magnificent but the big but is Dorian heading our way with some high winds. Nothing like the Bahamas and - ahem - Alabama, but still slightly worrisome.

In other news:

I see the people of Ireland held a magnificent parade for Mike Pence's visit to his great-grandmother's home.

Aftermath and Canada Day

Emotional experiences mingled with sadness, memory, fear of change, uncertain future (political, global, environmental) is stressful for many of us, not just elders.

I'll be interested to hear Grandgirl's take on it when she arrives to spend nearly 2 weeks with me tomorrow.

I know many are talking of the 'Good Ol' Days' and going back to them. I call BS on that. I turn a cold hard eye on my own past and would not revisit it for anything. Well maybe a quick revisit to the occasional short sweet times with my mother. But the rest of it? I was a religious refugee from the land of my birth, a victim of the judgement and condemnation of an unplanned pregnancy that would have shamed both my former husband and I along with my family in the eyes of the vicious Catholicism then. I've written about it many times. Escape to a welcoming Canada was our only option, far from the counting fingers of all around us. If we hadn't married, I would have been sentenced to a Magdalene Laundry in Killarney where my cousin was the nun in charge of it and have my child sold out from under me. Friends were caught in this horrific situation. They still bear the scars to this day.

More Good Ol'Days had endless repercussions in my new life in Canada. Isolation from family was a constant gnawing anxiety. Post partum depression after Daughter was born was something unrecognized then. I knew I was depressed. I had made only one friend who was supportive and loving. Father of Child couldn't understand what was going on and busied himself out at night partying and making new friends. I struggled on very much alone with Daughter and thought often of suicide, I was so utterly despondent and frightened by how my life had turned out. As my people say: "I'd lost the run of myself."

I had a supportive doctor for my baby and he recognized what was going on and told me it would pass. It was all hormonal, try and get out in the sunshine, make more of an effort, go swimming (our apartment building had a pool) or walking. I did. But I've never forgotten the awful gloom of that first year in a strange land, how I felt robbed of my family, my homeland, a supportive community, the familial joy that should have surrounded Daughter, a first great grand-child and grandchild to both our families.

So what doesn't kill me makes me stronger. Stronger in the broken places.

I am grateful beyond measure to Canada, who accepted two young emigrants back in the day and helped us establish a life in this great country where I was able to blossom and grow and become my authentic self. This would not have happened in Ireland in that era where women were subservient to the church, surrounded by rattling rosary beads and the gossip of neighbours and who lost their careers upon marriage or unplanned pregnancies. Memories of any "transgressions" lived long and hard in the minds of neighbours and co-congregants ("Ah, she had to get married back in 1957, no wonder he runs around on her, who's to blame him?"). There was no moving on then. If your father was a communist, you were unemployable and judged so harshly one of my classmates joined an order of cloistered nuns to escape community condemnation, her brothers emigrated. I could write more. A very dark place it was then, finally coming into more sunlight now with abortion rights and gay marriage but still a long way to go.

Not that Canada is perfect, but it is a country, still, where health care is excellent and universal, where the social safety network is in place to help the least advantaged of our citizens and women are equal in the constitution and dying with dignity and legalized
marijuana make us the adult in a house where in the basement a screaming orange toddler with a lit match holds us all in terrified thrall to his tantrums.

Dis and Dat

I updated my book list for those interested - and I am gratified some of you enjoy it.
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As to Canadian Netflix, it seems to have run out of steam. Deliberately, I don's subscribe to any other streaming service in case it would get in the way of my real life. So I decided to embrace my local library yet again and I'm finding all sorts of goodies which only take up temporary space in my abode. For instance, I just received "Brideshead Revisited" which I haven't seen in a dog's age and am looking forward to revisiting (ha). This is the 1981 version which I remember enjoying. I didn't see the remake and have no desire to.
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And yay Ireland on the referendum and all who sailed in to cast votes from everywhere around the planet. I haven't been so emotionally swept up in a vote in a long, long time. Remembering all who suffered and died because of the barbaric nature of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of Ireland.


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I had one of those "real" dreams last night. Missing Daughter had returned to the fold. Engineered by First Daughter. All terribly complicated but I was holding her and she was sobbing her heart out and wouldn't let me go. I woke up smiling and not crying which surprised me. But I carried a little oomph of hope. I have a major milestone birthday coming up and maybe this is playing some part in this. But I do know about expectations being folly. So no fatted calf or parades in anticipation.
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In the past week, I banjaxed my left arm from the fingertips to the shoulder. The pain was brutal and I needed a brace. This happens periodically and we can't seem to source the cause. It feels like a repetitive sprain injury but to cover such a vast area? I've checked seating, desk height, etc. But I'm baffled. A few months ago when it happened I went for all sorts of tests and nothing was found.

Away

In light of the horrific recent events unfolding in Holy Ireland, with babies starved, tossed into septic tanks and sold to the highest bidders by demonic clergy, please read here and here for further clarification. Bessborough is where I would have been interred like a few of my friends who were abandoned by their boyfriends or raped by relatives or priests.

If you need further enlightenment on these horrific crimes against humanity I thought to bring to light my own narrow escape story that I still grapple with emotionally. I'm trying to set my story all down and come to terms with it, but it still festers in my heart, it is still so difficult to speak of. And I don't. Because I cry. Writing is what I do best.

And in case you're wondering, everyone knew about these institutions. We girls lived in fear of them and pitied the poor creatures within them when we would visit - as privileged private school girls - to entertain them. But never speak to them. Contamination, you see. and looking back, us girls must have been obliviously rubbing further salt into their scalded souls.

And yes I've had the therapy and tried to establish an understanding of my past with the male members of my birth family, to no avail.

For seriously, how can any Irish man, no matter the age, understand the Ireland of 1966 when a frightened, pregnant young woman, not more than a girl, together with her young husband, made life changing decisions to protect themselves and their families from the cult that was the RC church in Ireland? And make no mistake, it was (and still is) a patriarchal, hypocritical cult, steeped in misogyny, condemning so-called "unmarried mothers" to a life time of slavery, their babies stolen and sold, or killed or starved. Or horrifically raped by the parish priests who had unlimited access to these vulnerable girls and children.

I was secretly five months pregnant at my wedding. A very tight girdle.

Away

A wedding ring away from a workhouse, a lifetime of indentured slavery.

A wedding ring away from a child kidnapped and sold.

A papal blessing away from tribal condemnation on a secret side altar of the parish church.

An emigration away from family disgrace and pursed lip judgement

A lonely birthing away from family joy and support, among strangers in a strange land

A frightened young couple away from all they knew dear, alone and terrified.

A baby born away, questioning the whys and wheres and hows of the banishment of her parents.

A lifetime away in a country which beckoned when Ireland closed its doors.

Tender Moments

They're better when you don't expect them, aren't they?

I had this email from an ex today that brought soft tears to my eyes. He's not a writer by any means. And I do think he struggled with his words. My birthday is this Tuesday and he remembered it obviously but forgot the much clichéd "Happy Birthday" and just brought up some random memories about how long we've known each other (since high school). Nearly 60 years. What a privilege, that, to know someone nearly 60 years. And share children and miscarriages, a failed adoption and a beloved grandchild.

He wrote of our emigration, our expectations then and what an adventure it was.

And he closed with a beautiful, heartfelt phrase which I'll keep private.

And I thought of our voyage and wrote back to him of this, of all our dearies on that small tender pulling away from that vast ocean liner that held our incredibly young hopeful selves leaving all we had ever known behind. Forever.

And the Irish coastline fading away in the distance as we turned and faced the new land of Canada.

Good tears.

Good love.

Forget-Me-Nots

I get lonely for Helen. I re-read some of the thousands of emails we exchanged over twenty years. News. Challenges. Grief. Stories. Support. Love. Solidarity.

She wrote about a mutual school friend who stayed behind to chat with her after a book club meet. Una was seven months pregnant forty years ago when she was summoned from Dublin to Cork by her family as her mother was terminally ill and wanted to die at home in the pre-hospice era. A few days after Una's arrival she woke up in the middle of the night with terrible pains that she thought might be labour. She lay there in terror.

Terror?

The only phone in the house was downstairs in the hall and no one in the house she was reared in ever disturbed her father, a light sleeper, in the middle of the night. Ever. The punishment for one of her brothers who had the temerity to do so resulted in injuries that kept him out of school for over a week.

Una wept as she told Helen how she cried and moaned into her pillow all night, her body writhing in agony. In the morning she waited for her father to leave for work before she got out of bed. The pains had now stopped and she was relieved but she felt nauseous. Once the doctor arrived to administer morphine to her mother, she mentioned the pains of the night before and he evaluated the situation. He immediately summoned an ambulance.

The baby was born dead a few hours later.

Una said to Helen it was the first time she'd ever talked about all of it.

Helen wrote to me: "I'm only telling you because you understand that kind of terror."

Sadly, I do.

I remember

Her name was Mrs. Hoare. She looked about 90 and she taught First Class (Grade 1). Now who'd forget a name like that?

I was six. Fresh out of the country and into a suburban school in Cork. An old national school once part of a village until urban sprawl had incorporated it. A smelly old school. Thick walls, uncertain heating system, we were always cold. Even in the spring.

We'd practise hymns. We were all getting ready for our First Communion and the RC church ran the schools, the hospitals, the orphanages, the old age homes and us.

Six. And we sang of hell fire and redemption and saints who died for Jesus.

And one of the girls, in a class of about 40, vomited all over the floor as we stood there singing.

And Mrs. Hoare?

Well, she flew into a rage. The priest was expected shortly to examine us all and make sure we were fit to confess our dreadful sins and be accepted, in our bridal dresses and veils, into the kingdom of the parish and thereafter heaven, if we did what we were told. You may laugh at the Taliban but Ireland is, was, and always will be a trendsetter in that regard.

And Geraldine Barry had the gall, the brazen brass of her, to throw up all over the wooden floor.

And Mrs. Hoare said we were all going to make up for this unforgiveable sin in the eyes of Jesus. We would all suffer along with Geraldine and stare at that filthy floor all day and learn of our mistakes, our evil natures. With the priest coming.

And he did. And the smell in that room was appalling. And little Geraldine, her freckles stood out like raindrops on her little white face. She hung on to the desk with her eyes downcast, tears trickling off her chin and on to her shoes. I can still see her page-bob hair, she had lovely bangs, we called it a fringe back then. None of the rest of us had fringes, they were too expensive to maintain. Good haircuts cost money and fathers made you look like a boy if you let them loose on your head with your brothers' hair trimming equipment.

When the priest saw the mess on the floor, he left the room, the smell was pretty bad then, permeating everything. I remember using all my energy to battle the rising bile in my stomach, biting my lower lip down so hard my teeth left marks.

He came back with a bucket of sawdust and threw it all over the mess. We were all still standing there shaking, as our mothers had bought our First Communion dresses. My mother had made mine. She got a gift of cream silk damask from a priest who still loved her but now lived in Egypt. I didn't know that story until I was old enough to talk unrequited love with her but he sent me a pendant in the post too, a non-Catholic one with a little hinged door on the front of it where I put my Granny's sixpence.

So what would happen if Father Sheehan now punished us by cancelling our big First Communion Day? Our mothers would be raging.

He chatted briefly with Mrs. Hoare and muttered something about her good job in teaching us all a valuable lesson in respect for property.

He fired off a couple of solid questions at us along the lines of: Who made the world? And we all chanted back at him: God made the world, fadder. And then he left us all to our vomit and sawdust.

And one month later little Geraldine of the perfect fringe and freckles was dead. Of meningitis.

The first funeral I was ever at.

She wore her gorgeous First Communion Dress as she lay in her white casket.

A Story

Apart from this blog, I haven't been up to much original writing for I don't know how long.

And the other day I made a note when listening to someone talk about a white dress. The note said "white dress wispies." And a long ago day, when I was thirteen, flooded back into my mind as vividly as yesterday. I'll let the story speak for itself, though it probably needs a bit of editing.

A White Dress and Wispies

I was mad with excitement. A distant relative had sent a dress all the way from New York, white with a tiny gold belt. Mummy broke down and let me buy the gold ballet style shoes, known as “Wispies” - they came in fifty colours. My best friend Nuala had ten pairs in every colour under the sun and beyond. I was lucky to get this one magical pair.

A garden party. A final garden party in a huge old country house that was being turned over to the government as some kind of centre. And Daddy, representing local government, was taking me. It was ten miles away and no buses went out there but we were going on our bikes as we didn't own a car yet. We were used to long cycles to the seaside on Sundays when the weather was warm like today. I loved escaping from the house, from Mummy and all the younger ones and the crying baby. It was only afterward, when I was grown and gone, that I reflected on how unfair that was, Daddy escaping, Mummy stuck endlessly with four boys under ten with no relief.

I borrowed Mummy's pale blue angora cardigan with the pearl buttons and wore a pair of white gloves that I'd worn at my confirmation a couple of years ago.
“Pull that hair off your face,” Daddy said irritably before we set off. My long hair was an endless source of annoyance to him. Maybe because he was balding, I couldn't figure it out. So I ran upstairs and took a ribbon out of Mummy's old biscuit tin that housed her treasures. I took a minute to pull my thick hair up and back in a ponytail.

“You'll have a lovely time,” said Mummy at the door, waving us off, the baby on her hip, “Remember your manners!”

After we discreetly parked the bikes outside the main gate and went in, Daddy introduced me to Important People. I had been instructed to say “pleased to meet you,” and shut up. That was easy as I was very busy looking around at all the women in hats. All kinds of hats. And everything matched beautifully. There was champagne and Tanora and four people in a little pavilion playing classical music.

Getting bored very quickly while Daddy made conversation with strangers, I wandered off. I thought I might be the youngest there, for I saw no children. Waiters wandered around with trays, I followed one until he noticed me and handed me a linen napkin and then held out the tray. It was piled with all kinds of tiny delicacies. Hors d'oeuvres they were called - I'd read about them in a book but hadn't a clue how to pronounce it. I loaded down my napkin with morsels and proceeded to pop them one at a time into my mouth. The waiter rolled his eyes at me, I thought it quite rude, and marched off.

I sat down in front of the musicians and polished off the rest of the food. Laughter rolled in waves all about me, the polite meaningless kind. I applauded the musicians when they finished a piece but I was the only one and they ignored me. There was a sudden silence followed by the ringing of a bell and I got up and followed the sound to a dais where there were many officials, all well dressed men, Daddy amongst them.

Keys were being formally handed over to Daddy's boss whom I'd met earlier and then an old book was signed by two of them and a curtain at the back of the dais was pulled aside and the name of the new entity was emblazoned on a huge granite stone, and photographers were flashing bulbs and there was thunderous applause all around. An excitement I didn't feel. Not one bit. I looked around for more trays and spotted one at the back of the crowd with multi-coloured pastries and I charged off and smoothed out my crumpled napkin and helped myself to more than a few of the fresh delicacies.

I was still munching them when I was tapped none too gently on my shoulder.
“Go on! Leave! I'll follow you! Hurry up!” Daddy was very angry.
'You're a disgrace!” he said through tight lips, fastening his bicycle clips to his trousers, “I should never bring you anywhere!”
“What did I do?” I was bewildered, frightened.
“You'd think your mother would take care of you!” he was hissing now, I could tell he was disgusted.
“What's wrong, Daddy?”
“What's right would be more like it,” he climbed on his bike, “The embarrassment, the shame of this!”
“Ride in front of me, for God's sake!” he said as we pulled out on the bikes.

I was shaking but thought to not anger him further. The ride home was the longest I'd ever experienced. His displeasure shot holes in my back.

As soon as we got home he confronted Mummy, shepherding the three of us into the Front Room and slamming the door.

“She's a disgrace, she's a let down, in front of everyone. I'm telling you woman, that's the last time I'll ever be seen with her. I don't know how I can walk back into my office tomorrow. I'll be the talk of the town. And it's all your fault!”

Mummy was white, she was down to stuttering his name, like she always did when he turned on her.

“Turn around!” he said to me, grabbing my arm as if I wouldn't do it fast enough to please him.

“Oh my God!” said Mummy from behind me.

A white dress and my first period.

Memory

I am struck so much by memory lately. Not in a morbid way or anything, strictly reflecting on its power.

I read "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" again for my book club. I loved it the first time around (2009) and the re-read was equally delightful.

I had thought in the past that it was such a shame most of us can't plumb the depths of our parents' memories. I spent a huge quantity of time (afternoon upon afternoon) with my mother when she had terminal cancer where she shared so many memories with me. I didn't take notes, much to my regret now, I thought it would embarrass her. But I could have written so much down in privacy later but it didn't occur to me caught up in my own grief and the care of my own two babies. She had fascinating memories. I'm trying to assemble them in a book. For instance, she recalled, in detail, the shock and horror of a barracks explosion in Castlemartyr, County Cork when she was a very small child. And contrary to many others, she remembered the kindness of the Black and Tans throwing her and her sisters English toffees as they rolled by her house in huge, loud trucks on their way to Youghal.

And then this line in the aforementioned book struck me:

"I am betraying you by dying, I am truly causing you to die....must we also put to death those who were still alive only through us."

And I think of living with my grandmother and grandfather for a while in that small village, and watching him, a labourer, set off for work in the morning and coming home at night with sausages in his back pocket (an enormous treat) and me helping him set the traps for the rabbits on the back acre, and tossing grain at my granny's chickens, and being kept up for all hours - don't tell yer mammy sitting on his lap while he and his pals set Ireland to rights and sang impossibly long olachons (laments) in the Sean Nos style. And one time, dancing with my granny while a fiddle and a harmonica and spoons and bones kept time. My granny was old to me then (in her late forties!)and I remember clapping my hands in glee at her agility on the flagstones.

I would be the only one remembering all of that (eldest grandchild)and I suppose, when I go, it'll be a second death for those, now long gone, who continue to live, and so very clearly, in my memory.

Equal Rights

Of course I'm thrilled that the LGBTs have won in Ireland. Apart from having many gay friends, there are also gay family members. So yes, it's personal.

But like I said to a gay friend in the midst of all the euphoria, when will women be considered equal in Ireland? When will the rosaries stop rattling and Irish women given full bodily autonomy?

Will it happen in my lifetime?

Yeah, big question.

30 Days - Day 19

Before I start my day I lie in bed in the morning and do a mental survey. In spite of myself, my BFF Helen, who passed away in the past few months, springs to mind. I miss her more than words can say. Actually, truth be known, I can't find the words, the pain is so bad. I ask for her advice on challenging familial situations, like I always did. As she did me. But the answers don't come anymore. We were very good at "Remember when that happened and you did ......" or "you were such a star when you represented Ireland at Bridge....". Various validations of each other's worth. Self-validation is never enough, in spite of the gurus. Unless you're delusional.

My soul-friends are thin on the ground now. Many deaths. Others living far away. And here? I'm only known for the past 10 years basically. No historical setting for me. Just that I'm from magical Ireland and thus I'm viewed as if fairy dust was sprinkled all over me. No one wants to hear of the Ireland that betrayed me and mine in so many ways I can't even count them. How could I leave such a Utopia, they cry, baffled.

My lived experience, my truth, my very authenticity to use the fad word, is denied. Over and over again.

And there's something awfully lonely about that.

My Lips Are Sealed for Now.

Do you ever feel you'd love to write about something that's really fogging up the old spectacles but you know you can't. And you sit on it and stew on it and privately journalize it and think there might be a short story or even a bloody novel in it but there isn't. The words stream on and there just isn't any way of getting rid of it, it is fraught with anger and sadness and a kind of resignation and despair and you'd love to spit it out at the world.

You know?

And you can't. Because of breached anonymity.

So many of you out there writing long and hard for years on such a platform as this must know whereof I write. Of which I write. Of.....

I suppose a good old suck it up might work, down the road that is. But right now and for the past while? It makes me seethe. It's not an uncommon loathsome behaviour I witnessed but I haven't seen it written about before. And I can't seem to work my way around disguising it. That breached anonymity thing you see.

I mentioned my dilemma to a family member and they had a great time with it - acting out how TV programmes handle such matters with changed names and disguised voices and descriptions. To the point where it took on a life of its own amidst our helpless laughter.

But this was no laughing matter and quite serious. And the desire is burning within to put it all out there rather than privately.

So I'll distract myself and tell you I returned from dear old Ireland today.

And yeah my heart's still broken and it all feels so surreal and I'm dying to tell her all about it and I can't.

So there it is.

Hence the picture I took of my three beloveds up above.

To cheer me up.

Healing Gifts 2

One might never meet someone or talk to them but when you do, pow, in the first 20 seconds you have an ease and comfort that is astonishing.

It was this way with a young woman who came up to me at the removal of my BFF from her home to the church.

"I know you. " she said simply.

"Yes," I said, "Of course. You're Gillian."

And we hugged and cried.

BFF had loved the ex-partner of her elder son's. Like we do. We hate to witness the breakup of our children with those we become fond of and whom we consider "ideal".  For us, the elders, perhaps, but not for those who move on.

Against the odds BFF remained close to Gillian as both her son and Gillian moved on to other partners and started families.

BFF was a tower of strength when Gillian ' s 1st daughter died at 5 months. I remember the daily emails from that period (BFF & I exchanged 1000s of emails). I had two miscarriages so understood a little of the grief and relayed words of understanding through BFF to Gillian.

So to finally meet her was wonderful. She adored BFF and was devastated by her death.

And the best news of all was that she's now the mother of two healthy little girls.

And yes, we're staying in touch.

Healing Gifts

Three to be precise.

The first is a very old friend and in the way of busy,  we lost track of each other. She had 6 children and I, single working parent pre-interwebz what does one do to sustain a palship?

She wasn't a friend of my now deceased BFF but felt driven to trek down to the south side of Dublin from her north side home to the funeral. She's never done anything like this in her life as she doesn't drive and finds the complicated 3 system transit necessary to do this daunting to say the least.

But she did it. And here we were today at Wynn's old hotel in Dublin catching up for 5 hours. Her children are all scattered, her husband dropped dead on the El Camino 4 years ago and she rattles around her big old house by herself. A traditional housewife,  she had to learn how to write cheques after her husband died.

I always knew even when she was 18 that she would be an Irish mammy. She always knew I was far too independent in my thinking to ever settle for that.

And you know what? After 40 years, the love was there, the openness and the honesty.

And yes, the laughter. And the memories she has of my beloved mum are priceless.

"I could have you come live with me forever," she says.

So next time I'm in Dublin,  yeah, I'll have her give me a test drive. Forever can change to never in a heartbeat.

There's something so healing about all of these events and that's just my 1st story.

Words

I have a clearer understanding now of the old expression "words fail me." The inadequacy of language to convey the depth of sadness, the never-agains of death, the disbelief, the overwhelming loss, the guilty rage of the eternal screaming of WHY?

Why not? Is flung back against me. Why do we consider ourselves and our beloveds so immune from the chilly skeletal fingers of the Reaper?

I am glad I returned to Ireland. Glad I was there for family and friends. Glad I let myself be comforted by dear ones. Glad to hook up with a long lost friend who showed up at the funeral with the dim hope I'd be there.

But the enormous loss. Words are completely inadequate.

A Story to Dine Out On.

My brother tells this true story. Every time I think of it I burst out laughing. Now, you might have to be Irish to get the humour in it but I'll take my chances as the story truly deserves the light of a bigger audience.

Bro is an engineer and would travel a lot up and down Ireland. You might think being an engineer would be an awful bore of an old job. But no. It had its moments.

He was up in the backside of Mayo one day and was running out of petrol and he found this old shop off the beaten track with a petrol pump outside and pulled in. An oul fellah came out, a dirty, greasy oul fellah and filled up the car.

"Where would I get a bite to eat?" sez Bro, noting it was well past his lunch time and he was starving.

"Ah, sure, I can take care of yez," sez Yer Man.

So Bro follows Yer Man into the shop which reflected the condition of Yer Man himself. It hadn't seen a duster or a wipe down since God was an altar boy.

"I'll be fixing yez up so, a good thick sammich," sez Yer Man, hauling out a big round of brown soda bread and slapping it on the filthy counter. Next, he retrieves a huge slab of ham from somewhere and Bro notes it is crawling with bluebottles (big flies). Yer Man then goes into a drawer and selects a rusty, dusty carving knife and with a flourish pulls out a filthy rag from his back pocket and proceeds to wipe down the knife.

It's at this point in the proceedings that he catches the appalled look on Bro's face. Completely misinterpreting the look as approval for how well he's conducting his lunch preparation, he says proudly:

"Arragh I'm a hoor for the hygiene."

Conversation

My friend is home.

First telephone conversation with me after all she's been through:

"I'm only on the phone with you because you're so worried. I'm not supposed to be on the phone at all. You're the first phone-call. Now. Relax. I am perfect."

"But the surgery? The recovery? The prognosis?"

"Listen to me, I am perfect. My doctors say that I am in such great physical shape I can have the chemotherapy at home and have six weeks of radiation in the hospital in conjunction."

"I can't believe how you're sounding."

Laughter.

"I'm eating like a pig again, all lovely foods, I'm being spoiled I tell you. They all run out of the house and get exactly what I want. Like a 5 star hotel."

"You had me in bits - and now listen to you."

"Listen: I went all through this before with the breast cancer and I had so many other stresses in my life, remember the trouble I had with Daughter at the same time?"

"Yes, you got through that and no flies on you."

"And right, this time is perfect. I am older and no worries and this is an absolute doddle compared with then."

"Well, not a doddle....."

"It's a perfect doddle. So stop all the fuss. I am perfect."

Yes, ma'am.