LOOKING AT LIFE EVENTS

 

A death in the family stops most of us in our tracks and compels us to examine our values – especially the death of a life partner, and much more especially perhaps the death of a child.  That’s what Georgina and I were discussing yesterday when we met at long last in our usual Eastridge Mall café.  Yes indeed I am now most definitely making real attempts to ensure that normal life resumes.

However, none of us should be surprised to find that the more significant of life’s events have a habit of forcing us to stop in our tracks to scrutinise what is actually important to us.    Remember how the birth of a first baby suddenly made aspects of our parents’ nurturing skills seem almost comprehensible, their old-fashioned ideas strangely more acceptable?    That’s not to say we were not going to be much better parents than they were – of course we were!   Not always as easy as we thought it might be though.

It's only as our children grow into adults that we fully realise how effective or not our particular blend of rearing skills has been.   Have they developed into appreciative, loving human beings, capable of taking on adult responsibilities, making sensible decisions and facing up to the various slings and arrows of outrageous fortune?    Some need more time than others to cope with problems and will not be adequately armed against misfortune until they hit middle age. Others remain so inward looking and self-obsessed they are never able to make the transition needed - so concerned with themselves that it unquestionably takes your breath away - so unlike their siblings in every aspect that you are forced to stop and wonder where they came from.

Not so very long ago the poorly educated in the community blamed the moon for such offspring as these because the moon could be held responsible for all manner of ills - or the more fanciful might decide that somewhere along the way the child had been whisked away and replaced with a changeling.   My Grandmother was strangely and unexpectedly pragmatic and said she was inclined to blame what she termed the new-fangled idea of going into hospitals and nursing homes to have babies because you could never be quite certain that you would come home with the right one.    There is of course something to be said for this.

On the way home I found my thoughts straying to changelings and inadvertent birthing ward baby swaps.   The advent of DNA would of course provide a cast-iron resolution for the latter – the former dilemma would perhaps be not as simple to solve.