AJ's on her blog " A Little Farm With A Big Heart" http://wwwaj-oaks.blogspot.com/ wrote a rather moving piece on a major regret she still has regarding a rather cruel but fairly minor childhood spat she experienced when at junior school.
It was fascinating that decades after the fact the perceived slight she caused still haunted her, and it got me to thinking if I still harboured some sort of childhood regret.
Do you know, I have!
When I was eight, school holidays in summer were always slightly boring affairs. My mother was never one for trips or "activities" so we were expected to play outside out of the way. Now this, we usually did ( my twin sister and me) except on those days that my grandmother called up. She did this at least three times a week and always in the mornings, where she would prepare vegetables for dinner,help with house work and iron the mounds of washing whist telling us stories about her wartime exploits in Liverpool.
Her presence was still a normal factor of extended family life that had almost disappeared in today's world, and as children we loved her warm and funny despot humour.
At lunch one day and Idea spring into my mind and thinking I was being clever I piped up
"You know Gran when you come up here, it must be good as you get a free lunch three times a week!"
I think I must have laboured the point a little too much as little boys have a want to do, and I only shut up (eventually) after my mother said quietly and rather uncharacteristically for her " That will do!"
My grandmother ate her lunch without speaking and I remember realising that I had said something wrong but not quite understanding exactly what it was I had done. She was clearly very hurt by my words and I still remember to this day, that "pang" of shame when I watched her cut her food up without being able to lift her eyes from her plate.
It was one of those moments that make you grow up just a little
Funny what seeps into your consciousness when it is pricked by someone else's stories and experiences !
Anyhow today it's back to normal.
It is just after 6.30am here and the first coffee of the day is just about to kick in. The dogs have all nosedived back to bed after their mornings ablutions and Albert is busy dispatching yet another vole on the kitchen floor...I need to clear the back shed of gosling droppings all of the gazebos and seating needs to be returned to Prestatyn Vicarage....and I am pondering what to do with old Boris if his antibiotics have not done the trick
You didn't mean to cause your grandmother any hurt. I think she knew this. Rest easy.
ReplyDeleteThe open Allotment was a great success. I wish I could have attended. Congratulations on the beet win.
My husband is always mortified because when he was a small 4 year-old, and had his grandfather staying, gf commented one evening that he thought Mark had gone to bed, and Mark replied "well you thought wrong then didn't you" for which he received a slapped leg and was SENT to bed.
ReplyDeleteHe says he can still feel the humiliation of having made an entirely inappropriate comment, but not realising it was so at the time.
Now, I never made any comments such as his or yours in my childhood, which is why I permanently have my foot in my mouth throughout adulthood.
Perhaps you both learnt an early lesson in thinking before the words come out, whilst I'm always frantically trying to stuff them back in again.
I wonder if both your grandparents secretly smiled at your gorgeous innocence when alone at night?
Hope you enjoyed the coffee
xx
Sometimes I feel awful about putting this squarwky girl upside down in the bin, but it soon passes, she got on my bloody nerves!
ReplyDeleteCan you write a recipe book? My mam reads your blog & cooks everything you write about....that cake was yummy! xxx
My Mother wasn't the kindest of people and when my Grandmother (who lived with us) developed senile dementia in her late '80's, Mom was often verbally abusive. I was a child at the time, and followed suit. I treated Grandmother with a great lack of respect and kindness.
ReplyDeleteI have always thought of Grandmother's last years, and cringed at how I behaved towards her. I try to console myself by thinking that it helped me to treat Mom, Dad and, now, my Aunt, with much more kindness. Lesson learned. But, I wish I had learned it in time to have given Grandmother better last days.
John, as Callie said "Rest easy'. You know what your Gran may have thought? That you had heard your Mom say the words you said and were just repeating them....out loud! You were a child. But I know how such memories ca make one cringe.
ReplyDeleteI think we've all done something similar or are guilty of doing things we wish we could take back. When we're children we don't often wonder if what we're about to say is appropriate or not. If what you said hurt your Granny I'm sure she realized that you didn't mean to. I hope Boris will be ok and that today you can relax for a bit after your successful but BUSY weekend. Be good.....Maura :)
ReplyDeleteMy grandparents raised me half my childhood. Once and only once I fibbed to them (my granny a saint on this earth if there ever was one).
ReplyDeleteWhen I realized they knew I had fibbed I could hardly stand it. Never a word was said to me but I knew she knew and she knew I knew she knew...
To this day I will think of that and apologize in my mind to her. She has been gone for a while now. But I still apologize to her in my mind even at 45, every single time I think of that!
I was a child it was a small fib of no real importance, but to this day I think of it and just want to kick myself in the hiney! You see my grandparents were the best thing in my childhood.
Sometimes our mouths really do overrun our brains. As you very well know what my words did when I was a child. It really is hard to forgive oneself, but our experiences when we were all younger make the people we are today.
ReplyDelete