It’s finally here. The over the edge point is simple in the end. Perhaps it always is. Now I reckon I’m dealing with burn out in all its glory. It was only a matter of time. May was a month of celebrations and the soaring stress levels which accompany such things. A mid-May Communion followed by an end of May Confirmation and a smattering of birthday celebrations. There’s a myriad of other things peppering the last week preventing me from forging ahead with the preparations. An X-ray which takes an entire morning for example. But it’s the paint that does it in the end. Tips me into the abyss. He emerges from school, Confirmation two days away, with thick white paint on his black shoes. Speckled in his dark hair. Sprayed over his shirt. They were enlisted. Instead of doing art class they ‘helped’ to paint a school yard mural. With real exterior paint. A lovely idea. Great fun. Until.

‘I think the teacher hadn’t thought it through properly’ he says, gingerly, to my speechless face.

‘She looked a bit shocked when she saw the paint on everyone’s trousers and shirts and shoes’.

Shocked? I’ll show her shocked.

‘Because she told us to take off our jumpers and ties but she didn’t figure out the rest’.

Indeed.

‘And it was on the soles of our shoes and it was being walked through the school afterwards, on the polished floors and…’

‘How? How? How?’ I hear myself ask someone, anyone, tapping my head on the steering wheel.

‘Can somebody just tell me how the hell this has happened? Two days, just two days, what…’

‘And you should see my friend’s uniform’ he says to temper me. ‘It’s much worse than mine. Destroyed. That’s what the teacher called it. Destroyed’.

‘How? Why? What? What the…’

My mind is trying to process the plausibility of acquiring new shoes two days before the big event. The logistics. The finances. The likelihood of there even being such a thing as a school shoe in the country at the end of the school year. I wonder if a little weeping would help matters. If I shouldn’t just close my eyes, throw my head back and yowl. Perhaps then it’d be all fixed. Hardly a philosophical response but then again I’m sick and tired of having to be stoical and grateful and mindful. A good old howling’s much more truthful. Anyhow, I don’t quite manage it, failure that I am, and reach instead for the white spirits (no not the gin, although now that you mention it…) I rub and I scrub and the white paint remains stubbornly stuck, laughing at me. I consider painting black over it. If only we had a nice tin of black gloss. To hell with it. There’ll have to be new ones. The white spirits have made them look worse, smudged the leather while not doing a thing to relieve the paint.

He sails in from the big world out there to be greeted by my ‘you’ll never guess what happened’ domestic yarn. His response is not what I’m hoping for. A little joining in on the ‘how, how, how’ would be nice. A ‘my, my, you just never can tell what’s going to happen in a day’. No. His response is true to form. Powered by real interactions with real people in the real world. And being thanked for it.

‘That’s no bother. I’ll have that off in no time at all. Just spit and elbow grease is all that’s required there’.

Cheers.

‘Well I tried already with something a lot stronger, so good luck with the old spittle’ I say, jealous of his big world view where paint on Confirmation shoes is a mere trifle of a thing. How I’d love to feel like that. Wouldn’t it be nice to feel just like that?

June has seen the stress levels stay at a steady high with fiddly ends to be tied up all over the place. It has seen marque 2 off on a 3 day school tour, away from home without us for the first time. No contact whatsoever. We survived. He thrived. But now he leaves primary school. It’s hitting him hard. The great group of pals will disperse to their different secondary schools.
‘But you’ll still all be great pals’ I toss at him as a salve.

‘It won’t be the same though, we won’t see each other every day, I don’t want this to end’.

Neither do I.

As endings go though they have a pretty spectacular one. All nine of them are invited on their last Friday back to one friend’s house. They have a ball. On Sunday they are treated to an afternoon of Karting by one of the Dads. They taxi with him out there, have a blast and then back to his house for pizza. Then on Tuesday they leave the school for the last time. A guard of honour is formed outside by the rest of the boys. The 6th classes emerge and wend their way through to applause and high fives and the younger boys singing out their version of Adele’s ‘Someone like you’…

We’ll never find someone like you

We wish nothing but the best for you

Come visit us someday

In our hearts you’ll always stay

Sixth class you have been great

We’ll miss you in sport, work and play

Muffled sobs from parents of the leaving boys accompanies the singing. It’s too much. This ending for the parents. But this is just the beginning of the end. There’s a graduation Mass followed by the individual wishes for the future of each boy being released up into the sky in a white balloon. The basket case mothers take shots of their son’s wishes flying high and the dads clap and cheer. But it is still not over. There’s a show to entertain the parents and relatives. A band and tricks and skits and laughter. Then marque 2 takes the microphone to sing solo. I had tried to deter him, like any good mother would. What if it all goes horribly wrong? What if the notes go or the words go? What if…? Can you not get a few pals to join in? ‘I’m going to do it Mum’ he had told me ‘because if I don’t I might regret it’. Simple as.

He stands up to the packed hall and releases his voice into the silence. Kodaline’s High Hopes interpreted and sung by a 12 year old, a hymn to the future for these dispersing boys. It’s one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen. I know a couple of words in that my heart is safe from an impending attack. It is a beautiful moment. Tissues are wrenched from sleeves and pockets to dab at stinging eyes. Something shifts in me too. If he can do that, he can do anything, and so can we all. So stop sweating the small stuff. Laugh about all the mini-annoyances, the paint on the shoes. That’s how it makes you feel. That the future is bright and safe in the hands of these brave young adventurous funny people. Come and join them.

  We don’t have a weighing scales in the house. We like to guess instead. Recipes involve random guessing of ingredient weights and hurling things together which turn out just fine. We have the same attitude to body weight. No scales and hurling random things in while guessing that everything is just fine. I’ve no idea what I weigh and no inclination to find out. I’ve never been on a formal diet and over the last 14 odd years have had a lovely false companion – liposuction, courtesy of the continuous effects breastfeeding. Since my youngest got sense and withdrew his liposuction services I can no longer eat and drink anything in sight. Well, I can and I do, but there are hips and things now to contend with. Flicking through the Irish Times I got drawn into an article about a diet. Usually I’d ignore any such thing. But I found myself reading with acute attention. It sounds like a doddle. Eat as you wish for five days a week. Limit your intake for two days a week. Now even I could do that.

I google it to find out more. As well as weight loss the promises are many. Improved cognitive functioning. Hurray! Reduced risk of developing diabetes and other diseases. Yippee. Longevity. Yes please. A resurgence of good microbes and a slaying of bad ones. Ok, sounds good, whatever that means. Let’s do it.

As I write, I am on my second ‘fasting’ day. The diet is actually about intermittent fasting. And boy do you feel it. On the first fasting day I was giddy with the challenge. Spouting how easy it was and how eating omelette and salmon and veg is hardly fasting. Until 11 o’clock that night when the gnawing dizziness of it set in. I was acutely uncomfortable. Couldn’t read or write or think straight. There’s no way I’d be able to sleep like this. So I added my own twist to the end of the day. Half a glass of red wine. I know, I know. It was either that or I’d be asking someone to shoot me. I found that I could speak again. I thought that I would sleep now. A lovely relief set in. The following morning I gobbled down my entire fasting day calories in one go with a sandwich in Insomnia. Oh well. I dreaded the second fasting day. Today. It’s Friday. It was supposed to be Thursday, but there was a Mum’s night out and starving while going out for a meal don’t mix so well. I ate and I drank and was merry. I thought there’d be no way I’d fast today. That one day of fasting in my life would be enough. Yet here I am. Experimenting. Is it possible to do this with 5 kids? Will they notice that their mother is more under par than usual? Responding to pleas for food with less enthusiasm than most days, grunting and occasionally barking and dragging myself around. If I could just crawl into bed and sleep through the fasting days it would be perfect.

  
There’s a knock at the door. I’m 62 calories in to my 500 calorie allowance and I can’t be dealing with a knock at the door. Marque 1 answers it and comes to get me. I’m extremely light headed when I get up from writing this. At the door there’s a shimmering mirage of maroon trousers, earrings and badges. It’s glinting and winking at me. The badges say ‘I’ve voted YES to equality’ and ‘have you voted? Vote Yes’ etc., It is voting day in the same sex marriage referendum. There’s no canvassing allowed on voting day. I’m swaying, trying to focus on the words coming out. He seems to be talking about a children’s hospital. Money needed for a new area for the sick children. Why today? My starving brain indicates that this man is telling me to go out and vote yes. Overtly. Nothing subliminal going on here. But he’s not allowed to do that, is he? If I could speak I’d let him know that he’s wasting his time at my door because I’m voting yes anyway. The kids have told me so. I would tell him that as soon as I’ve eaten my 78 calorie spinach omelette I’m heading around to vote, but thanks for the little jog along. Oh and I hope you’re not doing too much damage to the yes side by canvassing today.
I wonder again why the hell I am doing this? I think I’ve always admired people who can fast. There’s an attractive discipline to it which might just spin off into other areas of life. More disciplined writing regimes for example. Wouldn’t that be sweet. But right now in the middle of a fasting day the brain feels fuzzy, wasted, in need of a Mars bar or two. My writing feels laboured where usually I trot stuff out no bother. I have no energy to, say, hoover or hang out a wash which may not seem unusual but there’s a difference. Often I choose not bother to hoover or hang out a wash but today it would be physically impossible. If I was eating properly I’d have the kids at a park right now. As it stands I think I’d be a danger behind the wheel trying to get them there.
At tea time I throw some fish in the oven and put in a request for real chippy chips to be picked up on his way home. For the kids. And as a little test of my nerve. He wafts past me with the bulging steaming brown paper bag and I follow him sniffing like a mutt. If I can do this – dish out the salty vinegary heavenly chunks – without sneaking any the diet is working and I’m good to continue. I need to know now. I’ve been starving all day so I’m unlikely to blow it. That would be just stupid. But one little one would hardly blow it, and nobody will know, and I don’t have a scales so I won’t even know and… It slips into my mouth releasing all it’s bold greasy deliciousness and I’m done in. It is an impossibility to have only one, everyone knows that, and a handful down I’m beginning to cheer right up, thinking of holidays and late night indulgences and to hell with improved cognitive functioning and longevity and jeans in need of a belt. I’ll have to admire the fasters from a distance. Dieting just isn’t for me. Yippee.

(Addendum to last post: all’s well, back to sweating the small stuff with renewed vigor…)

It is with a smidgeon of guilt that we leave the eye test. It has been about a year and a half now during which time marque 2 has dropped continual hints to his hard of hearing mother. In defence of my non-action I call upon his lucidity. He is sharp as a tack and perceptive as hell. He helps me out when driving. Little nudges that, for example, the lights are now green and we can proceed. That there’s a cyclist coming up on the inside so best to hold off on the old left turn. He is my other set of eyes. And I know I’m not allowed to say this because I am his mother and therefore disqualified – but he has a smashing set of eyes. Big hazel ones with lashes to cry over. So as the hints have been dropped I’ve been in denial. Eyes that good can’t be hazy. It just doesn’t make sense. Until one day he prises my glasses from me and puts them on. His face lights up.
‘It’s like everything is in HD’ he says. That is the moment when I take my dim head out of the sand and make a call. We’re going, at last, to Specsavers.

We traipse off – marque 3 and 4 with us for solidarity. Which is just as well because we really need them. The optician works away and keeps saying ‘good’ and ‘excellent’ so I think we’re getting out of there issue free. When she finishes she tells us the good news. The eyes are perfectly healthy. Yippee. Followed swiftly by the fact that he needs glasses. To wear at all times except when playing soccer. Which means at all times. He is short sighted with an astigmatism in both eyes. Perhaps we’d like to go on down and choose some frames. He enquires immediately about contact lenses instead and she says yes, certainly, when he’s about 16. With marque 2 and myself somewhat in shock, marque 3 and 4 get busy advising him about the frames. An assistant gently curls his hair behind his ears and makes encouraging noises. Marque 3 tells him that one pair suits him so much that he’d like to get some too. A smile begins to form. Thank god for the brothers.

As it sinks in, this impending change, he fears being teased the most. He is not one of the jocks in his class. The sporty ones with the gelled coiffed hair who have girlfriends already. He has a great group of friends but currently sits at a table of jocks. They tease him, little jabs and jibes, bubbling away. Courtesy of the longish hair and him being into art and music. One of the jocks told him recently, when he was squinting to read the board, that he doesn’t need glasses – he’s just looking for attention. My pen has been poised to alert the teacher but he thinks that’ll backfire on him. And now he is saying that he needs a hair cut. That he simply can’t be the guy with long hair and glasses. He doesn’t want to get a jock hair cut, just to take the length out of it, shorter layers, and cut it half way up his ears. No problem, his mother who is gathering a little wisdom, never too late, thankfully, accedes.

We collect the glasses, marque 3, himself and myself. Marque 3 throws the sunshine into it, getting him to read far off signs with them on, then getting him to take them off to the blur. We’re having fun, until he catches a glimpse of himself in a shop window, and pops the glasses back into the case. This is going to be a drip-feed process.

He asks for advice on Sunday night. Walk into school with them on and get it over with in a bang. Or take them out for the board only on the first day. Lay the ground work for the days to come. I ask him which he thinks he’d be comfortable with and he’s pretty sure that plan B is the one. His Dad gives him an arming – if alarming – pep talk too. It involves telling anyone who teases him to F*** off (yes really), that they’re to get over the fact that he’ll be wearing glasses because he needs to and if they have anything smart-arse to say about it he’ll be sharing it with the teacher. We’re both feeling the nerves for him clearly.

So on Monday I wait at home wringing my hands, imagining wringing them more usefully around the necks of anyone who teases him. At pick up time I watch him walk towards the car and I’m squinting myself trying to assess how bad it’s been. I practise a few little never mind style mantras. He opens the door, hurls his bag in and beams at me.
‘I have just had the best day ever’ he says. He must’ve bottled it I’m thinking. Lost his nerve. Put it off for another day. Because he can’t just have had the best day ever sporting spectacles for the first time. That wouldn’t make any sense.
‘Did you wear the glasses at all today?’
‘I did. I took them out for the board and it was great. I was getting all these compliments from everyone, how they really suited me and everything, I couldn’t believe it’. Compliments. Now there’s something I couldn’t have dreamt of.
‘Even the guy beside me who didn’t believe I needed them. He was really nice. He high fived me when he saw them’. High fives and compliments for a first outing with glasses amongst 12 year old boys. It restores a bit of faith, warms the heart a little does it not? There’s a lesson in it for me too. It’s time to set the bar a little higher and expect the best of human nature. It’s just been proven to me after all.

Who are the people who fail to take charge of their fertility when they have their family half raised? Who are the people who turn their noses up at effective forms of contraception, knowing, as they do, that they can just about manage the bed they’ve made for themselves? Who are the people who think that nature is kind and on their side and will not overload them, now that they are finding their feet? Who are the people who think that some sort of Billing’s method is just the ticket for them? Those who think that chemicals and scalpels and plastic insertions are for others. Who tell themselves that it’s practically impossible to fall naturally in your forties?

We are those people. This week while I wait fretfully for the arrival of my ‘friend’ I am one of those. Why did I poo-poo the idea of an IUD? I read all about it. The bits of string hanging down. The T-shaped plastic chemical releasing yoke which may become dislodged and adhesed somewhere else requiring surgical removal to prevent septic shock. They are the bits that I remember. The other side effects, the mood swings and weight gain and erratic bleeding didn’t do much for the cause either. Right now though I’m wishing I had given it a little more thought. There’s a reason why all the sensible women in the world embrace it. They have a bit of foresight. They do not wish to be in my quandary right now. Waiting. Not knowing. Imagining. Hoping. Hovering in the supermarket, gazing longingly at all the lovely tampons. Placed tantalisingly close to the test kits. Which will it be? Thinking of the advert with the array of women who have been ‘caught out’ and need counselling and support. I’d be the one who really should’ve known better. Whose next baby to welcome should be in the form of a grandchild.

In this in-between waiting state everyone is talking babies. The fatal-foetal abnormality debate is on the radio. Where do you stand? But where do you stand now? The kids are talking babies incessantly, reminiscing, asking if there’d be any chance of another as they’d love a little one again and because poor marque 5 hasn’t had one. A mother at the school gate tells me that her last child was a complete surprise. Today. She tells me this today. ‘A lovely surprise’ I find myself saying, all chirpy all of a sudden, willing her to agree with me. Imagine now though, all these years later, could you do another surprise? I just don’t think I could do a surprise. All the worry about something going horribly wrong. About not being able, at all at all. I tell myself to stay calm and trust though. All will be well. You are in safe hands. You will not be tested beyond what you can endure. You fool. You utter fool.

We’re at the playground when a randomer steps into the ring. He knows that I have five. Today he says he could bet on it that I’ll have another. I’m speechless, shaking my sorry head. ‘Ah, taken steps have we?’ he asks, with a conspiratorial nod and grin.
‘Steps’ I repeat after him, as if that’ll help matters somehow. Steps. It sounds so wonderfully simple. I’m dumbfounded on a whole load of levels now. If I open my mouth, it might all just pour out. And anyway, when did this sneak in? This casual shooting from the hip about pregnancy and contraception? Betting and probing. Surely there’s an etiquette code that somebody around here is choosing to ignore. But mostly I am dumbfounded that this virtual stranger has hit the nail on the head. How does he know that at this time I am all consumed with exactly what he is on about? As I no longer appear to be able to do the casual banter he proceeds to tell me about his own steps. Involving the scalpel. The ins and outs of the big snip. I’m in surreal land now, pinching myself, wondering if this is happening or has the stress of the past few days catapulted me elsewhere. Yes, I must be hallucinating. Strangers do not just waltz over to you and discuss their vasectomies. It goes on, this dream state. Vivid details are disclosed and hand on his open heart he tells me that he could not recommend for me to recommend it at home. Not that anyone at home is looking for recommendations.

I begin plea bargaining. If we are let off this time, I swear I’ll sort myself out. Take every little bit of advice and plastic and chemicals going. Help others out more. Take up voluntary work in the spare time that I now have courtesy of the kids being all in school. Sweet heavenly hours of semi-freedom. I’ll sort it all out, I swear. That’s 95% of it. The other 5% remains in dangerous dreamland, in puffy clouds of sweet baby smells. But then again that’ll be the case ’til I’m 90.

He sails in from work having digested my concerns. He is in jovial jokey form. ‘What have you done?’ he says laughing, which is brave of him, considering. Then he flicks open his iPhone and starts to play scrabble with a friend. Oh the joys of the unburdened mind. He refuses to join in on any concern until he has firm evidence. It’s a waste of time to worry without knowing, apparently. Hopefully it’s the PMT. The urge to throttle is particularly acute in me just now.

I collect marque 3 from a friend’s house. The mum brings up the baby topic. Is there a sign across my forehead or something?
‘I can’t believe he’s one of five boys, he’s so gentle’ she says. Six, how about six? ‘Still it’s great to be out of the buggy stage, isn’t it?’ Christ. ‘No more lugging and pushing and shoving them around, eh?’ Yep, that’s the plan. ‘I mean I enjoyed it at the time, but it’s great to be free of it, isn’t it?’ Great indeed. So I’m concluding that if you’re worried about something people can see straight into you and start talking about it. There has never been so much baby talk directed at me in one day. And I don’t have a baby to attract it, unless they all know something I don’t.

I’m out at a school mums night hoping to distract myself from, well, myself. And there it is. All the celebratory talk about being free. Claiming a little time for oneself. No more cots. No more stair guards. No more nappies. No more sleepless nights, unless you choose it, up partying or whatever. ‘You must really be enjoying that’ one mum says to me ‘after the five’. Yes I tell her, fingers crossed under the table. Yes I am. Yes I certainly am. I was, I am, I was. I am.

We’re in the car on a sunny drive in Wicklow when marque 2 pipes up.
‘I had a dream that Mum was pregnant again’. I begin to writhe about in my seat. Marque 2 has an uncanny knack of seeing straight into me. He can speak my thoughts without me sharing them. He can tell me what I’m searching for in the fridge when my porous brain won’t engage.
‘But it was a girl this time’.
‘Finally’ marque 3 chimes in.
‘And her belly was huge and I could feel the baby kicking and everything but she kept saying she wasn’t pregnant’. Yes I can quite imagine denial stretching that far.
‘So I said to her what is that moving about in there then, what have you been eating?’
‘A puppy’ the father throws in, breaking the spell with humour as ever. They’re all laughing now and the dream is forgotten about as I stroke my bloated tummy and wonder.

I’ll use this limbo land to my advantage. When I discover that this is, indeed, a false alarm, a little wake up call, I will savour everything that bit more. I’ll use my time better. Be more productive. More creative. More mindful. More attentive. And book an emergency appointment for that IUD.

Marque 5 emerges from the line beaming. He is carrying a foreign bag as well as his school bag. A glittery sticker sparkles on his jumper in the Friday afternoon sun.
‘Look’ he says, pulling a cuddly toy from the bag.
‘What is that?’
‘It’s Cat in the Hat. I have him for the whole weekend’ he says, hugging the thing. Drat. I know now what this is. A memory from two years ago, when marque 4 was in senior infants, emerges and rattles in my brain – a puppy dog, complete with coat. I pull out a heavy journal from the bag to confirm my suspicions. Yep. He’s boy of the week and has been given Cat to take on adventures for the weekend. Which would be fine – ish. But then there’s the journal. A record of said adventures. Photographs. Written words. Details of the adventures. Hang on a second. As boy of the week shouldn’t he be let off homework for, say, a week? As they don’t get homework on a Friday, why are we lumbered with this? I try to muster up a little enthusiasm. A smile to greet his joy. But it isn’t happening. Then some kind other mothers weigh in and do it all for me.
‘You got Cat! Well done. What adventures are you going to have with him?’ He’s proud as punch, chatting away, while I think about the implausibility of printing pictures by Sunday night. We’re no good at printing. Somewhere in a drawer lurks reels from our honeymoon. Undeveloped. 17 years old. Gone off for sure.
I flick through the journal. Cat goes to football matches. Cat goes to the Aviva stadium. Hell, I just want to chill for the weekend. The other competent parents are able to record and print. Lucky kids.

He embraces it wholesale. At this rate we could have the thing done and dusted by tonight. Cat at the shops getting his Friday treat. Cat on a log waiting for brothers. Cat driving the car home. Cat in the garden in a makeshift den. Cat watching the Late Late Show. Surely that’s enough for any Cat of a weekend. There’s thirty odd photos on my i phone. Perhaps I’ve peaked too soon.

Swinging along side his joy is fear. Parental fear. Deep seated. What if something happens to Cat while adventuring with us. What if he falls down the loo or loses his tail? What if we just can’t manage to find him? Hell, we can’t find plenty of things most of the time. Perhaps there’s a find your keys style alarm yoke I could string onto him. What about all the other boys in the class, waiting patiently to be boy of the week? How will it be for them when Cat fails to return, or returns without his Hat?

Saturday is stunning. I’m sure we’ll have great adventures. I’d love to just stay in the garden, but hey, the Cat is in charge. I’m up in our bedroom discussing with himself what is in store for the afternoon. There’s a knock on the door. Marque 3’s cheerful lilt penetrates the room.
‘Eh Mum, it’s just that marque 5 was throwing Cat in the air and he accidentally went over the wall into next door’. There it is. The nightmare delivered. I knew it.
‘WELL CALL IN AND GET HIM BACK, QUICK…’
‘They’re not there Mum’.f
Of course they’re not.
‘I think they’ve gone away for the weekend, to a wedding’ marque 4 shouts in.
Of course they have.
‘I saw chairs and balloons in the back of their car’.
I look at himself, pleadingly, hoping he’ll throw me something calming and wise. His pulse does not appear to be racing and he does not seem to be engaging at all in the unfolding drama. In fact I think he’s mid-snooze. I’ll have to take matters into my own hands. Now, firstly, who can I blame?

‘I told you to be careful with him, what were you thinking, throwing him up into the air?’ Marque 5 has crawled under a table. This boy of the week lark is traumatic stuff.
‘But he likes to be thrown, it’s fun and I just wanted to see if he could reach the upstairs window’ he says. That’s the trouble with kids. Always wanting to have fun. Not taking their responsibilities seriously enough.
‘I don’t think your teacher would count throwing him over the wall as an adventure’ marque 3 says, laughing.
‘Could we just sneak into their garden and get him?’ marque 2 asks.
I have a recurrent nightmare about being on someone else’s property when they’re not in and then I hear them come home. Wakes me every time.
‘No we cannot, that would be trespassing’. Think brain, think.
‘What if they don’t come back?’ Marque 5 asks. Well you should have bloody well thought of that before throwing him over the wall.
‘What if it starts to rain?’ Marque 3 asks. All the questions that are in my head are being spouted for me. Except one. What if a wild cat mistakes Cat for one of it’s own and takes him by the scruff of the neck off into the wilderness? Now only I could think that one up. Then I have an idea. I go to the upstairs window where marque 5 was attempting to throw him. I look down into next door’s garden to a heavenly sight. Washing buffeting on the line. They’ll be back. They’d never leave washing on the line for days on end unlike some others I know intimately. Cat will live to tell the tale.

It’s getting late and there’s no sign of the neighbours so we decide we’ll have to adventure today without Cat. But first I write a note for next door signalling our predicament, lest they opt to toss him into some other random garden. It’s with a heaviness
that we drive up the road without him. He’ll be missing out and I think I’ve  begun to take a bit of a shine to him.

‘STOP’ I screech. It’s the second most beautiful sight of the day. Our neighbours driving down the road. Going home. Home to our Cat.
‘Run down and nab them quick, before they leave again’ I instruct the sensible marque 2 who is looking suddenly terribly shy.
‘RUN’ I say.
‘I’ll go with you’ marque 3 says, reading the situation better than a parent. Or than this parent at any rate. Off they toddle and the relief at the idea of holding Cat again, of seeing his little face, floods my veins. In fact we are all pretty hyper with relief. We resolve to give Cat the best Saturday evening of his life. He rolls down hills. Climbs trees. Does the monkey bars and basket swing in the playground. Comes home for a BBQ.

On Sunday we treat him to a picnic on a windswept beach in Wicklow. He is revelling in it all. We have about a thousand pictures on our i phones. Clicking maniacally for the time that is left to us. Making up for the near death experience.

Now to the printing and writing up of adventures. A pleasure for sure.

‘It is fun to have fun
But you have to know how’.

Cheers Cat.

Nobody told us about the reversals. About how you think you’re keeping a vigilant wise eye on them. But it is the other way around. They are checking us for signs. Checking and quizzing and monitoring. Silently. Then confronting with all the evidence to hand. Wham. 

‘Can you do his reading with him while I go downstairs and get a couple of things done?’ I ask marque 2, an unusual request but hey, he’s here and he can read and marque 5 might just like the variety. He mutters something which seems to have ‘wine’ in the middle of it. Blah blah wine blah. 

‘What are you talking about wine for?’ It’s only 5.30. That’s four hours off our tipple. Although now that he mentions it…

‘We’re doing a course in school and I’ve been asking my friends and their parents do not have a glass of wine most days’. 

Yes they do. They just wait until their little blighters are asleep, that’s all. As you insist on dragging your homework out in the sitting room with us until all hours, until we can stand it no longer…

‘They told us on the course that it’s bad for you. Wine is bad for you’.

‘What course? Who is running it?’

‘I think they’re parents’.

‘What parents? Where are they from?’

‘Dunno. They’re not from our school. Just parents making children aware or something’.

Making children aware of what exactly?

‘Wine in moderation is not bad for you. Especially red wine. In fact there are health benefits to having a little red wine most days’.

‘What health benefits?’

‘There’s a thing in red wine called resveratrol.’ The word trips dutifully off the tip of my tongue. It has been waiting there for this very moment. 

‘It’s found in some plants and the skin of grapes. It can help prevent heart problems and even some cancers. Google it if you like to find out more’.

He seems happy with the health benefit analysis visited upon him. It niggles away at me though. I go back to my no wine Monday to Thursday occasional stance and sip camomile tea instead. Which does nothing whatsoever to relax me as maths sums and Irish verbs are thrown at me from the corner by a vigilant marque 2.

The following week he emerges from another bout of ‘the course’. He sits beside me in the passenger seat and drops his news. Before we’ve made good our escape from the school gate.

‘I asked if there are any health benefits to drinking red wine. They said no. There are none. None whatsoever, Mum’.

Jesus. The blood begins to simmer. Making a liar out of me to my own son. It’s time to take a deep breath and count to ten. To give my head time to come up with something wise, calm, non-defensive. Unfortunately my mouth opens before I can get to one.

‘Who are these people? What qualifications do they have?’ 

‘Dunno’.

‘Because they should have their facts straight. I worked in that area for many, many years, you know, in preventative drugs and alcohol education for young people. There are a lot of people who set themselves up as experts but they are not. No qualifications, no training, nothing’.

‘What qualifications do you have Mum?’ marque 3 pipes up, sunnily. Don’t answer that. It would be childish to answer. You don’t have to prove yourself to your kids. Even if others are casting doubt on your veracity. 

‘A masters degree in the area for a start’.

‘Wow’. 

‘So I know what they are trying to do but it is the wrong approach. Scaremongering is not the way to go about informing young people about alcohol. In fact it can have a backfiring effect’. 

Unperturbed marque 2 produces a sheet with units of alcohol. Points out that my healthy glass of red wine has 2 units. My own sheet would say 1 unit. 1.5 with a shaky generous hand. Oh well. He multiplies it out expertly. Concludes that one glass a day brings me to the maximum weekly recommended for a woman. But we all know that come Saturday evening, when their grandmother babysits and the desperate parents escape to the pub, the units balance is tipped. Q.E.D. The course people have kindly pointed this out to the poor worried boy who keeps throwing his hand up. He is raking me over the coals for it. 

‘But Mum only has half a glass of wine, and it’s not every night’ marque 3 chimes in. Nice one. Cheers. 

‘She has half a glass, sometimes, with her food’. Now that does seem moderate. 

‘Then she waits three hours for her liver to deal with it and has the other half’. Great. We all see that which we wish. Marque 3 is a glass half full kind of kid. He interprets the world with great optimism, logic and little worry. He’s a good one to have on your team.

Marque 2 continues with pearls from the course. Something about a piece of string and parents of adolescents loosening the string, lengthening it, offering more scope for negotiation. Perhaps they should consider it the other way around too. What about the poor old quizzed, boxed off, stressed out parents. Who, pray tell, is lengthening their string? He’s loving the course, clearly. I’m still wondering who these people are. I’d like to have a word with them. 

Instead I google resveratrol for myself. I’ve read many recent encouraging newspaper articles about it. But I want to be sure, to be sure. Google obliges. Red wine, in moderation, has many more medically researched benefits than I could have imagined. Amongst the already mentioned ones there are benefits to the mind. Reduced levels of depression. Reduced levels of dementia. We could all do with a bit of that. Ageing. Moderate red wine drinkers age better, physically and mentally. The cancers – which our families have battled with – are reduced too. Bowel and prostate. Even breast, which most alcohol intake is supposed to increase the risk of. Moderate red wine drinking reduces the risk of breast cancer. It feels medicinal too. I think your body just knows what is right. What is good. So thank-you unknown course providers. Your scaremongering has me all buoyed up. We shall continue with moderate red wine drinking. Just not in front of the children, now that you’ve set them upon us.

The course coincides purposefully with marque 2’s Ceremony of Light. At which he is asked to make a promise to God – a pledge – that he will not touch alcohol until he is a certain age. Hence the scaremongering. He seeks his conflicted mother’s counsel. She who would very much like him not to touch alcohol until a certain age. But make a promise to God? I think not.

‘I don’t want to take the pledge’ he says wisely. I bat not an eyelid. ‘But my teacher says I have to come up with an age and put it on his desk by Monday’. Wow. Things are worse than when I was a kid. We had the choice whether to take it or not. Marque 1 informs us he wasn’t even given the choice of age. Everyone was told to take the pledge to 18. Which he did. Which he’s disgruntled about now. He feels hoodwinked. He feels he should’ve been given a choice. Making a promise is no small deal. Making a promise to God can weigh heavily indeed. He will feel bad if he breaks it. He even struggled with having Bailey’s whipped cream on his pudding at Christmas. The guys in his year who are drinking now have all become atheists, he tells me with amusement. I’d say there are a few more to come. Another nice little reversal. Force the kids to promise to God and they back out of their faith altogether. 

‘Sixteen’ I say to him. ‘You should write down sixteen for your teacher. You wouldn’t be allowed a drink before then anyway.’ The logic of this pleases him. It’s more of a promise to self than anything. That he can do.

‘I’ll look forward to having a drink some day’ marque 3 pipes up from the seat behind, ‘seeing as you say it’s good for you and all Mum’. Drat. Just when I was making a little headway through the morass of moral codes that lies before me. Winging it, but headway nonetheless.

‘I didn’t say that all drinks are good for you. I said red wine is good for you, in moderation’.

‘What’s moderation?’ Hell. I’m with the course people. It’s much simpler just to demonise the whole thing.

‘Kids in Mediterranean countries are given a little red wine with their food though’ marque 2 continues.

‘Which I think is a really good idea because then they don’t go nuts when they are suddenly allowed to drink’. Good point. Maybe he’ll throw up his hand and offer that little gem at the course next week. We were a Mediterranean style family ourselves courtesy of my parents being serious linguists (Spanish and French). The smallest dribble with a special meal. An inoculation against alcoholism. But we haven’t done the same with our own. Somewhere along the way I lost my nerve. Didn’t think it would go down too well in ‘news time’ in their classrooms. Somewhere along the way I’ve bought into an austere approach. Which will come back to bite me if marque 2 is right about it. Oh well.

‘I’m just really looking forward to having my first pint, with Dad, in Connemara on my 18th birthday’ marque 2 finishes off and I’m crossing my fingers on the steering wheel, to stave off who knows what, with that lovely picture in mind. 

‘Me too’ echoes around the car.

Pledge night arrives and the priest – oh how I love this new priest – sings the praises of alcohol intake in moderation. You may see your parents enjoying a drink, he suggests, twinkling. As a celebration. As a relaxant. As a little accompaniment to an enjoyable evening. That’s just fine, I get it, he says. I’m doing all in my power not to nudge marque 2 in the ribs. You see? Listen well now, my boy. It only becomes a problem, he says, if overused or misused. Then it can cause true misery. To the person. To the people surrounding him/her. Violence. Poverty. Illness. Tonight, though, is not about stealing the fun from the young people, he says. It is about assisting them to make good choices for themselves. Abstaining from alcohol until such a time as the body is mature enough to take it is one such choice. Assisted by a promise, to yourselves really. Hear, hear. Why wasn’t he giving the damn course? If ever I am to become less of a lapsed Catholic it will be due to him. A little nudge slips marque 2’s way. His eyes widen in mock mortification. The priest smiles down at us. He is, it seems, even in on our joke. 

The joy is in the giving. They have their pocket money to spend on gifts for their dear old mother. There’s a temptation to intervene. To say ‘don’t spend your only little bit of money on me, sure I don’t need anything at all, at all, make a wee card and that’ll be just lovely’. To do this is to rob them of much, as I see it. Of the excitement of the trip to Tiger (a godsend of a place). Of the thought that goes into the choosing. Of the empowered feeling of paying out of their own money. Of the secretive wrapping and stashing. Of, as marque 1 once put it, seeing the look on the face of the recipient, which, in his book, is better than receiving yourself. Until my birthday. I think he may have changed his mind courtesy of an overly, can’t quite put my finger on it, something not to be proud of, mother.

The joy is in the giving. And so it is as the four younger ones line up to deliver their wares. Marque 5 goes first – a wooden bracelet, a candle in a glass, a heart-shaped post-it pad – all right up my street and we’re both laughing. It goes on until I’m bedecked and bejewelled, shimmering under the blue light of a paper lantern, sitting in new fun slippers and writing in a purple velvet notebook. Oh, and should I get the urge to go about darning their socks I have a brand new kit. We’re off to a smashing start.

The joy is in the giving but it is also very much in the receiving, even if the potential recipient says otherwise – a lesson I learnt at my peril as a small child. It was approaching Mother’s Day and my mother was telling us not to be wasting our money buying anything for her. That it was a commercial money spinner and she did not wish for us to be caught up in. Little did she know that we had already made a gift in school – a decorated yogurt carton with a handle added on, filled with foil wrapped chocolates. On her denouncing her interest in said commercialism I set about devouring the chocolates. I ate them all except one. In case, just in case, commercialism had a bit of allure after all. The near on empty gift was given and met with silence. The sort of stoney silence that chills a child to the core. It seems that the lovely heartfelt decorations did not quite do it for her on the day. She was disappointed. Deeply so. I raced around trying to grab something to make it up to her. I had two identical Puffin Books of Verse – if I wrapped the newest looking one quickly… It didn’t work. She was not a woman about to be fooled twice on the same day.
‘But you said you didn’t want anything at all’ I said trying hard to make sense of the adult world.
‘Yes, but I didn’t mean… ‘ So I learnt a valuable lesson or two then. I hope.

The joy is in the giving and I have scuppered his joy a little today. I’ve had a long term affection for the notion of clinging on to a bit of zest via a soft leather biker’s jacket. Highly original, I know. I think my mother had the same desire at roughly the same age. Oh well. I’ve cooked up this idea over the years and this is the very year it must come to fruition. Except the birthday has arrived and I have not spotted one for him to get me. I have particular ideas. It would be dangerous for him to go it alone. Dangerous indeed. He’s looking a little forlorn at not being able to join in with the kids’ gift giving. So we strike a deal. It is, I say, such a special purchase, a gift for a life-time that we must bide our time. To buy in haste under pressure would be foolish. We will make it a birthday and a Mother’s Day gift combined (hell, when is Mother’s day writ large on his face) which gives us another couple of weeks. Relax. This is my wish. No pressure. His jaw slackens in relief. He believes me. I am my mother, it seems, after all.

We head into town with the crew for a meander and a bit of birthday brunch. H&M is sporting biker style jackets in their window. Which gets us thinking. Browsing. Browsing fervently. To hell with the food. Get thee to TK Maxx he suggests, forcibly. It is while we are there, sniffing out the leather from the plastic that marque 1 appears from the sidelines. He hands me a large white box with a happy birthday bow stuck on it. Something feels not quite right. The box is too big and too heavy. He’s looking at me waiting for that moment of joy when my face lights up at the surprise. Now anyone who has met him might wish to throttle me for my next move. Rightly so. I open the box and a pair of black boots, complete with fur and zips, greets me. I inhale deeply and hold onto the breath. Voices in my head tell me that this is too much. He has spent too much. You will not wear these. Even if they fit. For while they are stylish and in a shape very much to your taste they are not leather (a bit of a theme on the day). You cannot wear footwear that is not leather. Simple as. You must speak. Speak up now. This moment is going on too long. ‘They are really lovely, sweetheart, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to wear them’.
I’m trying not to look at him. I’m on pretty shaky ground here.
‘Why not?’ he asks, mystified, the twinkle gone from his eyes.
‘They’re not the right size’ the father says, offering a save.
’38’ he says looking at me. I didn’t know he knew my size. Feck.
‘You’re right, no it’s that I’d be sort of allergic to them, they’re not leather, even if they look it, so thank-you, it’s so thoughtful, and they’re really lovely  but I want you to get your money back’.
Harsh harsh mother. I’ve probably put him off gift giving for life.
‘Get your money back and get me something small instead’. He totters off and I’m left in the aisles with a barrow-full of mother guilt. The appetite for sniffing out the real from the plastic has left me. We follow him. Just as well as the shop keeper is pawning him off with a credit note. For a shop full of ladies bags and boots. Cheek of her. He bought them 3 minutes ago. Give him his money back now you, you…

If I had that moment again I would accept the generous gift graciously. Permit the moment of joy. Like any other wise parent on the planet.  I would not fret about him spending too much. I would not try to guide him. I would not look at what material they were made from. I would find a way to make sure they got worn. On mountain walks. On beach walks. So that he could be secure in the belief that he has done well. Where was that wise mother in that moment? Still learning on the job, obviously. As I’m busy beating myself up worrying about the damage caused, marque 1 re-appears and hands me a coffee and walnut ice-cream cone. My favourite. I smile like a Cheshire cat this time around. There is joy in the giving and receiving of the simplest of things. He pops into Tiger to supplement the ice-cream. All is restored, fingers crossed.

With sugar fuelled vigour we re-enter the chaos of the shop to sniff and fumble. There, well disguised in amongst piles of polyester, it lies. He plucks it out and knows by the weight that he is onto something. He waves it in my direction. I clamber through to him, grab it and sniff like a dog. Up and down the soft sleeves. Heavenly. I throw it on but I know before reaching the mirror. By how it feels on, like the caress of a long lost friend. By the clang of the heavy zips. By the look on his face. This is it. This is the one. It’s a steal. Oh sweet moment of joy.

There are days of burgeoning luminosity. When all is clear, calm and focused. And there are days when something small tips off something a little bigger and there’s a battle to get back on solid ground. As a parent and guide it is incumbent upon me to have a little foresight. Some powers to forestall the dominoes days. To reclaim, mid-stumble, the calm. As a parent I have, it seems, no such powers. The family grows organically, through clear days as well as through the murky ones. Who’s to say which days are really better? Perhaps we all learn a little more about resilience as we navigate the falls and swim through the mud.

There are days when I feel a gnawing indigestion-style impatience to catapult us along. Days that feel numbered, as inevitably they are, and that there is just so much to do. I must forge ahead, forge ahead, forge ahead. Get us to that other realm, that safe place, wherever that is. It’s up to me, I know it is, but I just don’t quite know how. There is so much to be written and somewhere deep in me I feel that this is the key to the safe place. But sitting writing quietly in a corner for no monetary reward takes a bit of a leap of faith. Submitting work unsolicited will take another. So far I have put myself out there not a jot. I have approached not a soul. I’ve been told that I should be ‘hustling’. That I have ‘a lot in my shop window’ to show-case. That I’m to cold-call editors to meet for a coffee. That it takes about three months and 50 cups of coffee to land a deal. Not coffee by myself in Starbucks you understand. Coffee talking about myself. Offering my wares. Hustling.

I am so far removed from a ‘hustling’ type of gal it’s not funny. I would have to be hypnotised to hustle. That or be otherwise drugged. I’m old school and a bit of a perfectionist. I think if I work hard enough the quality will speak for itself. I will be sought after without having to open my mouth. Which isn’t going to get us anywhere in this era. I’ve been tasked with setting up Linked In and Twitter profiles. There have been requests to Link in with me (no idea why) and I ought to be following people and commenting on Twitter. Which seems like a massive distraction from real work to me. But the gnawing feeling of needing to catapult us along will not be served by my old school self. I’m going to have to become a little bit American. How does this sound?
Hi, I’m Dr Ellen – an award winning sociologist, researcher, editor and writer. I’m available for freelance work – feel free to fight amongst yourselves for my services. Looking forward to hearing from you.

There are days when I trust that all will be well. Days when I revel in moments of pure joy with the kids. These are the days when the kids are showing me, mindfulness masters that they are, just how to be, right here, right now. All of the senses in their fresh bodies fully engaged in the present moment. I hand marque 3 a plate of buttered toast and hard boiled eggs – from corn fed free range hens apparently – shelled, halved and sprinkled with cracked black pepper. I’m moving on to the next thing – someone has requested orange juice – when he calls me back.
‘Thank-you so much, this looks amazing’. He is smiling and looking at the array. I stop. I haven’t my lenses in yet and it’s all a bit of a blur. I go over to him and look at the plate. I’ve prepared it but I haven’t seen it. I can see it now. The deep yellow yolk flecked with black fragments, a smidgeon of mayo and encased in white. The promise of melting buttered toast to enhance the flavour. He feels the texture of the egg, then bites into it and his smile broadens.
‘It is absolutely delicious, thank-you’.
‘I know’ – I can taste it too – ‘you’re welcome’. You’re welcome doesn’t quite cut it though. Maybe I should be thanking him.

There are days such as today. When age knocks rudely on the top of your head. When you think that an elusive soft leather marine blue biker’s jacket is just the ticket to stall the onwards marching. But then you find yourself dancing slowly in the kitchen with your eldest child to Finbarr Furey singing live on the radio. ‘I love you as I loved you, when you were sweet, when you were sweet sixteen’. Today it is your birthday. A day when it dawns on you that all is well. That you are already in your safe place.

‘There’s something wrong with my legs’ marque 3 announces. It’s Saturday morning with swimming lessons in an hour.
‘I can’t walk. They feel really weird and sore’.
‘That’ll be the trampolining you were doing yesterday in your friend’s house. You’re not used to it. You’ve pulled a few muscles’. Ah yes, it’s a great feeling, providing the answer straight away. Diminishing the anxiety that accompanies acute onset lower body paralysis with a quick, knowledgeable response. That’s what we’re here for after all. Make them feel safe. Understood.
‘Here, put your togs on. The swimming might help to work your muscles free’.
‘How can I go swimming when I can’t even walk?’ he asks logically enough. Because we’ve bloody well paid for it, I answer in my head. I’ll carry you to the pool-side, toss you in and bingo, your legs will start kicking just fine.

Except that, as it turns out, he’s right about not going swimming. He crawls upstairs and puts himself to bed. The pain in the legs travels to other parts of him and he’s out for the count. It’s the suddenness of it that you hear about but don’t quite believe. Until you watch it strike child after child and then it strikes you. Floored. This year’s influenza enters our house via the musculature of the lower limbs and does not leave until it has wasted the cells and the organs and the minds of all but one person. A much envied person courtesy of the ‘flu jab. A person who is not used to being the only one left standing. Asthma has made sure of that over his life time. Maybe it’s the fever causing me to think this way. Little hallucinations. But is he not smiling a bit too much given the state the rest of us are in. Shouldn’t he at least try to join in with the odd fake symptom?

Mothers and fathers of Ireland, in the name of all that is mighty, get yourselves the ‘flu jab. It is excruciating to be attempting to care for worryingly sick children while you are worryingly sick yourself. When it hits me I feel as if I’ve fallen down a flight of stairs and broken my coccyx. The pain radiates from there and I am unable to walk. There’s a nausea and dizziness accompanying it, a touch of the runs for good measure and other queer symptoms you don’t tend to hear about. Marque 2 talks incessantly about the smell of burning tyres he’s getting in his nose, as if his little nostril hairs are singed from the temperature. He’s worried about a fire in the house that we just haven’t noticed as we’re all too sick.

It renders the old maternal instincts a bit schizoid too. Before succumbing to it I’m doing religion homework with marque 4. His First Confession is coming up and in order to prepare for it there’s written work. Finish these sentences: I was unkind when… I was untruthful when… I was unfair when. We stare at the words. We can’t think of anything. In my pre-‘flu state I look at marque 4 and think of how kind and fair and truthful he is.
‘We’d better make a few things up’ I say eventually, exasperated.
‘But wouldn’t that be untruthful?’ ‘There you are, I was untruthful when I made up sentences that were untruthful for my homework’. Then he has to learn the Confiteor prayer off by heart. There’s that middle bit which gets my blood up. It was much better when it was in Latin. Created a little distance for us sinners.
‘Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa’. River flowingly gentle on the ear too. Not so with the new version. There’s no wiggle room here:
‘Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault’. Chest banging overt self-flagellation.
Hang on a second. Don’t I spend most of my waking hours telling them that it isn’t there fault. Don’t worry, just an accident, not your fault. I don’t want them crippled by guilt in life. I thought we’d all moved on from that.
He trips over the words, mixing them up, coming out with combinations that cause laughter in the wise old mother, confusing him all the more.
‘You don’t have to learn that off by heart’, I tell him. ‘I don’t approve of it’.

Over the next day or two while influenza works away in me and marque 4 is yet to crumble it all seems very different. I can see many, many things that we could now write down in those sentences. And I seem to be chanting ‘through your fault, through your fault, through your most grievous fault’ in my delirium. If he falls mute in the Church and can’t think of anything to ask for forgiveness for, I’ll give him a hand. Shout a few prompts in his direction. That’s how the ‘flu makes you feel. Which is perplexing so I google it. Why the hell do I feel so irritated and low with this thing? The result is interesting. There is a battle going on, obviously, but during it our immune systems release chemicals – cytokines – to fight the bug. The cytokines do something else though while they’re fighting. They deplete serotonin levels in the system. So you can be left feeling bewilderingly low. Once I understand this I begin to feel a little less like a lemming and notice the good stuff again. Like the way they crawl in beside me in our bed and fall asleep. Marque 5 naturally. But marque 2, 3 and 4 as well. Nesting. And marque 1 sits in my chair, just as sick as the rest of us, but he’s keeping watch. Asking if I’d like a cup of tea or some more nurofen or anything at all as soon as I open my eyes. Not bad. Not bad at all.

The ‘flu jabbed father sails in from his daily 12 hours of labour in exuberant form. He fends for himself food wise (appetite loss is another key aspect), swims through the deluge improving things here and there, and pours himself a healthy glass of red wine. He gets two glasses out, just in case. Nice touch. It’s the last thing in the world I feel like (and perhaps I slit my blood-shot eyes at him to indicate this) but it offers symbolic hope. Trust. Faith. Your empty glass shall some day soon be full. The urge to throttle with envy is waning a little now and I’m beginning to interpret his smile as something other than smug. Things are definitely on the up.

‘My hair feels much lighter’ marque 4 says sitting back down on the Church pew. It’s a few days on and we’ve made it to his First Confession. Enjoying it as it happens. The purity of the singing voices of eight year old boys. The jollity of the priest who mentions the goodness at the core of all gathered.
‘What, since we got it cut?’ I ask. He has the thickest hair I’ve ever seen. We had it trimmed last week.
‘No, just now since I spoke to the priest and he spoke to me. My hair and the top of my head feel much lighter, it’s really weird’. His face contorts slightly to indicate his confusion. I say nothing. I may even be a little dumb-struck. I’m staring at him, wondering. Are we in the presence of someone who has received a sacrament and felt it bodily – a sudden lightness? Or is it a coincidental side-effect of the ‘flu? For tonight, in the spirit of the occasion, I’m dumping the scepticism. For tonight, for one night only, I’m a bit of a believer.

Perhaps it’s a sign of something bubbling away in me that I’m only dimly aware of. Something that perhaps I ought to pay more attention to. Or maybe I’m just getting the ‘flu. The announcement of the death of a much loved nun from my old school has thrown me off kilter. I’m grappling to understand why. Questioning. Wondering. Can I live a bit more like her? Can I bring some of her wisdom along with me as I go? Would the kids benefit from it if I did?

While I’m pondering all this there’s a knock at the door.
‘You wouldn’t have two euros on you would you?’ a bespectacled, gruff voiced middle-aged woman asks. She speaks quickly, without hesitation, as if she does this all the time. And expects assent.
‘No I would not’ I say managing not to blink, not to falter, remembering the last time I handed out dosh on the doorstep. To a burglar. How I swore I’d never do it again.
‘Jesus’ she says, shaking her head in disgust and turning her back on me. Have I just failed my first test in charity? Should I call her back, offer her a cup of tea instead? I liked her approach. Direct, no sob story. Her fury at my refusal. Maybe I should knock on a few doors myself.
‘You wouldn’t have a job in there would you?’ … Tut, tut, shake. About turn. ‘Jesus’.

I had an early traumatic experience of a nun in my first school. A nun who was well into corporal punishment. Of the pinching, wet-handed slapping, belting type. And it wasn’t that I was afraid for myself. It was witnessing and hearing the damage being inflicted on others that sent me practically mute. Blood curdling screams echoing down the corridors. And worst of all, witnessing her handing jelly snakes from the tuck shop to her victims.
‘Here, don’t tell your Mammy now will you?’ Sadistic stuff.
Then I developed a sort of Stockholm syndrome attachment towards her. Insisted that my family call me by her name. Dorothy. Just call me Dorothy. I will not answer to anything else. A little worrisome for the parents. They took a two pronged approach to my psychological state. Invited her over for tea. Watched her fawning all over us. Watched her showering us – her ‘best little girls’ – with Smarties. Then when she reverted to type on the Monday, they whipped us all out of that school and packed us off to the Dominicans. They had one question alone for the lovely principal there.
‘Do you allow hitting in this school?’.
‘No’ the gentle white haired nun replied, locking her twinkly grey eyes to mine.
‘No we do not’. I was seven years old.

I was welcomed into the bosom of a plump jolly nun’s class. She was ruddy cheeked and quick to laugh, gentle, charitable and kind. She had a thing about warming her hands behind my collar on the top of my back. Touch. Wouldn’t be allowed today but it was wise. Her hands were already warm. She was warming me instead. I spent that year finding my feet as she stood beside me. This included knitting when I wasn’t supposed to be. My own hands under the desk, click-clacking away, some invisible garment, while I was ‘listening’ to the lesson. I threw myself into gymnastics and was chosen for a lead part – Jack Frost – in the school play. Prancing around in tinfoil casting my spells. It was heavenly. Safe. Being allowed to emerge and blossom without fear. Then the end of year report came and her final comment was ‘she’s a great little knitter too!’. I didn’t know until then that she knew. She had never attempted to stop me. She just understood it was therapeutic. Wise. Charitable. Kind. Somehow I never insisted anyone call me by her name though.

So the death of another key figure nun this week has me reminiscing and wondering. Is it possible to mix core aspects of the values of the Dominicans into our life now, without being religious? I feel that it is. They have a loyalty to life-long learning and are contemplative and mystical in their spirituality. They show rather than tell. The support, when needed, is consistent, quiet, there. The nun who has just passed (Sr. Barnabas but known to all as Barney) was a vigorous, spritely, witty, beautiful person. She was in your corner if ever you needed her to be. I ran into difficulty on a French language exchange programme in third year. I was staying with a family in Paris to learn French. A three week stay. On it the father insisted on practising his English on me at every turn. There was a kleptomaniac cousin sharing the bedroom with us and every time we went shopping she was blatantly filing her sac with non-purchased goods. Jewellery, the lot, while everyone turned a blind-eye. I was waiting to be arrested as an accomplice. And the mother was overwhelmed and weepy and seemed to see something potentially helpful in me. I responded dutifully. A week into it though I’d had enough. Phoned home to say I was jacking it in. The next morning the phone rang in apartment hall. I could hear Barney’s voice chiming feistily. She addressed all of the points with the father. There was to be no more practising of English on this student who loves French and is here in this family to learn more of it, ensuring as it will, a top grade in her state exams. There was to be no more shop-lifting which was frightening and bewildering for this student. And this student, while obliging, would not be making the beds of all the residents and preparing all the lunches from now on. A switch was flicked. The father left me alone, the klepto cousin went home, and the mother wept with a smile of such vulnerability that I continued to help out where I could. But Barney phoned me all the time to check that I was ok.

Her humanity shone constantly through her large lively brown eyes. She was lucid, bright and engaging up until the end. She passed on St Brigid’s Day (nice one Barney) aged 98. She had a special connection with my older sister (Brigid!). Regular visits for chats about family and friends were kept up until the end. She had a keen interest in all that was dear to my sister, and was guiding her subtly all the time. She used to phone her and leave a message if not answered. Intuition was strong in her, her timing unnervingly spot-on. She’d call out my sister’s full name followed by ‘you are not forgotten’. Isn’t it hard to reach out and leave a voice message like that? But it shouldn’t be. It is a powerful, wonderful message.
‘I’ll miss all the love’ my sister confided on hearing the sad news.
‘But it hasn’t gone, it’s all still here, in you and all around you. You must carry it with you’ I said surprising myself with my new-found spiritual tone.

Thank-you Barney. Rest in peace.