She's still sick, drooly and puffy-faced from the Catalogue incident. She was awake most of the night and, as many of you could testify, that means the mother is awake most of the night.
It's hard, isn't it? When all you want to do is go back to your warm bed and close your eyes ... but the screaming and crying and squirming doesn't stop ... half an hour seems like two hours ... and nothing seems to work ... it can be quite frustrating.
While I was trying to rock her to sleep, I remembered someone from when I was little.
When I was in primary school, I went to a convent school.
This is me and my brothers in about 1977. I was cute. I could give myself a hug.
In fact, I just did. You do the same, because I bet you were cute too.
I was in Grade Two in 1978.
I can't remember saying much at that age, and I don't remember having any friends. I spent my lunchtimes doing my own thing ... looking for small change in the sandpit, trying to grow seedpods I'd found on the ground in the presbytery garden bed ... that sort of thing.
Anyway, there was an old house next to the school where a lot of visiting priests would stay. I remember one priest arrived and he would spend the school lunchtimes walking around the school grounds patting children on the head, and generally supervising the noise.
I must have liked the look of this man ... he seemed very old and had white hair. He was very quiet. He wore a long white garment, with a brown plaited cord loosely around his waist. From his belt hung a chain of religious medals.
I started walking around with him at lunchtime. It was just him and I walking around and around the school. I don't know what we talked about, possibly lofty theological points, possibly about the failure of my seedpods to propagate.
I do remember admiring his medals. I do remember telling him how much I liked them, and he probably explained them to me, but I can't remember.
Then one day, while on our lunchtime walk, he gave me the chain of medals and said I could keep them. I was quite thrilled and impressed because they were his only medals and he wore them everyday.
The next day at school, he wasn't there. And the next day I didn't see him. In fact, I've never seen him since. I don't know who he was, but I can be sure that he's now dead.
Generally, I forget about the medals, but occasionally something will remind me and I'll search for them and I'll remember how patient and kind he was.
Aww, that's lovely!
ReplyDeleteThat is the most beautiful story. You are so blessed to have those medals!!'
ReplyDeleteMy grade 2 story is far less inspiring, we all had to stand up and tell the class what our God given talents were. One by one each child stood up and let us know how fast or how smart they were. I was one of the few left who had not put their hand up, so the teachers took it upon themselves to tell us our talents. I was the last child left and could see the teachers eyeing each other off, hoping one may come up with an idea. I was so humiliated,even a 7 year old could see what was ging on , and I smiled in embaressment. With that a teacher announced, thats it! Your smile! Your smile is your talent. I was quite devestated as I could see the sheer desperation of it all. As you can see I have actually never quite got over that episode to this day, though sometimes I feel I am moving on......
Children are a lot more intelligent than most adults give them credit for. And how we treat them embeds in their little psyches.
ReplyDeleteThat's why being a parent is so difficult. Though, really, it doesn't take much to make a child happy, or deeply sad for that matter.
Lovely story about the priest and his medals.
ReplyDeleteYou kept that one to yourself.
And I so agree about children cottoning on when adults assume they haven't got a clue.
My school days were filled with nasty nuns who resented their lot in life.
I had some who had definitely flown the cuckoo nest. Today, they would be sued and drummed out of their position of "power" over little kids.
A lot of them were Irish, as were the priests.
My mother used to say - "Bog Irish!"
We lived next door to the church/school grounds and had to walk through to get to our house from the tram.
Every Friday midday,my mother would come home from shopping in the city, and kids would come up to me and say "Your mother is fighting again with Sister Mary Antonio".
And I would disappear into the church to hide in case I got caught up in the brawl.
The nuns resented the fact that our family and all the others in our street would walk through "their grounds".
I remember Sister Mary Antonio caning one of my brothers having been "caught" walking through.
Within 2 years of that, or less, he had died from an undiagnosed ruptured appendicitis with with peritonitis.
It was rather sickening to see these same holier than thou's smarming all over our family.
I too was very young but was aware of the hypocrisy.
Mmmmmmmm.
Sorry about all that.
That's so lovely. It made me teary.
ReplyDeleteLovely story. Funny what pops into your head in the middle of the night. I miss the time when people weren't suspicious and that trust was expected. Luckily my trust was never abused, altho I do recollect (with great clarity, even down to the fact it was raining and we were having a class in a demountable) and Sister Someone was telling us that "we must look right back into our future husband's family tree, otherwise we might have a black baby". Unbelieveable now.
ReplyDeleteYour story is so sweet and makes me think of all the lovely priests I have met over the years.
thank you. I really liked reading this.
ReplyDeleteSee, you're all so good and holy, talking about trust and kindness.
ReplyDeleteI'm just envious of the icons.
I love an icon and bloody good ones they are too.