Memories

Memories

We all have memories both good and bad and we are, I suspect, somewhat selective in our recall or otherwise of them. We all have treasured memories too – those favourite  memories, particularly of when our children and grand children were young. Also high on the list are the memories of happy times when all the family or friends gathered for special occasions like weddings or baby dedications and so on. For some of us, there are academic and/or sporting memories, too. Maybe musical memories – I have quite a number of CD’s and old vinyl records. There used to be a lot more but that’s another story – a bad memory.

So, as it’s that time of year, I thought I’d share a couple of memories from the past almost seventy years (!!! That old already??) So, what shall I choose? Something from schooldays – no you don’t want to hear all about my near sporting fame nor my academic “achievements”.  You’d laugh with me at the memory of my sisters kids, city dwellers, finding a frog in the country near us when they came to visit.

So let me start with a very fond Christmas memory. My boys were 5 and 2 at the time and we managed to get them through to about 7 a.m. before the usual Christmas morning riot started. The oldest stood jumping up and down in his excitement dressed in his pyjamas and dressing gown – face all aglow, just waiting the signal to go downstairs to find out if Father Christmas had left anything for them. He rushed down when given the nod. There was about a 10 second silence, and he suddenly shot back upstairs again – face absolutely glowing with excitement. He went over to his little brother and said, excitedly, “He’s been, Iain, he’s been!” If only I had had a camera ready for that moment.

A few years later, his son, our grandson, was on his first sleep-over with Grandad. At night, we just thought to let him play until he dropped, but he surprised us by announcing suddenly, “I’m going to bed now Grandad,” I knelt to pray with him/for him/over him – too late. He was snoring, but I prayed anyway. Next morning, we heard shuffling sounds about 05:50 – quite early for us – but we kept our heads down pretending to be asleep. In he came, round to my side of the bed. Suddenly, I felt a little hand actually gently open my eye. I saw this smiling shining little face beaming at me – “It’s morning Grandad – It’s morning.” All the joy of a brand new exciting day lay before him as he “woke” us up.

Finally, in 2010, I went over to Texas to bring my bride back to the UK. We had to have a licence of course, so off we went to the local County Court Clerk’s Office. In due course we were rewarded with the requisite piece of paper all signed and sealed and a copy was dutifully lodged with the authorities. Off we went to celebrate at the nearest coffee house. As it happened, this was an emporium not unknown to us Brits – Subway. Finishing our drinks, we happily left – not a care in the world. Until, that is, another customer chased us out waving our licence and saying, “Did you leave something?” All was well that ended well – we married three days later in a chapel in the hospital where my bride worked.

So ends this trip down memory lane. Blessed memories – blessed moments in time – we are blessed people. 

Merry Christmas everyone.