THROUGH THE GLASS DARKLY!

It is said that the death of your Mother is the first sorrrow in your life that you weep over without her.
I was too young.
It was too early.
There was too much weeping.
And the death of my Mother confirmed something else.

Actually, it was the letter that finally did it, more than the death of my Mum.
The letter that I found in that old brown battered secret suitcase was the thing that finally took me Through the Glass Darkly.

The physical presence of the suitcase wasn't really a secret.
We all knew that it was on the top of the big old oak wardrobe.
It seemed as if it had always been there, dusty and waiting, protectively guarding its mysterious contents.
It was those contents that were actually the secret.
Once or twice one of us children had dared to stretch up on tiptoe from a chair to touch it.
The suitcase was locked.
And I had always known that it was locked.
I didn't know where the key was, or even if there was a key.

But it was no longer locked.
With Mum no longer around to prevent it, I had forced it open with a pair of scissors.
And inside, amongst a pile of papers and old photographs,
I found the letter.
The letter that explained everything, and, in turn, nothing!
The letter explained the reason why I didn't, and was never ever going to get my miracle.

The letter was beautifully handwritten in the blackest Indian ink, and on a single sheet of old, mellowed, yellowing and crumpled paper.
It was still inside the official stiff cardboard registered envelope, with the original stamp embossed to the front of it, and it was addressed to my Mum.
And the letter stated simply and clearly that I was "a child of the devil."

Reading those words was like being physically hit with a boulder.
The breath was knocked out of me leaving me shaking.
It floated away as if carried by helium, and something inside me broke.
I though it might be my heart, or perhaps my very soul.
I actually felt it break.
It shattered, and flew around like smashed smithereens of crystal.
I could almost see it.
I feared what would happen to me if I was unable to put it together again.
And, even if I could, I just knew that the broken places would be forever weakened.

There were many other words in the letter. 
Harsh and cruel words.
They seemed to blur and dance on the paper as I tried to focus my eyes.
The only words that I was able to see clearly were, "she is a child of the devil."
Those words were actually leaping at me from the page.

The letter was signed...From Mother.
No 'With Love', or even XXX.
Simply...From Mother.

And so, it would seem that I, Callie,
first born child of Grandmas first born child,
thus her first, her very first ever grandchild....
was, apparently, also a child of the devil!
Why?
How could this be?
What did it mean?

Well, the letter didn't actually say why or how.
It didn't really explain anything further.
The statement was written bluntly, and read as a definite fact.
So I had to assume that the reason was simply because it was the truth.
It was certainly what Grandma believed to be the truth, or why would she have written it?
It was there in the letter, clearly stated in black and white.
She must be right, mustn't she?
Yes, of course, she absolutely must be right.

But, do you know the strangest thing?
My Grandma was also dead when I opened the suitcase and read the letter.
She had been dead for some years.
And my Grandma had never,
ever,
not even once,
actually met me!

SO MANY CLOUDS, SO FEW STARS.

 Now I have really gone and done it!

My blog has been live for a little while now, but there had been no indication that anyone was reading it, and that was just fine...until last night!
Suddenly it seemed that so many lovely people actually were, and they were generous enough to comment.
I thank each and every one of you for your kindness, especially my Twitter Sisters.You know who you are, gorgeous and kind kindred spirits who have made me laugh, cry... and brave!  You have helped to change everything. Bless you.

Now, am I to continue with this?
Am I actually under any obligation to inform my siblings, and what am I to do if they disapprove?
I haven't yet actually told anyone about it. Do I have a moral obligation to do so?
My life involved their life, therefore my story is partly their story.
My past is their past also, but being boys, are they automatically more entitled to it than I am?
Being older than them, however, the past has actually been mine for longer than it has been theirs...does that count?

It was tough being a girl in my world.
Although the women in my family were proven to be academically smarter and emotionally stronger than the boys, being male they automatically assumed that they were.
They were allowed to continue to believe that this was the case.
They thought that they knew best, and, truthfully, it sometimes it felt as if the women colluded in this mith.
So is it now the case that their memories are the correct ones?
And what if they have actually rejected everything that I have embraced?
Ireland and my Irishness makes me what I am, my tumbleweed roots are firmly embedded there.
I was born in Eire.
They were not, and that was always considered an issue.

I would obsess over details in Irish history as if somewhere in the mists of time I would discover the very moment that would explain everything, the very moment that would explain all that was cruel and untrue in my world.
In the 1950s 50,000 people left Ireland for the UK.
Desperate people, impoverished and invisible with their identity concealed by appearance, living in England but not really feeling that they belonged there.
With their large families, as encouraged by the Church, often remaining back in Ireland, and little real support for offered them in their new homes, life was lonely and difficult.
I guess that it is inevitable that some of us simply fell through the cracks.

I knew that something profound must have happened to have caused such distress, such a loss of faith and hope, so many clouds and so few stars.
It was as if something had been stolen in the darkness of my family history, leaving nothing of any truth when the sun finally made its way up...only tears and fears, rain and pain, and, of course, the secrets and lies.
I had no idea why things were kept so secret.
Why we were kept so secret.
Was it perhaps the whole Catholic thing, or perhaps a misguided attempt to gain some sort of status and pride, or maybe just some quirk of personality?
Perhaps I should not allow my ignorance to run too loose through such a subject.
All that I did know for certain was that my history appeared shrouded in a veil of sadness.

And this was all that I actually knew...until one day I found a battered old suitcase!

And that battered old suitcase was stuffed full of answers!!

A SMALL CHILD MAY JUST BE LISTENING.

" Like many children whom circumstance has accustomed to suffering, Callie shares little in common with other girls of her age.
Although somewhat sensitive, she displays an awareness and an intellect beyond her years.
She is at present unable to reach her potential due to the palpable difficulties in her home life.
These need to be addressed.
Callie has yet to find her way through, but has the intelligence to turn this to her advantage with time and guidance"
This was the concluding paragraph of my school report, written by my head teacher, The Mother Superior, when I was just 11 years old!

Maybe it was easy for the nuns to write their assessments without really knowing the circumstances of their pupils.
Maybe, having written those words, they should have felt some sort of obligation to do something about the situation they saw fit to comment on.
They did nothing!

We were taught at school to faithfully follow the Bible, its Scriptures and its doctrine.
This was a little at odds with what Mum taught us.
She said that as the Bible had been interpreted by man, we should question that interpretation because it need not always be accepted as literal.
The Nuns professed that God was watching and listening, that if we were good Catholic girls, lived a pure and holy life, and repented our sins He would always be there to watch over and help us.
They said that this was a proven truth because the Bible told us so.
I actually believed the Nuns.
I had to believe them because I really needed God to help us.
There seemed to be nobody else to turn to, so I just had to believe.
Believing The Nuns meant that Mum must be mistaken, but that was a risk that I felt, at the time, was worth taking.
However, the only problem with this theory was that God really didn't seem to know that I existed!

So I made Church my adopted home. It felt safe and I often hid there.
I attended every Mass I could.
I spent all my pennies either lighting candles, or pretending that I enjoyed the clatter that they made as they slid into the Poor Box.
I went to Confession so often that I would make up sins because I couldn't think of real ones...and then go back to confess to the real ones of telling lies!
I cleaned the Church for fun, weeded the graves, polished brasses, sang my heart out in the choir and generally made myself at home.
Nothing in Church was scary. I wasn't frightened of graves, or ghosts, or even funerals.
The other children were sometimes scared, but there was nothing in Church that was as scary as the things that were going on in my home.
In Church I was the same as everyone else.
Except of course for the miracle thing!

Everyone seemed to believe that miracles really did happen.
I really believed that this was an absolute fact, that if you were really good and prayed really hard, then God would grant you a miracle.
Maybe, somehow, I had used my miracle up without realising.
Maybe God was too busy with the really good children.
Maybe I was the only Catholic girl not to have every been allocated my one miracle in the first place.
Maybe I simply didn't deserve His help!
Whatever the reason, He wasn't listening and I realised that we were on our own.

Mum said that sometimes human interpretation of the Scriptures could result in bigotry, and that this was dehumanising to those in the minority. She said that God would surely celebrate those differences that He had created.
Perhaps she was trying to tell us something that we were just too young to understand at the time.
Well, we were certainly in the minority in our world, and the differences in our family left nothing worthy of celebration, only an overwhelming sense of embarrassment and shame.
I knew that we were very different to other families long before I was able to articulate or really understand what made us so.
Mum also said that Christianity was about kindness, generosity and love.
I tried so hard to remember this.
I often wondered why, if it was so important, other people didn't seem to remember it also?

Lots of people knew that I was virtually camping out in that Church at totally inappropriate times.
They saw me.
Sometimes they smiled.
But they all passed by.
A small gesture of concern or kindness towards one small girl would have made such a difference.
Perhaps it was easier for them to do only what was publically required of them.
Perhaps being seen to be doing good was more important than actually doing anything good.
After all, they all did exactly what was required of them.
They attended church.
They prayed to God.
And they also made their judgements.
Perhaps, being human, they only reached out in return for the status it offered them.
Who can really blame them for that?
But they seemed to be granted their miracles.

So I stopped believing,
Stopped praying,
Stopped hoping for the miracle with my name on it.

I accepted the family shame along with the realisation that we were in it alone.
Nobody, not even God, was going to help us.
I wonder now how those people that passed by would have felt had they realised that they silenced one small girls prayers forever.

So perhaps before you next unthinkingly echo Amen in agreement, can I gently ask that you look around and consider what it is that you are agreeing to....because, perhaps, just perhaps, another small child may just be listening!

ALL HALLOWS EVE.

ALL HALLOWS EVE!

All Hallows is the night they say 

When souls return from far away,

When Winter chills begin to bite

And witches chant with all their might.

When ghostly apparitions tease

And spirits whisper in the trees,

When shadows of years rise unseen...

 Tonight it will be Halloween!!

Hallowe'en was originally an ancient Celtic festival marking the end of Summer and the harvest, and the beginning of the darkness of Winter.

It would seem to have been an important event in the medieval Irish calendar and was known as Samhain, marking the end of the Summer and a time of half light and half dark.

November 1st was the Celtic New Years Day, a day associated with darkness, death and dying.
They believed that the world of the living and the world of the dead were at their closest during the night before New Year, and that the spirits could pass between the two.

The ghosts of the dead could return to earth on this evening to cause mischief and mayhem, so people would light bonfires, feast on harvest fruits, dress up and sing to frighten off wandering spirits.

Much later the Catholic church designated November 1st as All Saints or All Hallows Day in an attempt to end the pagan festival of Samhain.

All Hallows Day was also a feast day nominated to honour any of  its saints and martyrs who did not have their own individual feast day.
The day before became known as All Souls Day, a day when Catholics would pray for their departed friends and family. And a day when, they believed, the souls of the dead were liberated temporarily from Purgatory and could return to their old homes.

The Vatican today continues to condemn Halloween as being anti-Christian.

The custom of Trick or Treating would appear to be a much more recent American tradition, possibly appearing around the 1920s. All Hallows Eve is now characterised by groups of frolicking excited children dressed as witches, ghosts etc. running amok in the darkness!

SO GET THOSE BROOMSTICKS OUT AND PARTY.

HAVE A WONDERFUL HALLOWEEN EVERYONE....MUAHAHAHAAAAAA!!

AUTUMN WILL BE DIFFERENT THIS YEAR.

I have always had issues around the season of Autumn.
I have always found it a particularly difficult time of year.
To me its been the season of mists and melancholy.
The season of loneliness and loss.
The season when the oppressive darkness appeared to smother and trap us.
The season when everyone went inside to their families, and left ours unprotected.
The season when the Winter goblin is waking up, and reaching out to steal any hope that the Summer had offered.

This year I have decided that things must change.
I must try and embrace Autumn, to be positive and appreciate the now, rather than hanker after the retreating Summer.

So I will pack away the sandals and shorts with a smile, rather than a heavy heart.
And I will perhaps even sing as I take out the woolly socks and chunky sweaters!
I will admire the gold and russet colours as they flutter on the ever cooling winds.
I will listen to the crunch and rustle of crispy leaves underfoot.
I will admire the ripeness and colour of pumpkins, apples and corn cobs.
I will enjoy the heady perfume of wood smoke as it blows on the crisp evening air.
I will try to forget the long barmy days of Summer....for now!
Instead, I will enjoy coming back indoors; early nights, roaring log fires and hot chocolate with floating marshmallows.
And, from the within the warmth of my home, I will gaze out at the beauty of a silvery harvest moon.

Then, perhaps, just perhaps, instead of dreading the darkness, I will learn to welcome it, understanding that Autumn is a time of letting go and accepting that nothing is permanent.

Yes, this year I will try, really try,to embrace Autumn!

CAN YOU IMAGINE?

Can you imagine the tinkle of bluebells sparkling in a veil of crystal dewdrops in the first silver light of spring?
Or the shy faces of apple blossom nodding on the breeze,
And the warm air gently fragranced with the scent of the dawning sun?
Can you imagine fluffy white cotton candy clouds as soft as swans down chasing joyfully across the bluest sky?
Can you imagine the gentle laughter of fairy folk as they dance to the sound of harps in the moon lit meadow,
and the hare who would gaze soulfully at the sky as he listened intently?

I could!

Actually, I think that we all could.
We had to ...imagine it, I mean.
We had to imagine it because nothing so beautiful or gentle stayed that way for long in our house, except in our imaginations.
And none of us really knew why.

But one day we were going to find out!

I NEVER HAD A FATHER....

. . . oh, I know that is not strictly true or biologically possible, but I like to imagine that it is actually a fact!
I never knew my father!
That's not strictly true either, but I like to imagine that it is actually a fact!

You see, there was a man.
He often lived in my family home.
He sometimes liked me to call him Daddy or Da.
I preferred not to!
He was never a father.

The man wasted his life. His prerogative, of course.
But he wasted our childhoods as well!
We were like little corks each individually swept along on an undercurrent of fear and confusion, never feeling safe and terrified of where we could wash up. 

We were unknowingly caught up in his net of secrets and lies.
We all lived together in a house, but we all lived alone in our souls.

There were sanctions for speaking out in my family, for not keeping the secret, even when you didn't actually know what the secret was.
I once spoke out in desperation and fear.
I was just eight years old, and from then on he called me 'the little informer'!

But some people did know the secret, and they were the adults.
They did know the truth even though they pretended not to.
Perhaps the grown-ups chose to trade us children for the greater good, but for the greater good of whom, I wonder?
So we all learned pretty quickly to pretend, just like them!
We did not actually choose to be pretenders, but nonetheless we became experts! 

They were excellent teachers!

I didn't understand what it was that made us different.
I just knew that we were!

I was too young to change the situation.
I was definitely too young to escape it!
So I colluded with them. 

I questioned nothing and pretended all was well, even though it clearly was not. 

I repeated our 'stories' to the world with a smile, and I prayed that nobody would ask complicated questions. 

Now I can see that perhaps this was a desperate childish attempt to hold on to a little dignity.  

And I couldn't see another way to keep everyone 'safe', but I hated myself for doing it.

I knew it was all I lie!

But now those grown-ups are no longer alive, and this is not a legacy that I want to pass on with my genes.

So I've broken the cycle. 

I've stopped pretending and I've taken ownership of their secret.
It is now MY secret, and I am speaking MY truth. 

So, it is a fact  ..  I never had a father! I never knew my father!

And if you are fortunate enough to have a lovely Dad, keep him close while you can and make sure he has a wonderfully happy Fathers Day.