Out in the open

For a couple of days this week I was on what you could call an emotional roller coaster; I had two conversations, one with Olivier, my youngest son and one with Rob, my husband. We talked about a friend of Rob’s who used to come to stay with his family when all of the children were small. I really got on well with his wife, we married within days of each other and our birthdays are one after the other. Olivier suddenly remembered being in the kitchen with Rob’s friend when he was quite small and the friend saying to Olivier ‘remember that’s our secret’ he spoke in English which made the words even more secret(e)y as far as Olivier was concerned. Olivier doesn’t think that anything happened that shouldn’t have. Two days later Rob and I were talking about the same person and Rob suddenly said that he wondered if this person had ever done anything to the boys. I felt physically sick when he said that because he didn’t know what Olivier had told me. We discussed the probability calmly and decided probably not (I used to be driven round the bend by these visits – nine of us in a small bungalow, so there wasn’t much chance of anyone getting to be on their own ).

Dom came into the kitchen yesterday evening as I was telling Olivier what his father had said.; Silence (psychologists and psychiatrists always do that silence bit). Then she said that she thought probably nothing had happened as Olivier seemed fine to her, then Rob came and joined in, so we talked it through together as a family. We’ve decided to forget about it

Twice recently we’ve had good family moments which I really treasure. Olivier and Dom seem to be getting along fine at the moment. It would be lovely to have Christian with us too, of course. Dom will be moving into her tiny apartment in September and it will be years before we’re all together again.

Down the Tube VI

Years ago I worked in a bank and the manager retired. We had to have two cocktail parties, one for the staff and colleagues and the other was for customers and the staff came too. When the new manager arrived we did the same again. I was younger then and had more than my fair share of dry martini and champagne. They had caterers who bought in the most delicious looking canapés. They weren’t delicious at all, they were filled with a kind of sludgy mixture of various shades and quite tasteless. I think that the only reason they got eaten was because we were all drinking far too much and didn’t care.

The food I receive in this place is the same stuff I am sure. I eat when I’m hungry because I am hungry and that’s all. Oh if I could have just one juicy, crisp apple…

Keep your heart clean

This isn’t about health. This is about one of the young men who spent 6 years in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp; I only picked up the end of the radio program about him. He now lives in Saudi Arabia and has recently married. The journalist asked him why he still wore American style clothes after all that had happened to him. The young man explained that he did not hold a grudge against his captors. He explained that it is important to keep your heart clean. I understood exactly what he meant. It’s important not to wallow in the negative aspects of the past. Look forward to the future with hope.

A lesson for us all.