Finding the hope - from what you have lost

I stumbled upon this garden in Northern Ireland this summer. I had noticed it from the road some years ago but hadn't ventured in to investigate. To be honest, it was situated beside the Coleraine Council buildings and I suspected some tourist exhibit about the beauty of Northern Ireland or the north coast or a plaque on the history of the area. One grows so accustomed to everything being about commerce, money or even self-aggrandisement.  I have reasons for my cynicism.

If you want to find the most luxurious offices in Northern Ireland don't look at private corporations look at the council buildings in every single city location. You will be amazed at how much money has gone into council offices. Not facilities like hospitals, schools or universities, but these exquisite office suites.  Here are a few such council buildings but they are by no means unique, just large depressing symbols of how to waste public money.  The contrast between their opulence and the conditions suffered by the sick and elderly in our community is eye-watering.

Coleraine Borough Council Building

Derry and Strabane Borough Council Building

Ballymena Borough Council Buildings

But this particular garden was something entirely different. This was a garden called "Angel of Hope" and it brought tears to my eyes for a completely different reason.

It was a place for people to remember babies or children who had died.  Grief was edged on every memorial placed on white walls with heartbreaking words underneath speaking of the loss of a loved one. Many, many babies were remembered and sometimes pictures were included of beautiful smiling faces of those who were lost.  Poems like the one below spoke of the pain and seem to make it personal for even a passing viewer.

I walked around and read about these sweet souls. Love was tangible in every small picture or flower carefully placed and it made me realise that all this pain had always been there in our community. So many hurting hearts but without a tangible place to represent what had been taken too soon. Not a grave, not a place of sadness where the body lies, but a special place of love where all these children are remembered and celebrated by the family and the whole community.  Everywhere there were toys colourful bright toys placed under trees and beside paths and it spoke of the joy that young lives bring.

There was a time when if a mother had a miscarriage or stillbirth the baby was quickly disposed of in the hospital system and mothers were left grieving without anything tangible to show for those months of pregnancy and hope.  Now, in a more enlightened age, such babies are dressed in beautiful clothes and wrapped in blankets so that their parents and family are allowed to hold the lost one. Photos are taken and impressions made of tiny feet or hands that will be kept for a lifetime.  These acts of consideration and kindness, by medical staff, at this critical moment recognises the grief that must follow.  So to, do such beautiful gardens of hope in our communities. They are 1000 miles away from the commercialism and materialism we see around us daily. They speak of hearts, loss, bonds and love.  They remind us of what's really important and what we must never forget. At a time when the tendency in this world is to become desensitised, to the coarseness of public discourse and actions, it is so healthy to be reminded of the sensitivity and beauty that should be our birthright.

When there is love loss is unbearable.  Each death diminishes us all. Whether it is due to illness or disease.  Whether that life is taken from us by violence, accident or war the grief and loss is beyond words. But the fact that it is so colossal a loss must never be forgotten and such places remind of us of that.  Hearts need to be softened, not hardened.  Only by recognising the pain of loss and supporting those who experience it, everywhere around the world, do we cease to be part of the problem but instead become part of the solution.

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"Love is the spirit of life unto the adorned body of mankind, the establisher of true civilization in this mortal world, and the shedder of imperishable glory upon every high-aiming race and nation."

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from Bahá’í Writings

Patchwork quilt journeys and lessons learned

It seems surreal to be sitting back in Malta on my favourite bench, enjoying the sound of the sea and blue skies above, after an absence of almost 3 months. Travelling leaves little time for writing. Family time must be savoured wholly not crammed in between tasks. At least when I travel that's the mode that seems to operate best for me.

Now I sit and digest the experience of the past months. Savouring time with my mum in Northern Ireland where the pace of life is slow. There is a focus on gardening, eliminating weeds and tending borders. Her home is ordered and tidy with even cupboard contents and drawers all lined up with military precision. There is a never-ending battle with dirt and grime but she has fought these foes for seven decades and has honed her techniques. I looked on in amazement as she tackles the tasks of the day. At almost 85 she does not measure her energy levels and recalibrates the duties of the day. No, she looks at the goals needing to be accomplished and just goes and goes until they are completed. Even if afterwards she has to collapse in her armchair, it is with a deep sense of satisfaction – her tasks completed.

I look on in amazement. I am not like this. A book, a thought, a walk comes into my orbit and I down tools, instantly distracted. My tidiness is purely superficial. Examine the cupboard or a drawer in my home and you will find evidence of the chaos that permeates this universe.

Perhaps my writing is also my chaos. This trip has fuelled a thousand thoughts but none of them fully formed. I'll share some of them in the hope that they will give a patchwork quilt of these months.

A close friend has spent weeks in a mountain house in southern France. Situated in an idyllic hamlet overlooking spectacular views, it has proved the perfect antidote to years in the Paris city centre. Normally hard-working and ever up to speed with the virtual world he has had to cope with no Wi-Fi. The shocking change of place and pace from a hectic dirty city to the silence of the hillside and the buzz of insects and happy birds. He took to whittling, carving odd-shaped wooden light sabres and became engrossed in moss removal from old stone flagstones.  Both, he told me were the pastimes of paradise. Interspersed with meals and coffee on the table positioned outside to soak up the views.  Reading books was the main entertainment and with what excitement did he share their contents. Afterwards, I sighed in remembrance of days past when a slower pace of life allowed us time to digest what we read. Not this fetid immediacy of media assault online. 

The permanent indigestion of too much input dulls the senses. It's good to be reminded of other times, other places, other ways.

My other joy during this trip was to spend time with my grandsons in England. After two months of endless rain all summer in Northern Ireland it was shocking to discover that Folkestone still had proper summers. Even in September, the sun shone and school kids wore shorts to school. As my son his wife both work in London, my mission this trip was to accompany my four-year-old grandson in his first three weeks of big school.  I also had his two-year-old brother to care for. It was somehow weird pushing a toddler in the buggy and holding the hand of a small school child again after three decades. Given that I hated school myself it was with some trepidation I took on this epic task. Fortunately, Charlie made the job much easier being almost eager to run through the school gates. Other parents or guardians had weeping youngsters to disengage from while Charlie never even looked back. He explained patiently to his younger brother that he was going to school and would be back in three hours to see him, so he was not to worry. Then he’d turn on his heel and scurry into school.

I was left with ample opportunity to notice the tears unshed in parents’ eyes as they faced this cruel test - the first separation. Some mothers stayed on, ages after the school gates had closed in case a familiar head appeared above the window ledge in the classroom.

One father had adopted a prolonged waving goodbye ritual to his daughter.  She was a  tiny fragile figure who waddled slowly and reluctantly towards the classroom door. He climbed the school gate so that she could still see him waving even from a distance. She would occasionally stop, shoulders slumped in apparent despair and turn to look back sadly at her dad. This would engender a huge arm waving movement and shouts of  “have a grand day Leanne, I love you!! “ Not easy to do, halfway up a six-foot metal gate. His forced good humour and bonhomie would end with her entering the classroom. Then, he'd suddenly be silent all emotion leaving his face. He would drop down from his perch on the gate and walk hastily away. It's hard for dads, mostly it is mothers at the school gates and they tend to chat in bunches with other mothers. Comparing notes on how first days at school are doing. Remembering coats, water bottles and school bags. Hugging their children, they reluctantly let them go.

Fathers tended to festoon children rather like preparing them for battle. School bag over head and shoulder, coat over the other arm as if supplying armaments for the day ahead.  I noticed one morning, an older boy (P3?) waiting for the school gates to open. A crowd of older students stood waiting impatiently laughing together.   The P3 student was tall for his age and had his foot on his scooter. Strange that they have come back into fashion those odd-looking contraptions from my childhood. 

As he waited, he rocked to and fro on the scooter. A little bit overweight with thick glasses he seemed absent-minded. He didn't even notice a group of mothers behind him waiting with the youngest children hand-in-hand, his scooter almost hit one mother behind him and she scolded him whispering disapprovingly to the other mothers beside her. Suddenly, the scooter slipped up the gate. Perhaps the pushing crowd put him off balance and he fell awkwardly landing full weight on top of his own scooter. The crowd stood back while he jumped to his feet, face almost against the gate not moving. It had been a bad fall and the scooter was damaged but we all stood as a fellow statues watching his ramrod still back. Then a huge builder type man pushed through the crowd and picked up the broken scooter and asked the boy, “Are you alright mate?”  Immediately the boy burst into tears of pain and the man put his hand on his shoulder and lead him away to the open area away from the crowd. After the children had rushed through the now opened gate into school, I spotted the father kneeling examining the damage to the scooter and talking soothingly with the P3 pupil.  I then realised the boy was not even his son. His own son, a small reception class pupil, was standing patiently beside his dad. I could see the older P3 boy was calmer now and all three of them walked together to the now deserted school gate. 

I felt rather ashamed that in that sea of mummies and grandmothers, including me,  it was a father who saw the hurt in that small straight back facing the gates and took decisive compassionate action. It is probably in such small deeds like this real education takes place for all of us.

“Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom.”

— BAHÁ’U’LLÁH

Old House - breaking and entering

There is an old house in the centre of Sliema on Malta.  I have always been curious about it, lying as it does completely neglected in the midst of modern towers and shops.  A stone's throw from the beautiful shore it lies locked and over grown.  But, as I've walked past on many occasions I've wondered about what lies beyond the locked gate.  Today, I explored and got a few photos of the secret garden and house.  The google map image shows you the position of the house.

From the main road all you see is a locked gate and fence.  Sticking my camera through the bars I get a glimpse of the rubbish that has gathered in the garden.

The fence between the posts has thick chainmail on it, so getting a view of the house itself between overgrown trees and bushes involved me clambering up a small wall and hanging over the top with my arm outstretched and clicking the camera.  Unfortunately, I couldn't look through the viewfinder and do this hence the haphazard nature of my camera work.

The house is two storey with gardens on both levels and a bridge over the lower garden to the front door.  Not that my camera picked this up.  I was just lucky I was seeing bits of the house through the wilderness.

I'd be a hopeless spy.  My hanging onto the gates and clicking was made more difficult by a fading battery which kept closing down the camera, just when I got a half decent shot.

From my glimpses through the trees I could make out a lovely house which nature has reclaimed.

At one stage the gardens would have been magnificent, even now they remind one of a secret garden hidden away for years from public eye.

Thought I'd got a good shot here, but just got the tree!

This was better and by hanging on to the top of the fence balanced precariously I got this view.  Worryingly, a few tourists were stopping beneath me on the pavement curious about this plump woman hanging over a six foot high fence above them.

I care not what people think!  The joy of being mid fifty is that you have left behind the dreadful self consciousness of youth and the self absorption of the forties.  But I am tiring of getting only tiny glimpses of the beauty which lies here before me.

Blasted battery failed me again.  James Bond never had to deal with such petty things.  A man below asks concerned, "Are you stuck up there?"

I answer politely, "No, I am fine!"  He is reluctant to move on and by now there are five of them below, a crowd is gathering and that brings others.  Several are pointing up at me and others come from across the road to see what is going on. 

Bloody busybodies people are so nosey!  Mind you speaking of nosy, here am I hanging over someone else's property clicking like mad.  Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

I get down and decide to try the back of the premises.  I am now sounding like a burglar, I notice.  I go through a parking yard, the combination lock was intimidating, but someone had left the gate ajar.  So I was able to step over a small wall into the rough back end of the garden.

At one stage this must have been an outdoor bar area but nature has taken over and trees grow behind the counter.  It reminds one that without us cities would soon look very different.

At last a view of the house from behind!  I feel I have risked life and limb to catch this glimpse.

Perhaps, at one stage the house had a tennis court in its gardens? All is broken and in bad shape.  But at least I can see the large windows at the back now.

I am having to clamber over rubble to get a better look.

This outhouse has seen better days.

From behind the huge apartment blocks loom over the lovely house.

The garden at the back is still lovely, despite all these years of being unattended.

That huge window must light up the whole back of the house bringing the garden into the upper floor.  And here it lies unseen and forgotten.  I am so glad to discover this house and despite not getting all the way in feel a sense of achievement.  What a good way to spend a Saturday morning.  Also, slightly relieved I didn't break an ankle or fall in between two boulders and have to saw an arm off to free myself.  At this age one learns to be grateful for the weirdest things!