LUKY;
ONE SUNDAY MORNING AFTER MASS, I PUT ON MY APRON AND WENT INTO THE KITCHEN.
I put on my wireless because, decadent though this may sound, I can't do much without the constant drone of music and human voices in the background.
Imagine my feeling of enchantment when I heard the beautiful singing of the sisters and pupils of St Elmo's convent, Umzumbe, that wonderful school where my Joe spent two such happy years. Soon we were all standing around the radio, food forgotten, and drank in the music and the voices of the sisters and teachers. It touched us deeply.
Tender touch
Although the sisters' voices were not identified, I'm sure one of them belonged to Sister Bernadette, who was in charge of the boys and wiped many a tear from my child's face. That's why I didn't begrudge giving her my statue of St Bernadette, which I bought in Nevers, France, at the convent where Bernadette lived after her departure from Lourdes until her death.
Sudden find
When I went to Nevers I browsed the shops. Suddenly I spotted a tiny bronze replica of a statue in the Lourdes Domain, Saint Bernadette, dressed in the habit of the Sisters of Nevers. Standing in a dusty little corner of the display window, it was just what I wanted.
The shop assistant looked surprised. I think the statuette must have stood there for so long that it was already regarded as part of the furniture and fittings.
Solid stuff
As I held it in my hand I was surprised at the weight. This was solid, none of your plastic ersatz.
A second surprise awaited me. The price, pasted to the back of the statue, was only fifteen francs. If I'm not mistaken, the rate of exchange at that time was fourteen SA cents per franc, or even less. That made my new possession the cheapest souvenir I ever bought in France. I'd paid more for two cups of tea and two sandwiches before.
When I had paid and left the shop, I had a strong feeling of conviction. That statuette had been standing there for a very long time, I just knew it, and it had been there waiting for me to buy it. I knew something else too - it wasn't for me. One day I'd find out to whom it really belonged.
Hidden paper
Back home, I placed the statuette on a corner of the mantelpiece and showed it to everyone who came in.
One day the piece of the card board which was pasted to the bottom came loose, revealing the statue to be hollow after all.
An archaeologist examining the Dead Sea Scrolls could not have felt more excited than I when I saw the yellow crumpled newspaper inside, dating back to the mid-thirties. It featured old limousines and the kind of armour-plated foundation garments women used to wear before it became fashionable to diet instead.
I smoothed out the newspaper and kept it in a drawer.
So that statuette had been fashioned nearly forty years earlier.
Revelation
One day at Umzumbe, while telling Sister Bernadette about Lourdes and Nevers, she said ruefully: "I've never been there myself, you know."
I knew then whom my little statue had been destined for, and later I sent it off to her.
It warmed my heart to think that the statuette had reached its designation at last.
The Life of Saint Bernadette
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=youtube+story+of+st+bernadette+of+lourdes&view=detail&mid=820F8B1730B661BB691D820F8B1730B661BB691D&FORM=VIRE1
With thanks to youtube
LUKY;
TO ME A MOST ENDEARING SOUTH AFRICAN HABIT IS THAT OF CALLING TOTALLY UNRELATED PEOPLE AUNTIE OR TANNIE OR UNCLE OR OOM.
This may be caused by the fact that I don't have so many blood relatives in this country. To me it is is heartwarming to be hailed as a member of a child's family, because it seems to me that such an address includes respect, affection and confidence.
I could never be anything but very polite to anyone who calls me Tannie. I start beaming and bowing, and try to answer questions as well as I can.
Some disagree
Some people do not agree with me. Every now and then one hears of someone arguing that it is time we stopped this habit of claiming a kinship which does not exist.
In my younger days I was leaving some dry cleaning and pointed out a stain on my husband's jacket.
'It's a peculiar stain', I said 'and I can't quite make out whether it was the dog or the baby who made it.'
At the time my youngest was nearing her first birthday.
Sympathetically the lady smiled at me; 'Well, dear, never mind - being a grandfather must have its hazards as well as its joys.'
Timeless
Another time a man who was opening my car door for me because I'd left the key inside kept saying: 'You know, my dear, I'm sure you and I have met.'
I was ducking away, because somehow he managed to be opening the window with his right hand while his left was groping in vain to encircle my waist.
Grateful though I was, I made sure there was a bigger distance between us before replying: 'Goodness, wherever might that have been?'
'Weren't you in the army during the war?' he asked.
With little boosters like those to sustain my morale, I can take being called Auntie in my stride.
Double dose
Not so my husband. 'For heaven's sake stop calling me Oom', he said to a youthful colleague once. 'My name's Paddy'.
Telling me about this, he added: 'And now he calls me Oom Paddy. How's that for a contradiction in terms?'
Actually his name was Sean, and Paddy his nickname.
One day he was being presented with a safety prize at a mine function. Smiling broadly, the manager proclaimed:
'Gentlemen, you will be happy to know that I've finally discovered Paddy's real name. It's John!'
My husband just didn't have the heart to contradict him.
Makes for happiness
Getting back to this question whether it's a good thing to be called Aunt or Uncle by a child one doesn't know, I would say without hesitation; Yes.
Put yourself into the child's place. Think of the confidence, peace and security he must feel deep in his heart to address one so artlessly as Oom or Tannie. The time will come all too soon when some adult will disappoint him, and prove to him by some action or word that the grown-up population is not composed entirely of relatives and benefactors.
God grant that you and I will never be the cause of any child's learning this sad fact before he is old enough to absorb it.
Catherine Nicolette
I was charmed in India to be called Didi, or Aunty. The children in India have great respect for elders, and I found it endearing to be part of the social structure that brings security to the younger members.
Despite my having reiterated on a number of occasions that the child or young adult is perfectly at liberty to call me on my name, the children politely declined.
One day I asked why one teenager insisted on calling me Aunty.
He fixed me with a unyielding eye; 'It's respect,' he said.
Indeed. And from that day forward, I no longer invited someone younger than myself to call me on my name.
Which brings me to my aunts and uncles. Recently I visited my much loved youngest aunt and her husband. There being only sixteen years between my aunt and I, I have lost count of the times she has invited me to call her on her name.
I still call her Aunt and her name. I could never quite figure out why this was so important to me.
That day in India, with the peacock calling its harsh cry from the grove and the heat shimmering in the air, it was made plain to me by the young man's words.
It's respect.
LUKY;
IT'S FUNNY HOW ATTRACTIVE THE THOUGHT OF OLD AGE HAS BECOME TO ME.
In the past when I'd hear Maurice Chevalier sing: "I'm glad I'm not young any more", I'd dismiss his claim as a case of sour grapes - but these days I'm not so sure.
Now when I see a newly born baby, my heart aches for it, on account of the pains and pitfalls that lie awaiting it at every turn of life.
When I see a new bride, I wonder if that bliss will stand the test of time.
Will the brilliant university graduate justify the confidence his parents and lecturers have bestowed upon him?
Will the teenager out for reform persevere in her lonely path upwards?
Older and wiser
The lovely thing about not being so very young any more is that one no longer takes oneself seriously; neither do you accept others at face value.
When you're young, people who think a lot of themselves automatically make you believe they're better than you are, and you yearn to make everyone think well of you.
When you're older and wiser, you realize that it's not important what people think of you, but what God knows of you, and you learn to distinguish the worth of a man from his opinion of himself. When you see someone doing wrong, you pray for him rather than condemn him as you might have done twenty years ago.
Count your blessings
When you get on in life you begin to count your blessings instead of bewailing your problems. You realize that he who accepts the trials God sends him is like a young and supple tree which bends its branches into the direction the wind blows, and thus survives most storms without being damaged.
When you're older you smile at the people who earnestly discuss prayers and attempt to analyse them, because you have learnt that prayer is like housework. As the woman said: "When my friends ask me how I manage to keep my house so clean, all I tell them is: 'I start! I start!"
Just keep that sun shining
When you're young you pray for money, dates, success, popularity. When you're older, you are so grateful for your good luck until now that you spend most of your prayertime giving thanks - like the old farmer in the Jim Reeves record,
When you're older you begin to comprehend that prayer should take two forms, formal and informal, and that the two cannot exist without one another. And if you do feel you're allowed to make a wish, say at Easter or Christmas or on your birthday, you don't quite know what to ask for and end up saying:
"Just let that sun keep shining and the sky stay such a lovely color, and don't let my kids lose their way, and if any of them do please save them, and let us stay alive until they don't need us any more. And if one of us dies, give the other the strength to carry on. And even if we both die You'll make a plan, I know - so why should I lay down the law to You?"
And yet that's the time when you'll find that blessings will overwhelm you, and that even things you would hitherto have been hesitant to request are being poured down upon your grateful head like the unexpected shower of rain does just after you've had your hair done.
