early days

The best way to begin is at the beginning. The day we met. I was soon to be four she would be 19 that year. It was summer. They, my father and new mother had only just returned from their honeymoon. My dad had fetched me from my aunt and uncle's where I had been living for two years to bring me to to meet my new mother.

She was in the kitchen. I was in my father's arms. He transferred me to hers. I loved her at once. She was so beautiful. Beautiful, with black shiny hair falling softly around her creamy complexion. Long wispy lashes framing her large hazel eyes and a dazzling smile. She was my fairytale queen. She was happy then.

After that day I went back to live with my aunt and uncle off and on. My brother Dennis and I were still not in school. But during that year or two, there were quiet sunny mornings with just her and I when we didn't speak. She made toast and jam and made them like a sandwich so the flavour of the jam was overwhelmed by the bread. She didn't sit and eat breakfast with us. I sat at the end of the long wooden table my father had built and quietly opened my toast to get the full flavour of the jam inside. Dennis and I had to nap in the afternoon. We slept in separate beds, in separate rooms upstairs in our wartime house. I could not sleep and asked every five minutes if I could get up.

She was expecting Gary. I picked her bouquets of dandelions which she informed me were weeds. She was young and didn't know any better. I begged and pleaded and was finally able to dry the cutlery while I stood on a chair in front of the sink. She was still beautiful. She wore the maternity clothing of the time. I was lonely. She waited for her baby.

We prepared the bedroom downstairs for the new arrival. She loved to sing and so did I. I could read. We sang from the song lyric books one could buy at the "Five and dime". "Stagger Lee" and "Misty". She folded clothes. I was perched on a ladder in the closet with the song sheets. I had tonsillitis off and on and finally was taken to Chatham by Al and Ilene to have them removed.

There are many scattered memories of the five babies which were born in five years. Difficult years for all of us.

She doesn't remember this, but I do. She could ride a bike and we had a red men's bike. She would ride it to her aunt's or meet her aunt to go and play bingo at St. Theresa's Church. Later these memories would inspire me, reminding me of how independent and creative she was.  She was my adult, but she was really just a child. By then she would be 21 or 22.