This week every year I get caught between memories. Mam has her birthday on the 17th Jan.. Dad died on the 24th Jan. So since she passed I kinda fall strange between those days... strange thoughts and vivid memories.
Mam was 55 when Dad died... I tend to need to let that sink in sometimes... she was so young but we were too young to notice and too young to care enough to notice
But the memories sink deep and make me laugh as much as I cry
I remember Mammy shouting coz Daddys balls never matched hers and Daddy shouting coz she wouldn't let the lions out and I was too young to realise they were talking about bingo and tea and way too traumatised to admit I thought the sexual games were a bit extreme for the 80s... I blame watching Dallas from under Daddys chair coz he'd have shot me if he caught me watching it... reckoned I was too young to witness adultery... I was 7... i was too young to climb the trees I fell out of, surely adultery wasn't going to kill me...
But once I realised Mammy wasn't Sue Ellen and Daddy wasn't going to run off with some shoulder padded bimbo I settled into childlife and sank into being the queen of annoying children and found my true calling...
Spying on my siblings, writing it down and reading it back to my non Dallas boring beautiful parents and sat back on a little baby wicker chair watching said siblings get killed....
It was a soap drama waiting to happen and I was the only one in an empty cinema with surround sound watching and waiting excitedly for the next episode of real life...
I was the youngest of an amazing family with non dramatic parents forever captured in front of the range bitching coz balls weren't called and lions are still captured... and siblings loving me while secretly wondering how the feck they can shut me the f*** up....
Valerie Masters
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