Birdsong, seedlings, hammered into something by life

 

When did I begin to notice birdsong?

Or pause in quiet wonder as a tender seedling lifts itself from the dark earth into the light?

Now the beauty of nature can suddenly bring tears to my eyes.

Perhaps it is because, with age, one has witnessed so much sorrow and heartache that the spirit itself becomes softened and worn thin by life. 

Beaten and hammered on both sides until it grows almost translucent.

So delicate that even the song of a bird can pass straight through it and touch the very core of the soul.

Poor Tita

It was my first time living away from the student residence at university. The six months I had spent there had been horrid and frightening. The constant noise, the drunken parties that raged through the night—I could barely sleep enough to function during the day. Faces changed continually, and it felt like living in a busy railway station filled with rowdy football fans caught in a perpetual frenzy.

Realising that sleep was vital, I asked to leave the residence and find quieter lodgings. My request was denied unless I forfeited the entire accommodation fee for the year. Others, with more desperate complaints than mine, were also turned down. I began to wonder—was I living in a madhouse, or was the place itself driving me mad?

Then tragedy struck. The quiet girl in the room opposite mine took her own life. I never knew what burdens she carried beyond the chaos of that residence, but surely the sleepless nights and constant turmoil did not help. In the wake of her death, the university finally allowed those of us on that wing to leave without financial penalty. I accepted immediately, though I could not shake the thought that perhaps she, too, had begged to leave.

I found a small flat in Portstewart near the sea, sharing it with a girl from Limavady whom I knew from school. Our flat was the upstairs floor of a house owned by an elderly lady named Tita. She must have been suffering from forgetfulness, for there were little sticky notes everywhere—reminders to “buy milk,” “turn off light,” “close this.”

White-haired and impeccably dressed, Tita was tiny but indomitable. Every meal, even tea and biscuits, was arranged neatly on a tray with an embroidered napkin in a silver ring, and beside it, a tiny vase holding a single flower. She never used mugs—only delicate, floral cups and saucers. She lived alone, except for a small talking bird that endlessly repeated, “Poor Tita, poor Tita.” It wasn’t surprising; she herself murmured those same words throughout the day.

We learned that Tita had grown up in that very house with her parents and siblings. During the Spanish flu outbreak after the First World War, they had all died, leaving her entirely alone. The local newspaper had once carried the tragic story. Grief had enclosed her life within the same walls, as though she, too, were a bird in a cage.

My flatmate and I were young and inexperienced, and our housekeeping skills must have appalled her. Yet I luxuriated in the quietness of that home and the soothing rhythm of the sea. Walking on the beach brought solace and peace—I could finally breathe, and sleep returned to me.

Then strange things began to happen. Once, we threw out a damp, clumped-up packet of Rice Krispies. To our astonishment, we later found it back in the cupboard. Tita, it turned out, had retrieved the cereal, carefully dried it in her oven, and replaced it in the box. It unnerved us—we began to doubt everything in our cupboards. Other odd happenings followed, and only later did I realise those sticky notes had been signs that her mind was failing. But at the time, in our youthful ignorance, we didn’t understand.

When we finally moved out, we thanked her sincerely for her kindness. I visited her over the following years. Her bird had died, and someone had replaced it—but this new bird did not say, “Poor Tita.” She was heartbroken and could not understand why. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her. It felt too cruel to deepen her sorrow.

Life can deal such harsh hands. To that gentle student who died in the residence, and to this lonely, grieving landlady—I often think of them both.

If we truly knew the burdens carried by those around us—our neighbours, our friends, even the strangers we pass in the street—we would be kinder in every way, and look upon them with the compassion they so deeply need.

Weeds have mastered resilence

The weeds are rampant in their triumph over all my endeavours. I wrestle them out pulling hand fulls, bucket fulls and even filling my bin. 

The patch looks healthy once more with tiny flowers, free to soak up the sun. It lasts a mere week before the beasts are back. I should have known, they don't come out by the roots like a decent flower. No, they break off just beneath the soil, laughing at my attempts to remove them.  The blasted ivy plays the longer game too, happy to sacrifice stems while sustaining roots hidden below. What better way to outsmart the enemy!  Give them the appearance of victory, job done and soil cleared. But underneath a new revolution is afoot growing in even more abundance from all those severed limbs. 

I look out and see my pansies drowned once more in a tidal wave of green weeds before the week is out.  Lessons learned, when we are cut off and brutally severed. Don't waste time contemplating your losses but look to what remains unseen just below. Go deep and grow like mad. Multiple your roots and trust what remains below will soon find the light above.

The root cause of wrongdoing is ignorance, and we must therefore hold fast to the tools of perception and knowledge. Good character must be taught.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá

Keeping afloat in hospital

I watched a young mother phone her family from her hospital bed across from me.

The conversation was overheard in the darkness of the ward with about 10 beds. Full of those recently involved an accident or illness and an awful lot of elderly patients were in their midst. It was a group with which I was surrounded and I was kept awake at night by their groans of pain and sometimes excruciating cries of agony. Who knew that even a simple bed sore could cause every movement to be torturous? I grew to recognise the victim behind the drawn curtains. Their voices their groans and cries became familiar. Familiar but impossible to get used to. I don’t think we’re meant to lie and hear such suffering without responding in some way. And if we can’t respond by doing something useful then surely, we’re meant to respond in other ways? I think to be a human being is to be impacted by the suffering of others. If that does not occur, if there is no empathy then we’re all in trouble, deep trouble. 

The conversation started quite innocently she was telling her husband that she might have to stay another night in hospital, when they had been convinced that her release would be the next day. All her family members had been quite excited during visiting time that she would be back among them again not here imprisoned in the hospital ward with us. But a doctor had just informed her that her blood results were not quite as they should be and she would need to be another night tethered to a drip pumping medication through her system for hours. Devastated, she had phoned her husband late in the evening to break the bad news. He had sounded stoic. He was the one looking after their four-year-old daughter and probably had much juggling to do there, as well as keeping his young wife’s spirit high in this impossible situation. However, when he handed the phone to his daughter so that the four-year-old could say good night to her mummy, the four-year-old had been devastated. She cried. “I want my mummy! I want you here!” and just kept repeating the same thing again and again. Her mother was encouraging and bright and cheerful and said, “I’ll be there soon don’t worry it soon, it’s okay don’t worry, I’m fine. I’ll be home soon. I’ll soon be with you”, in a happy, enthusiastic voice. But the tears of the breathless four-year-old would not stop. The conversation ended and suddenly all the bravado that she had been bravely summoning drained away and she put her hands over her face and sobbed in the darkness. 

It’s heart-breaking at times this life. There’s not much anyone can do about that. But the least we can do is to be aware of the pain and the suffering and the hurt and not shut our eyes to it. What I wanted to highlight was how wonderful people can be in the face of such things. 

There was a Polish lady at the end of the ward who didn’t speak English and who tried repeatedly to engage with people with laughter with hand movements, but it’s difficult when you don’t know the language. Gradually, she became more subdued and more withdrawn. You could see the difference after three days her gestures became smaller and attempts to engage others stopped completely. Then, on the ward appeared a young doctor, not one of the ones who usually covered our medical ward, and he approached her bed and started speaking fluent Polish to her. It was wonderful to see her reaction at first incredulous and then this outpouring of words and sentences, talking excitedly. Her eagerness and happiness and opening of the floodgates was wonderful to behold. They chatted for about 10 minutes then he left. I wish he could’ve seen the lasting transformation his 10-minute visit meant to that elderly lady. It was one of those game changers and out of the sullen recluse emerged the chatty funny woman again.  

My next-door neighbour phoned to ask if I needed anything.  She was going abroad for a week but wanted me to know her husband was available for anything I needed. My other neighbour who lives opposite spotted me reversing out of our yard and ran over to ask about my relative in hospital.  Her concern was touching and she leaned in through my window and gave me a huge bone-crunching hug.  The neighbour on the other side stopped me on the pavement to present me with a huge cake yesterday.  It means so much to have kindness shown in difficult times.  I  make a mental note to be more attentive and responsive to those in need of kindness.

"Do not be content with showing friendship in words alone, let your heart burn with loving-kindness for all who may cross your path."

Abdu'l-Baha

The final Fall

When there are no clouds, you can see with sudden clarity. 

The brilliance of the autumn leaves,

the rusty reds, glowing oranges take your breath away.

Fills your heart with awe

at all this abundance of beauty. 

How does the dying of some small appendage

of a tree deserve to be dressed in such finery? 

Perhaps we too, as we approach the end

should summon up acts and deeds 

that shimmer and take the breath of others with their radiance? 

For us all, the final fall is coming.

"The betterment of the world can be accomplished through pure and goodly deeds and through commendable and seemly conduct."

Baha'i Writings

Gertrude Remembered

I know it is sad to stand at a funeral and remember someone but in Gertrude’s case, she was really ready “to go to sleep and not wake up”, as she put it. She was indomitable and single-minded and not the confused elderly woman people often thought she was at first sight. I remember one ambulance man speaking over her head to me asking “Does she understand anything?” and Gertrude responding instantly in an annoyed, clear voice “I could buy and sell you!” She was over 104 and could remember sitting in the very first car in the town. There is a picture of her as a young girl in Portrush in the backseat of one of those early huge open-topped vehicles in the local chemist’s shop. Her father was chief fireman in Londonderry and she remembered the horse-drawn fire engines of those days. 

She had lived through both wars, was educated in Trinity College, Dublin and was fluent in both French and German. She ran her own private school in Portrush for many years and set herself high standards that students were expected to maintain. She was a good artist and could draw exceptionally well and wrote stories for children. Her carpentry was equally impressive. She made a wooden box for her father’s medals (and epaulettes) with a special glass front.  If you wanted to know more about Gertrude you had only to look at her handmade toolbox with each spotless instrument in its place positioned precisely.

Her attention to order in drawers and cupboards was extraordinary and when I would often tease her about the dust over every surface she replied that she did not mind the dust but everything had to be in its proper place. She knew every state in the US, the weather zones in the UK and the phone numbers of everyone she knew by heart. She was blessed with a fine mind and it never failed her not even to the last weeks of her life. Always clear, always articulate.

She kept us in the dark about her age, took 10 years off, and never received the Queen's card on turning a hundred. We all went on thinking of her as 10 years younger than she really was and she got away with this without any questions. The love of her life never returned from World War II and I often wondered if he had survived would she have gone on to have her own family and lead a completely different life? Wars take away so much from so many and even decades later loss and damage are still felt.

Gertrude always believed in the Big Bang Theory and felt that there was nothing after death. She wanted to believe there was an afterlife but could not rationally accept it. But she loved to hear others speak of heaven, to be assured of its existence and to have hope that she would meet those she had loved and lost in this life again. It is my prayer that she will be enjoying a reunion with her dearly loved father and other family and friends as well as her young lost love as we gather here to remember her and wish her well.

When our days are drawing to a close let us think of the eternal worlds, and we shall be full of joy!

‘Abdu’l-Bahá

Beatrice a hundred year old mystery

My grandmother died aged 25 when my father was only 14 months old. One of the few photos we have is her sitting with him, a baby on her lap. She looks so lovely, but it feels strangely heartbreaking knowing that in a matter of months, she would be dead. What caused her death or even any details of her death seems still shrouded in mystery. It was 1925 and attitudes to death were different in those times. The general approach then could be summarised as ‘least said soonest mended’!

A friend, even in the 1960s, said her mother had died when she was just 13 and her sister 11. They were sent to school the day of their mother’s funeral and no one ever mentioned her mother again. Such a reaction was fairly common in those earlier years of the 1920s, and to be fair, there were so many deaths from diseases and other causes that perhaps not talking about such losses was a practical way of coping. What is there to say about the death toll of World War I when 40 million died between the years 1914 and 1918? My grandfather fought in that war. The Spanish flu which followed from 1918 to 1919, killed another 50 million. In the face of such a scale of loss, possibly people opted to just accept death as an ever-present feature of their lives. 

My grandfather was born in 1898 and entered the army aged only 16. It is hard to imagine him going through World War I as a teenager and facing the brutal horror of those days including the battle of the Somme. During that time he was shot in the upper arm and once recovered was sent right back into battle. By the time World War I was over he was in his early 20s. He returned to Northern Ireland fell in love with Beatrice Magee and married in 1923, aged 25. They had a baby boy but after just two years, his young wife suddenly died.

Because her death was seldom discussed my father knew little of his mother’s death. He was fortunate that his mother was one of many siblings and during his childhood, he had many loving aunts lavish attention on him. But that void where a mother should have been was ever-present. He had questions that were never answered. One gossipy villager whispered that she had been sent to an asylum and died there. In the absence of real knowledge, toxic gossip often takes its place. Also in today's world, not knowing your family’s health details leaves you uninformed about important things like any inherited diseases there may be. When a relative examined one side of our family tree, he was horrified at the number of male relatives who had died quite young from heart disease.

Last week, my brother found an old tray in the attic of our garage and brought it down for us to see.  It had been there for decades but we read its inscription as we examined it.  Given to Beatrice Magee on the occasion of her marriage in 1923.  My brother took it home and cleaned, polished and fixed the tray and my Mum placed it in the living room behind the photograph of Beatrice holding her baby.  It triggered renewed memories of this lady that none of us had ever met.  Several family members had failed to find Beatrice’s death certificate while carrying out their research and there seemed to be a mystery in its absence.  

This week I applied online and bought a copy of her death certificate using a different birth date than the one commonly used.  This morning the death certificate arrived and I felt that at last the mystery of almost a century would be solved.  However, the death certificate was written in such poor handwriting I could not make out the cause of death!  In frustration, I sent it to relatives, medical and otherwise hoping they could help decipher the words.  It took a day but the answer eventually came, she suffered from “mitral regurgitation 2 years cardiac failure certified”.  So there in back and white at last was the answer.  

In examining the names on her grave there are signs of the scale of loss of life in those days.  Of her 10 siblings a five-year-old Violet died of scarlet fever in 1914 (the scarlet fever epidemic would peak in 1914).  The Spanish flu in 1919 took two of her brothers 24-year-old William and 19-year-old Charles.  They had to carry out the coffin of one brother through the family front door in November and then the second brother in December.  The scale of such loss was repeated through homes throughout this country.  It hurts the heart to think of it all.  There are no words.  How that generation weathered so much in such a short time should remind us all of the preciousness of life that we too often take for granted.  War and disease rip families apart. Each loss leaves a void that lingers in the hearts of all those who loved them.  

PS The Spanish Flu originated in the US on March 11, 1918, at Fort Riley a military camp in Kansas.  When those soldiers went to fight in World War 1 they took the disease to Europe and the rest of the world. It feels odd that the war my grandfather fought resulted in a disease that killed his wife's two brothers. However, pestilence and warfare were often fellow bedfellows over the millennium and no doubt recent wars will continue to contribute to the re-emergence of infectious diseases.  Already diseases such as cholera, polio, measles, tuberculosis and malaria are rising in the conflict areas of Iraq, South Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen. The sad truth is that adequate prevention and treatment of communicable diseases are often impossible in times of conflict. In fact, war itself provides perfect vectors for disease such as refuge camps, mass movements of populations, poor sanitation, and a lack of access to either proper medical assistance, water or a healthy diet.

Toothless in the United States

This summer, the day before I was due to fly to Boston from the UK, my front tooth came out! We’d been cleaning out kitchen cupboards of foodstuffs and a packet of dried mango needed to go. Unable to dump it, but unwilling to carry it all the way to The US, I turned to the only other viable alternative. I sat watching TV late that evening and downed the entire packet. It was only when I was at the last handful that I felt that there was a piece of stone or glass in my mouth. Spitting out the foreign object onto my palm I was perplexed about the shape and colour. This was neither a stone nor a piece of glass. In fact, it looked more like a part of me. More like a front tooth. Rising with a sense of dread from the sofa I approached the mirror above the fireplace and smiled. The reflection felt like a smack in the face.

There is something about losing one’s front teeth that feels grief-like. They say that dreams about teeth falling out are usually about grief or loss. Well, I can say it may be a metaphor for grief but losing one’s teeth also actually causes a bit of grief.

I spent a useless few hours phoning dentists to get an emergency appointment. You then discover the reality that what constitutes an emergency for you just does not hack it for the NHS dentist! My main problem it seemed was that I was not in excruciating pain. The tooth I had lost was a root filling and as such devoid of sensitivity. Had I been writhing in agony I’m sure an appointment would’ve opened. So, there was nothing for it but to fly to the US toothless. It would mean weeks of looking frightening. I tried to smile with my mouth closed and usually managed. However, in an IKEA store in Boston, while holding my four-week-old grandson an American lady approached me and cooed and exclaimed of the tiny baby in my arms, “how beautiful a baby, how tiny his feet and hands”. I agreed and in my total pride as a new grandmother beamed my appreciation of her kind words. She recoiled from me in horror and over her shoulder in a huge mirrored cupboard I understood why.

There is something demeaning about being toothless. The character in the Victor Hugo's 1862 novel Les Misérables, Fantine, has her two front teeth pulled to sell them for money. In the movie of the novel, the heroine, played by Anne Hathaway, has her back teeth removed instead. The moviemakers knew instinctively that their audience would have lost a degree of sympathy and empathy with the heroine had she been so maimed.

The proof of this is the more recent serial version of the same novel which decided to be brutally honest about the scene and show the heroine having her two front teeth pulled out. The horror of this episode so shocked fans that there was outrage online with devotees furious and angry beyond belief that their heroine was now no longer what she once was.  It had obviously ruined the whole series for them.

Being toothless is not all negative. It taught me a degree of detachment. My son had to have a tooth filled in Boston, while I was there, and the $500 bill made me determined to avoid any dentist help in the US. Toothless I came and toothless I would go.

It was a remarkably useful prop when getting my two older grandsons to brush their teeth each night. I would watch them brush their teeth until they finished and then open my mouth wide and ask “do you want this to happen to you?”. At which point they quickly re-applied their toothbrushes with gusto. Strangely, none of my three grandchildren flinched at my toothless state. They hugged me as much as ever and it was salutary to see that disfigurement is not such a big deal for the young. As long as you play, read to them, take them to the parks and chat and laugh with them they overlook all sorts of oddities.

I enjoyed time with loved ones in Boston.   I also had the fortune to meet up with an old friend of mine who lives two hours north of Boston. She came down by train to see me for a few hours and warned me that she felt she had aged greatly in the 10 years since we’ve seen each other and might be hard to recognise at the train station. I sent her an email and told her not to worry as she could easily spot me as I was missing a front tooth!  It did give me a hillbilly appearance which by the second week began to even make me laugh. Especially when brushing my hair and putting on make-up in the morning. It felt like barring the barn door long after the horse has bolted.

When I returned home I managed to find a dentist to construct a replacement on a post drilled into the root of my old tooth. Thankfully cheaper than an implant! As the dentist held up a card to work out the colour of the replacement tooth she said: “yes, I think it needs to be slightly blue like the other teeth” to her young assistant. Depressing news indeed! Whatever, the gap has gone and I can now smile without frightening nearby strangers.  

I’ve learned a lot from the whole experience. When you pass 60 parts of you have a tendency to fall off or alternatively, weird things decide to grow on you. Physically that can be shocking but there are also mental cracks that appear. Names escape one, reasons for entering a room evaporate. Simple words that are not at all complicated evaporate from the mind. But love remains and it eases all ills, physical and mental. Loved ones work their magic, massaging healthy hope back into old bones and making new wholesome memories to hold onto. There are worse things than being toothless and my replacement may be a shade of blue but I am not feeling blue just very grateful for everything.

"If we are not happy and joyous at this season, for what other season shall we wait and for what other time shall we look?" 

Bahá’í Writings

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