Memories are made of this

Life changes when you least expect it!
It was amazing. A phone call that came right out of the blue. Esther hadn’t time to draw breath or put down her shopping bag. Arthur was in the hall as the front door slammed itself shut.
“Lizzie phoned”.
She hadn’t seen a reaction like this in a long time. He led her into the kitchen and switched on the main light.
“Sit down and I will make you a cup of tea”.
“I didn’t think that Lizzie’s baby was due just yet!”
Arthur shook his head and rolled his eyes whilst he pushed aside his Saxon History book which rested on the worktop.
“No, not that Lizzie, you donut, your Aunt Lizzie, you know, one of your dad’s sisters that you have been trying to locate ever since I have known you and, God knows, how many stamps and envelopes!” He couldn’t keep still, “She was on the phone for almost an hour and was really excited”. Esther then learned how Lizzie’s best friend had happened to have seen the letter she had sent to the Coventry paper ages since.

He stretched over the worktop to click on the kettle and hauled the nearest two mugs (with chips on the lips) down – they had run out of Earl Grey tea. She felt excited and confused after all the years of searching – could this be true? – And the connection she had been searching for now in sight.

She did as he suggested and sat down. The kettle began to boil. They both laughed at a frog, which must have hopped in from the patio through the open French window, whilst Maisy exhibited her usual exuberance, jumping like a thousand champagne bubbles as the frog leaped out of the door again.

Now probably wasn’t a good time to tell Arthur how she had just had to pay for a taxi from her place of work (she had been on a late shift working in a house with young people with learning difficulties). Her car had been stolen whilst parked outside on the drive; the thieves had managed to get through the sun-roof. It would soon be burnt out like the others, no doubt.

There were no words to sum up how she felt as, some weeks later, she and her Aunt Lizzie met on a platform at Coventry station which Esther’s dad must have used all those years ago. It was a wonderful but private time, with so many gaps from both sides filled in as well as tragedy on both sides too.

Esther also learned that her other Aunt Joan worked as a casting director for the BBC and lived in London somewhere. She learned how the sad and frustrated letters she had written whilst still only a child had never reached her nana and wondered why that might have been – yet that didn’t matter now. she and her family, as well as her brother Andrew and his wife Erica, met Lizzie, Ian and Joan at a pretty pub quite close by and it was there that the ties that had been snapped in two were then somehow brought together again.

Esther now had a picture of her mum and dad on their wedding day, her father’s bible and his typewriter that one day, sometime later, Joan had carried from her car. The first thing Esther did was to take off the cover of the typewriter, put in a sheet of clean white paper and type ‘HELLO DAD’, and there were tears – that she didn’t show in this time – of happiness.

So life continued.......Her memories of him were of doing ordinary things; even now in the year 2012 as the daffodils danced in the breeze and with much to be happy about, but still sadness to, she thought of him. Cycling to the cemetery and laying flowers on her lovely mum's grave their were still tears in spite of the flowing years. Behind her was the back-drop of the Iron Stone pits; where no longer local men earnt their bread and butter; instead a wonderland of trees and spreading bushes where once she climbed as a child. Far below she ate bread and jam sandwiches and dreamed of how life might proceed. The murky water in the shouldering lakes rose and fell. St Marys Church Bells rung in the distance whilst far away the steam train pulled it's passengers and goods into or away from their town where their market once thrived with fruit and veg next to underwear. Cascading or flimsy fabrics nodded in the cold air whilst rolls of cloth beckoned for those who knew how to cut and sew.

Their red telephone box was still there, complete with fag butts and shattered windows where once towns-folk shared the griste of life.Mobile phones clamped to young or old ear as folk tried to keep pace with the world that new generations took to with ease; but no frustration or magic at all.

When she cycled away from the cemetery and down the lane past the Wind-mill she thought of her dad. With wind in her ears and face she took grace with her life; her mind casting back to the day she took her solo ride in Swindon Close Harold Hill. He told her to never look back. Then her bike wheels wobbled as her wheels just clipped before falling flat on her face.

Esther felt an immense deep pride that touched her soul as well as her mind. At last, after years of searching and dreaming about her lost family and the need to re-connect with her dads precious roots she had done it! How brilliant that was!This man was her dad....someone to be proud of......a man who had, she learnt, fought back from his eventual blindness whilst still a young man;leaving his Coventry family behind in order to make a life for himself in London.A man who strolled quietly away from his street. He was a man to be proud of at last. Esther felt her heart would burst with pride as she touched this special photo of her mum and dad on their wedding day when they had no choice to elope if they wanted their own dream of an ordinary life.