From the cradle to the grave

From the cradle to the grave....

That's an old quote.. an age old quote, a sometimes used quote and a sometimes used to much quote but it's a quote that kinda sums up my thoughts a lot these days 

I write a lot about life and childhood and my thoughts at the moment I'm thinking them and I wear my heart on my sleeve a lot, and then leave it on the page a lot, then most of the time I regret it but the page never refuses ink so I refuse to erase it and the circle continues.... around and around

Pandemic year eh.... theres a circle and a cradle to the grave conversation. Where do you start. 

At the beginning... sure none of us know where the beginning starts. One day we're living and fighting and wishing, the next we're fighting to live and wishing we never discovered that fighting to live would see us fighting each other about how we live. 

Kinda sad to be honest. Things I thought were important have faded in the background and things insignificant are haunting me. Little things like words and deeds....

Oh aren't words torturous little fuckers. Simple letters form together to line on a sentence that we say, that can hurt and hurt deeply

And lately it seems so easy to use words to hurt....

I'm a child suddenly and memories of words take on a different meaning. Mammy is standing in the kitchen covered in flour and dirty dishes and all of us are wrecking her tired head and all she can see is the house needs cleaning and dinner should be already half cooked, and all we can see is the chance to push our luck with her, and daddy is home and all we can see is attention, and we cant see that he's tired and hungry and it's been a long day and why isn't dinner ready, and mammy sighs because we're tiresome and soon Thank god we'll be in bed and the pandemic of having eight children causing strife will be over and her and daddy can actually catch up on their life and day after a bedtime story closes the night down.

We won't always be in the cradle and dinner wont always be the battle we believed it to be.

And suddenly they're gone, and visiting their grave is a sombre, what if, occasion. What if we sat quietly back then and ate slowly and enjoyed the simple task of eating together, the simple moments of inhaling and exhaling and catching up was just that, simple moments of non madness and quiet silence....

I'm at the grave now in the middle of a pandemic and suddenly I realise we did.

We just didn't know it. We enjoyed the safe warm madness of childhood and it was amazing.

And now the cradle and the grave unite while I sit here and I realise those moments we thoughts were madness were the best times of our lives.

And those moments are gone and I'm grateful my kids got to see what I saw. Those little moments at the table. Dinner coming and going, sometimes ruined.. work ending, uniting in quiet madness of a messy house, sighs, exhaustion and finally a bedtime story to close the night down

I want it back... for everyone I want it back. The simple horror of yesterday. The forgotten rows, the unpaid local shop you have to deal with on Saturday morning, the worry over how you will get them to school unbattered by life and fed enough to last them till three o clock. The basin that you beat the bread in until you had beaten your thoughts to dough. The wringing of floured hands in an apron that needed a wash a month ago with the last of the flour leaving a tiny cloud shape on your forehead as you sighed because the last child to go to sleep was snoring gently and you back out of the room because you'll die if you wake them and you'll kill them if they wake up.

Pandemic over for another day until tomorrow when you put your apron back on and battle life once again

I want it back.... the simple horrors that meant everyone sank or swam together and nobody bitched publicly about everyone else who was in the same sinking simple boat. Everyone just rowed quietly together and nobody was ever allowed to drown...

Those days, from the cradle to the grave everyone was united.

In memory of Mammy and Daddy who made every pandemic seem like we were beginning another adventure and I can never find the words to thank them for always rowing together......

Valerie Masters