I was born in Germany and until I was six my life was ordered;
I was loved, sheltered and nurtured, I had a Frau to whom I prattled in nursery German, a little brother to tease and a garden to play in, as long as I stayed off the grass…
I was to be seen and not heard;
An old fashioned, but sensible lore passed down, in my time, from generation to generation.
I was contrary;
No-one could tell me how pretty I looked in a dress without me running off to change!
On the cusp of six I announced that I wanted to stay 5 and cried. I reluctantly sat at my birthday tea party and blew out the candles thus sealing my fate, to begin another year in my life.
Childhood changed when my father had to return to England in order to ‘establish’ himself as an officer of Her Majesty’s Commonwealth and Foreign Office which meant he lost his 15 year seniority gained in Germany, took a substantial cut in salary and had to start at the bottom of the ladder…again.
For me, at six, it was a lamentable move into an unknown world.
We lived in the south of London and my parents scrimped and saved for the next five years.
I spent a lot of weekends at my great aunt’s (my paternal grandmother’s sister) and her husband’s house nearby, well, a walk across the common, while my parents worked on renovating our historic Georgian terraced cottage.
These were unhappy years for me…my father was focused on re-building his career and my mother kept my brother and me in the shadows so as not to add more stress to his already overwhelming situation.
I was eleven when he eventually came home with news of a posting to The Lebanon.
Once in the Middle East, with a job that was no longer bottom of the ladder, he began a five year race upwards finally landing him a position in Iran as head of station. He and Mummy learned to speak, read and write Farsi.
By now I was eighteen and getting ready for college having spent six years at a convent boarding school. I had time to reflect and try to put in order the last twelve years that had completely rocked my boat.
At six I discovered that my life was not the same as other little girls’. My home was unique to me, and our family.
For example:
I found that not all dogs snapped at me as our dog did; I was never afraid of dogs, just the little terror that lived under our listed roof and could do no wrong in my parents’ eyes. He died while we were in Beirut, within a few months I was later told; run over in the gutter at my grandmother’s house, too stubborn and ornery to come when called.
I noticed that my parents were very conscious of how they presented themselves to the world and worried about what the neighbours or family members would say about them if they muddied the waters.
During the five years in Beirut and three years in Iran my parents lived a cocktail-party-small-talk-driven diplomatic lifestyle with all kinds of perks and expense accounts that allowed them to secure their future. They returned to London having made it to the top.
I had survived six years at a convent boarding school and three years at a Catholic College and learned to fend for myself.
I had never come first in their lives baldly evidenced by the fact that they never visited me at school or walked the halls of my London college; they never met any of my teachers or friends; they didn’t come to my school or college graduations and made it quite clear that once I’d attained my degree I was on my own.
Conversely, my paternal grandmother made it clear that I was loved.
She instilled in me the joy of a personal relationship with God and I grew up wanting nothing more than to be the grandmother she was to me, to my grandchildren.
She taught me, by her actions, how to be a faithful servant of God. She walked a mile to weekday morning mass as well as on Sundays and Holy Days.
I joined her when I was staying.
We never talked about her faith,
we never talked about God,
but I knew.
Everything she did was prayer –
the meals she cooked me,
the walks we took,
the excursions we made,
the hugs and kisses she showered on me,
the giggles we shared.
She had her own special relationship with Jesus and loved Him above all else…
She didn’t have to go down on her knees to worship but she did, beside her bed every morning and night.
Later in life when I learned about prevenient prayer – a prayer laid down like a grassy path for the future – I knew she had prayed like that for me.
My mother prayed for me too, but she told me and I resented her for that. In the telling it was as if she saw something in me that needed prayer.
Her prayers nonetheless joined my grandmother’s and I stayed faithful to my creator, boldly wearing the mark of the Spirit and held strongly in the arms of my Heavenly Father.
After Empty Nest I began to share some of my most trying family stories with a few trusted friends hoping they wouldn’t gasp audibly or pat my arm and say,
“There there, things will look better in the morning…”
It should have been no shock that we all have our own version of the same story, happy or unhappy childhoods, less than perfect parents, imperfect parenting, uncommon marriages, betrayals, celebrations, tragedies, successes
I continue telling…
of a little girl, barely six, who knew that things were not as they should be…I had never heard of ‘the sin nature of man’… but I did know that God called to me and I became aware of His presence without anyone teaching me. He spoke to the six year old me and together we fell into step and began our long walk home.
…and listening.