LUKY
"PLEASE JACK", MY SECOND DAUGHTER SAID SOLEMNLY, HER BROWN EYES FIXED EARNESTLY ON THE MAN WHO HAD BEEN VISITING US: "TELL ME, WHY DO I LOVE YOU SO MUCH?"
It is at times like these that I'm reminded of the rhyme: What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice, and all things nice; that's what little girls are made of.
How many times a day do your children and mine make us smile or chuckle?
My second daughter, then four years old and like all four-year-olds, was full of enthusiasm and sincerity, and spread these qualities unstintingly among everyone she met.
She had a special soft spot for me. Small children and animals often have, not on account of my deep-seated nobility of character, but because I can't always be bothered with them.
There's nothing like a limited amount of wholesome neglect to make oneself popular with children. They resent too much fussing.
"Kiss me, you rubbishy mom!" she used to plead, fondly believing she was paying me a great compliment.
What she really meant was to call me was "ravishing". Even in my most unbothered moments I could not be impervious to such a tribute.
She loves God, or Lord as she calls Him. On a visit to the church I showed her the tabernacle, explaining that the cross is a statue but that Jesus Himself lives in that small house.
You could see her pondering.
Then she said: "How does Lord get out if He wants to buy a piece of chocolate?"
You can't laugh it off. The Bible says that on His first visit to the apostles after the resurrection, Jesus asked for food and was given a piece of grilled fish.
"There's so much about God we don't really understand", I said. "But we'll ask Him to explain everything when we get to heaven."
Our Lord is going to be busy answering questions when my children get up there.
Among other things my eldest son was going to request Him to walk straight on a crooked line, and my third son wanted to ask Him how He came to have no beginning.
Of all my children, my second daughter was the one who most missed her brother at boarding school.
"If Joe was here now, he wouldn't let you scold me!" she said. She's quite right, because he guarded her with a loyal devotion.
Although at the time she reached just above his waist, they spent their holidays walking hand in hand like Hansel and Gretel, talking nineteen to the dozen.
She had a little Afrikaans friend nicknamed Little Flea who lived behind us, and they had their quarrels.
"Vlooitjie don't loves me any more", she would inform me sadly on these occasions.
Her father loved to tease her, and usually got a rise out of her.
However, she always felt she needed one of us on her side. "Ek stem vir Mama", she would tell him. "Mom gets six points, you get none. I've had you in chunks."
It took all his diplomacy on these occasions to get points for himself too.
When I realised how little time I spent with the small ones as compared to the bigger children, I used to feel guilty.
Once my daughter asked me to sing Goosey Goosey Gander to her:
There I met an old man who wouldn't say his prayers
So I took him by the left leg and threw him down the stairs.
While I sang, I wondered:"Should I be teaching her words such as these?"
I do get so tired of bending over backwards trying to do the right thing.
"It's not like that", she interrupted. "My sister taught me like this:
There I met an old man who wouldn't say his prayers
So I took him by the hand and helped him down the stairs.
This was one occasion when I was taught by my children, rather than the reverse.
Catherine Nicolette
In my tender years, some nursery rhymes slightly daunted me until I learned to tweak them to my taste.
In my version, you should have heard how polite Mister Wolf was to the three little pigs. He gave an awful sneeze and knocked their straw house down, whereupon he humbly offered to rebuild a sturdy brick house.
The pigs used to enjoy his regular visits to their new home. They used to bake pies with the wolf's favourite filling - raspberries and sugar.
Jack of Beanstalk fame had tea with the giant, and they would visit at holiday time. The giant being extra careful where he placed his feet when visiting Jack's house, of course.
He didn't want to inadvertently squash the neighbourhood.
Mind you, the cow still jumped over the moon, and the dish still ran away with the spoon. A little high spiritedness passed my youthful test.
I never held with violence on stairs, particularly for the younger set.
LUKY
TWO MEN WERE STANDING ON A LONELY STRETCH OF BEACH REGARDING WITH AWE THE GREAT FOAMY BREAKERS.
They were neighbors, and over their garden fences they had discovered that both were to go on leave to spots within thirty minutes' travel of each other.
Earlier that morning one man had arrived with his family on a visit to the other.
Now they were standing together, the great sound of waves booming over the delighted shrieks of their children who frolicked nearby.
At that moment they were feeling closer to one another than they ever had back at home.
Indicating the children, the taller man said: "You know, I've got one worry in my life.
There he is - my five-year-old son Billy. You know what he's doing with that stick now?
He's fondly hoping to upset some perfectly inoffensive fish family into swimming for their lives.
"Just look at the little imp, lazy, dirty, cheeky.
His wants in life are few - cowboy suits, hiding in bushes, jumping out and startling people.
See those goggles he's got on? Well he'll be wearing them.
Whenever I'm about to take a bath I make sure to get in before Billy has his.
Even before undressing he dons his flippers. Plop, plop he goes into the bathroom and gets his frogfeet wet before he realizes he forgot to bring the Navy in.
Before we can catch him he's into his bedroom for his boats."
The man sighed. "I've resigned myself to the fact that I shall have to support him all all my life.
I love my son, and I don't known where I've failed him. Can you give me any advice?"
The other man threw out his hands in a gesture of helplessness.
"Who am I to guide you?" he asked rhetorically. "Just look at the heir to my debts over there - a scapegrace of the first water.
I drop him off at school mornings and fetch him again at lunch.
So I see to it that his blazer is on nicely and his tie straight.
Shoes polished, shirt tucked in all the way, hair combed, and off he goes.
"At lunchtime I pick him up. There he is, dirty, shirt handing out, tie twisted around like a noose...
"Looking swiftly to left and right for fear someone I know is near, I quickly open the door, let him in and off we go.
"I get a beautiful smile - that I can't deny - and take heart. 'How did you do at school today, son?' I ask, my hopes high.
But my courage drops to my boots when he answers:
"Tell me Daddy, did George Best score six in the 8 to 2 cup win on the sixth or seventh of February, 1970?"
Why, I wonder, is he so keen on all knowledge and information barring that contained in his school syllabus?
"Sometimes I despairingly tell him that if he grows up to be a dropout I'll support his wife and children only.
Him I'll chase away - or so I tell him . . ." and again he threw his hands out in a gesture of despair.
The wife of one of the men had been listening to their conversation and moved off quietly, smiling to herself.
"Silly men," she thought, "Why are you so concerned? Look at the order of the magnificent sea round you.
Do you think the God Who created all this grandeur without your help needs the two of you in the shaping of the future of your sons and his?
You just work for them, set them a good example, and teach them to love HIm.
Then He will look after them for you - never fear."
Catherine Nicolette
WELL READERS, WAS I SLIGHTLY AGEIST IN MY YOUNGER YEARS?
Very possibly, very possibly: I simply could not conceive of ever getting older.
I was young; I was strong; the world was my oyster.
I drank my orange juice, did my exercises, and was going to stay forever young.
Ha.
The sands of time have kept on running, and fortunate as I am, I have had a lot of sand run through my particular glass
Which brings me to my point; recently I have been the unwilling recipient of remarks such as the following,
"Well, of course, at YOUR age ... " and
"You really mustn't keep on at this pace. You're not forty anymore, you know."
I know I'm not forty: but why do I still feel seventeen in my heart?
The older I get, the younger I feel - even though the early autumn of life is gently starting to make its presence known.
Grey Brigade
I read of the 'grey brigade'. Why does that remark seem so sad?
What on earth is wrong with being grey?
Why not call those of us gently silvering 'the wise ones' or 'they who have valiantly paid taxes and borne the heat of the day with love for their family and community?'
That has a certain ring to it, and often is quite true.
Recently I was fortunate to be welcomed into an Asian home.
While there, I was asked by the family to bless them.
Apparently older people in the community are viewed as wise, and thus able to bestow a special blessing on the younger members of society.
I blessed them, and received a small gift and fruit. When the impromptu ceremony was over, the family, beaming, waved me off at the front door.
Please don't age
Contrasted to this joyous inclusion of the older individual into the younger community are the communiques I have recently been receiving.
I sometimes feel that I am being begged not to age - or at least give the appearance of not ageing.
I have been exhorted to consider Restylane. Apparently I am in dire need of injections into my face to look like a teenager again.
Another offer - at a price which made me look twice - is to have needles punctured into my face with a roller, so that collagen can grow again and make me look - you've guessed it - like a teen.
Look, believe me, it is wonderful being a teenager. I know. I spent some years as a teen, and enjoyed every minute of it.
Just as every day I am enjoying being in my fifties.
I do yoga, try and think kind thoughts, happily live in the light of God's love and remember every day that one day will be my last.
And I'll want it to be my best.
And no, I don't want to have my skin cut with a scalpel and tightened in order to feel younger.
It sounds painful, I'd be afraid of infection, and really why on earth would I want to cut away the years that God has signed on my face?
How did we become the way we are?
Let's look at our older selves. Yes, many have stretch marks.
And standing next to them, the beautiful children they grew and nurtured.
The marks are a glorious remembrance of life.
Some have wrinkles - lo and behold, I have lines at the ends of my eyes.
You have no idea the number of laughs that have gone into making those.
They show that not only did some rain fall into my life, but a lot of sun shone too.
Great friends who are excellent raconteurs, funny happenings which have brightened my days, joyous moments and adorable children and animals who have made me smile.
I really earned those crinkles - as I used to call them when I was a child.
Some have spider veins on the legs.
Often these were earned during long hours standing in dedicated and loyal service of others at home and at work.
Many of the wise ones have arthritic joints.
There is usually a story behind each twinge which comes on with the onset of rainy weather.
Many an old injury has been in the care of a loved one, or during the call of duty.
I remember hearing of one man who threw himself between his wife and newborn infant's bodies as they were hurtling forward in an accident.
In saving them from injury, he completely smashed the bones in his right hand.
There was a possibility he might never be able to use his hand again.
Yet this meant nothing to him. All he felt was relief at having saved them from injury.
Arthritic joints for him would be a quiet testament in perpetuity for being a noble husband and father.
Ageing is a privilege
It seems slightly sad not to rejoice in getting older. Many of our friends of beloved memory did not have that privilege.
So I will continue to gently sidestep those Restylane offers and pamphlets offering quick face lifts [even just the thought hurts].
Plastic surgery is essential for those in true need. But I really feel we don't need to erase the character life has placed on our faces.
The best answer I ever heard to an enquiry as to whether a non essential mini face-lift should be considered was the slightly bewildered reply, "Why would you ever consider ruining your natural beauty?"
Why indeed.
Luky
I HOPE YOU DON'T THINK I'M NAME-DROPPING WHEN I TELL YOU I'VE MET CELEBRITIES.
One of the things I liked about being a reporter was that I met people face to face that I only saw on the television screen before joining journalism.
It had its disadvantages too. It was a Saturday evening and I yearned to be with my family.
A celebrity was appearing at a school in a neighbouring town and he and his cast arrived half an hour later than expected.
I waited patiently in the foyer.
When they arrived, they made straight for the stage and I followed them to ask for a photo.
A man I also recognized as an actor firmly told me the celebrity was running late - as if I didn't know - and that I couldn't take my photo.
The celebrity heard him and came over to us. "I'm sure we can fit the press in," he said kindly. "Why don't we all pose together?"
He smiled, first at the man and then at me, and suddenly I didn't dislike the man any more and grinned at him, while he twinkled back at me.
When I got back home, my children were watching the celebrity's extravaganza on television.
"I've just taken his photo," I told them.
"What's he like, Mommy?"
"He sings like a bird and is the perfect gentleman," I said.
When I read that he and his wife were having marital problems, I really worried.
Having met him, I could understand why she wouldn't want to lose him.
In my hearing, people made jokes at his expense but these never made me laugh.
Others said his wife should have more pride. She shouldn't wear her heart on her sleeve.
"If a man treated me like that, I'd divorce him and sue him for his last cent," some women said.
But why should his wife lose her husband, simply because a few people she didn't even know felt she should have more pride?
Sure, he behaved badly. He was only human and in the sort of life he led there must have been many temptations.
That did not excuse him but he will have to answer for his own life before the Lord, as we all must, and He shows mercy to the contrite-hearted.
If the celebrity's wife still loved him she had every right to try to win him back.
I saw a photo of them once. He and she were at their daughter's wedding.
She looked broken-hearted and emaciated and he was a picture of guilt and contrition, lacking all glamour. But they were holding hands.
I think women can learn from the celebrity's wife. She was a woman who had loved and forgiven much.
She had not forgotten the joys of decades of married happiness because of a husband's yielding to weakness during his mid-life crisis.
To my mind, whether she got him back or not was not the issue. It was her loyalty and devotion which turned a tawdry scandal into a triumph of failure.
She knew life is simply too short to bear a grudge. And her humility and simplicity made her a legend in her own time.
Catherine Nicolette
From time to time I have heard of relationships and marriages going through rocky patches.
Many feel free to comment and pressurize the offended partner to divorce and get on with life.
And yet . . . there are indeed times when a relationship, a marriage can be saved.
It takes forgiveness and, for both parties, a long time for the offended partner to rebuild the utter trust that was so badly hurt.
It is true that some, given a second chance,
re-enact the same behaviour and permanently damage their marriage.
But there are many, unsung and unpublic relationships that have overcome trials and seemingly unsurmountable obstacles.
Once the pain of unfaithfulness is weathered, love may grow deeper having faced the apparently unfaceable.
If you feel your marriage has no chance, why not turn to God in prayer?
Many miracles are quietly wrought from day to day. Perhaps a miracle may occur in your marriage.
And, if you forgive your partner, do it wholeheartedly. It is a temptation to punish the other in perpetuity for a past transgression.
Don't do it. Leave the past in the past, and build a new future.
As the luminous Marlene Dietrich said, 'Once a woman has forgiven a man, she must not reheat his sins for breakfast.'
I add, 'And vice versa'.
Novena to Restore Marriage
Here is a novena which you can pray asking God for help in restoring your marriage.
Pray the following prayer for nine days:
"Heavenly Father, I come before You today with a heavy heart. My marriage is in trouble and I need Your help. Make changes in my spouse's heart. Make us compatible again, and bring us closer together. Fill us with Your Love and give us the strength to love one another, care for one another, and fulfil Your destiny for us.
Show us the harm caused by careless words, and the pain caused by emotional distance. Bring us together like we once were. Show us how to love one another again.
Heal the division between us. Make us one again.
In Your Name I pray. Amen." [1]
[1] Powerful Marriage Prayer and Prayer Request
http://www.prayers-for-special-help.com/marriage-prayer.html
With thanks to prayers-for-special-help.com
Luky
THE REASON WHY I FELT PARTICULARLY CHARITABLE TOWARDS MY YOUNGER SISTER'S HUSBAND WAS THAT HE PRESENTED ME WITH A SET OF POSTERS WHICH I PUT ALL OVER MY OFFICE, TO THE EDIFICATION AND AMUSEMENT OF MY COLLEAGUES.
He also arranged a braaivleis for me, which was not so nice since I had just bet with a colleague that she and I would each lose 5 kg during the three weeks of her absence on holiday.
The loser would pay the other R10 - at a time when that was good money.
I didn't have ten rand to throw around, and so I told my brother-in-law.
"Eat, Luke," he ordered, "I'll pay your bet."
Hound humour
The posters were lovely, balm to my soul.
"It doesn't matter if you win or lose", Snoopy proclaimed above the telex machine. "Until you lose!"
"The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness", exhorted the landscape view above my filing cabinet.
So I'm not the only seeker who feels that life is one long groping amid chaos for orderliness.
The post baskets were topped with another sign, illustrated by a glider floating in a golden evening sky.
It's one I constantly need to remind me not to be lazy. It said:
"You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however."
Over the telephone there was a winter landscape view in a forest with a Camus quotation: "In the midst of winter I finally learnt that there was in me an invincible summer."
How true. It is only when you've tasted the depth of grief, that you become aware of the bubbling well of joy within us which repairs all ravages of the grief we know.
Like the Lourdes well, this is a miraculous one, granted by God for the restoration of hope and the washing away of all despair.
Calm silence
Behind my desk there was the poster of a yacht at sea during sunset: "Each life needs its own quiet place".
Called talkative, loquacious and a chatterbox since I can remember, even I need my own quiet place, though I attain to it all too seldom.
"He leadeth me beside the still waters", said the poster near the window. Isn't it funny how David said it all for us in his time, all the mute words seeking utterance form our hearts?
He put into words for us in his psalms everything we strive vainly to explain to ourselves about the place God has in our lives.
To crown it all, he committed some pretty bad sins. That must be why we find it so easy to identify with him, and with Saint Peter, for that matter.
Above my typewriter there was a William Blake quotation:
We are put on earth a little space
That we may learn to bear the beams of love.
They adorned a picture of wheat in the sunlight, a symbolic picture. The sunlight is the love of God to which we are travelling, the wheat the Body of Christ give up for us so that we may reach this love when we have become mature enough to reciprocate.
At the door, what the cynics in my family would call a touch of sanity prevailed in the picture of a spaniel in a bucket, having a bath.
Surrounded by brushes, towels, soap boxes and covered in suds he mutely proclaimed:
"Was today really necessary?"
I put that picture in that spot because I hoped that if ever I became frustrated enough to write out my resignation from that job, the very different kind of resignation shining forth from the spaniel would tickle my sense of humour and make me tear up my own resignation forthwith.
Catherine Nicolette
A poster I saw many years ago and to which my mind often returns showed a little chick standing, very new and puzzled, in the midst of the shards of eggshell from which he had just hatched.
In large black lettering above his head was his question: "What now?"
Luky
I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN EXTREMELY FOND OF PEOPLE, THOUGH MY AFFECTION IS NOT ALWAYS RECIPROCATED.
It hardly ever happens to me that I meet a person whom I immediately think: "She's not my cup of tea."
Yet the reverse often happens.
Once I was introduced to a woman who behaved exactly the way I do - and, strange to admit, she did get terribly on my nerves.
That was a poser, I can tell you, and ever since then I've been unable to hold anything against people who find me a little hard to take.
The only people I really find it difficult to be fond of are those who complain all the time.
Copy the copers
I don't believe that it is necessary to moan so much.
Everyone has problems.Some cope, and some moan. I go for the copers, and try to emulate them.
And that's easy enough; didn't Our Lord say: "My yoke is easy and burden light?"
Complementary
How often do you have a sickly wife who has a strong and tender husband, or a sickly husband whose wife doesn't even catch cold in winter?
Isn't if funny how, when there is one sick partner, there is often enough money in the kitty to carry the family through.
Several times I have heard people say: "Funny, we had solved all our financial problems and built up a nice little nest egg: then father became ill and couldn't work for a year.
"If that had happened three years before, we would have been in the soup. As it was, we managed to weather the storm."
Replacement value
An orphan develops a hero worship for an understanding teacher, whom he puts in the place of unavoidably absent parents.
The teacher, while keeping a suitable distance, is kind to the child.
When the child passes to a higher standard, he has learnt to cope a little better with his deprivation.
And yet, now and again, you meet a person who seems to have received such a raw deal that even thinking of his misery touches your heart.
Some people are losers. They are the bullied ones.
They seldom complain, and after each bout of misfortune come up smiling with such poignant good cheer that your heart aches for them.
I think that when Jesus was so afraid in the Garden of Olives, He thought of such people - the ones psychologically unable to return cruelty for cruelty, losing their jobs and marriage partners to others not as deserving as themselves.
I often think that if the thought of them caused Jesus the sorrow they cause my infinitely less understanding heart and mind, then He had no choice in the matter but to take up His cross and die for humanity.
And I don't think it's the ones who succeed in life and business, nor the moaners, however put upon they were in life, who will be at the head of the queue marching into Heaven when the last judgement has been passed.
I think it will be those who tried so hard to do everything the way it should be done, yet never received the approval and support which we all crave.
Luky
THE DAY THE HEADLINES REPORTED A CELEBRITY BIRTH, SOMEONE I WORKED WITH DIED IN HOSPITAL.
One comes, another goes; it certainly set me thinking.
A couple of weeks previously, another friend at work had lost her mother.
She asked me to type out the funeral hymns and order of service.
Her mother and I shared the same birth date.
It occurred to me that one day someone else might be typing such a funeral service for me, and it made my pursuit of security seem paltry and nonsensical.
When I handed the pamphlets over to my friend, I tried to forget about the whole thing, but the death of the man in the hospital brought it back to me.
He was such a vitally alive person - always a joke or a quip.
And now he had gone to God. May he rest in peace.
Same both ways
"If you worry you die, if you don't worry you also die", goes the saying, and it is during such times of ultimate realities that we reflect on such words.
The new baby could do nothing for himself, yet by the grace of God and the God-given skills of the doctors and nursing staff, he had been safely born.
The old man often worried. I know, he used to tell me about it, and now he was gone.
Did he waste his time worrying?
As an arch worrier, I feel ill-qualified to pass judgement.
"A coward dies many times, a brave man only once." I must have died a thousand deaths in my time.
General flap
Years ago there was a spot of bother at the mine where my husband was employed.
He was standing in the office, waiting for instructions, when his boss turned on him:
"For heaven's sake, Paddy, don't just stand there, do something!" he snapped.
Eager to oblige - what father of six would not be - my husband stood to attention and said: "Yes sir, what would you like me to do?"
"Well, if you can't think of anything else, at least you can panic, can't you?"
I'm the one who panics in our family. I panic about the poor, about the spiritual and moral welfare in my family, about what happens to orphans.
I panic about all the times I have been weighed and found wanting.
I panicked when I could not fit my office work into the eight hours available.
I panic when I wake up in the night and when I drive through heavy traffic.
The right attitude
Sean did not panic. He panicked until he had five heart attacks.
Thereafter, whenever he felt uptight, he relaxed and said: "Sure Ma, this is the life of Reilly." Good for him.
When the apostles were in the boat and implored Jesus to quell the storm, saying
"Lord, save us lest we perish", they acted the same way I do every day.
And Christ's words: "Why are ye fearful, oh ye of little faith?" have never yet managed to shame me into letting go.
We were caught in a dreadful storm on the sea once.
The waves were like mountains, and I was so terrified I froze and could not even speak.
Catherine Nicolette and my second oldest were about three and four years old, and the more the ship dipped and shook, the more blissfully they slept.
God protected them and they lived, not to tell the tale, because they didn't know about it, but they lived.
But I relive that boat journey and ponder on the uselessness of fretting, every time I hear Catherine Nicolette sing one of her favourite songs:
"Rocked in the cradle of the deep
I lay me down in peaceful sleep.
Secure, I rest upon the waves.
For Thou, O Lord, hast power to save."
Catherine Nicolette
The beautiful words of the hymn:
Rocked in the cradle of the deep,
I lay me down in peaceful sleep.
Secure I rest upon the wave
For Thou, O Lord, has power to save.
I known Thou wilt not slight my call,
For Thou dost mark the sparrow's fall.
Chorus:
And calm and peaceful is my sleep,
Rocked in the cradle of the deep.
And calm and peaceful is my sleep,
Rocked in the cradle of the deep.
And such the trust that still were mine,
Tho' stormy winds swept o'er the brine,
Or tho' the tempest's fiery breath,
Roused me from sleep to wreck and death.
In ocean cave still safe with Thee,
The hope of immortality.
Chorus;
And calm and peaceful is my sleep,
Rocked in the cradle of the deep.
And calm and peaceful is my sleep,
Rocked in the cradle of the deep.
Luky
YEARS AGO I ACQUIRED THE TASTE FOR THE HUMOUR OF THE LATE P G WODEHOUSE.
I have just reread his Jeeves omnibus with considerable enjoyment and smiled at the anti-hero, wealthy Bertie Wooster, who is as silly as he is good-natured.
He is a bachelor of good health, has plenty of money and employs a valet, Jeeves, who has all the intelligence he himself lacks.
On the face of it Bertie has no problems.
You know what Pip Freedman calls a bachelor:"The wisest man on earth, because he looks before he leaps, and then he doesn't leap at all."
Yet Bertie is dogged by bad luck on account of his succession of scrape-prone friends who rely on his good nature and Jeeves's good sense to get them out of hot water.
Having finished the book, I thought to myself: Doesn't that just go to show that the problems we create for ourselves are far more difficult than real problems?
There was a time when we were very broke, a long time in fact.
I think it may have been the happiest time of my life - I know the days when the end of the month came had a charm second to few other pleasures I can recall.
One day my neighbour and I were having a chat over the fence and she was in a terrible state.
"I hate cooking!" she complained. "My husband and children are so jolly fussy.
John doesn't eat steak, Jane doesn't like chops, Joan refuses to eat chicken and my husband won't take pork."
I looked at her with a sense of wonderment, my mind going off on its own.
At that time I could do wonders with a pound of mince, an onion and a couple of tomatoes, and my family devoured everything I put before them.
In fact if the dog wanted some, he had to look snappy.
My neighbour was finished talking and was looking at me appealingly, but I could hardly tell her what I thought, which roughly summarized was as follows:
"First you take John, Jane and Joan and give them a good talking to.
Secondly, you serve them a plat of mealiemeal with a teaspoonful of unsweetened condensed milk.
Then you make a parcel of the steak, chops and chicken to give to the homeless service, leaving only enough for a mixed grill for your husband, who's entitled to turn down the pork, since it doesn't agree with everyone's constitution, and he who pays the piper calls the tune."
Luky
YEARS AGO WHEN MY DAUGHTER AND I WERE DOING A STINT AS NURSES IN LOURDES, WE MET THE LEADER OF A GROUP OF PILGRIMS FROM PARIS.
I'll call him Monsieur G.
Hinting broadly, I mentioned that I had always wanted to visit the Rue du Bac in Paris, and as I had hoped, Madame G invited us to her flat for dinner on the day we were to arrive in Paris, after which she would show us around.
I shall remember that visit to my dying day.
Not only was her cooking a tribute to French cuisine, but we had our first proper bath in three weeks.
Pity the poor
I had never before lived in a place without a bathroom, and now I know that poor people who have to are even worse off than I thought.
Not to be able to have my daily bath is worse than not having enough to eat.
How marvellous it is that so many people still manage to keep clean.
I'll try never again to criticize people who don't look overly well scrubbed.
Surprise
Between us, Madame G and I cooked up a little surprise for my daughter.
On our way to the Rue du Bac chapel, we got out of the bus in front of the Louvre.
My daughter looked around for the chapel before she realized we really had made it to her mecca.
She had begged me at Lourdes to take her to the Louvre as well as to the Rue du Bac, bu I had told her I didn't dare ask Madame G .
Then Madame astonished me by offering the trip itself.
Talk about sore feet! I cursed my vanity all the way up and down the corridors of the Louvre.
But talk about beauty - my jaw hung as I tried to take in the glory of the sculptures.
Did you know that the Venus de Milo has such a beautiful back?
One who knows
My daughter, who took art classes from sub A to matric and was doing fine arts at university, appointed herself as our guide.
She explained in detail why the Nike of a place that sounds like Alcatraz had no head, and another man had no feet.
"Spare me", I begged. "Till I knew how to drive, I always enjoyed a trip in the car.
Until I learn the finer points of art, I'll enjoy that."
Naughty Napoleon
At one point we entered a bottleneck entrance into a pharoah's tomb.
"Napoleon was naughty", Madame G admitted, "to steal all these beautiful objects from the countries he conquered."
But from her indulgent smile I gathered that Napoleon, right or wrong, had a great fan in Madame G.
Inside, rows of little men were carved from top to bottom.
Though they weren't much bigger than one's hand, the leg and arm muscles were evident.
Those little men could have jumped from that wall and you wouldn't have been surprised.
Those tapestries, those paintings - O glorious Rembrandt, how proud of you this fellow countryman of yours felt once again.
We saved the Mona Lisa for last, the last that is of our afternoon's trip.
I think you could spend a month going daily into the Louvre without feeling that you had taken in a fraction.
Once when I had told my dad how ugly I thought the Mona Lisa was, he said: "One day you may find yourself in the Louvre.
On that day you must look at her face from different positions.
You'll find her eyes following you everywhere."
Always looking
Remembering his words I stood in six different positions, and believe it or not, La Giaconda's mocking eyes seemed to turn on me each time, as though to say: "You thought I was ugly, did you?"
Sorry Mona. You're breathtakingly beautiful.
My daughter, being educated to appreciate art properly, took a different view of all the glory.
Yet in the end she astonished me by saying: "It was all terribly beautiful, and far more wonderful than I could have dreamt possible.
"But give me the human body as I saw it in Lourdes, wracked by disease and pain.
I'm going to leave university and start training as a nurse so that I can relieve suffering."
She did just that, much to the dismay of her father, who thereafter called her Florence Nightingale.
But I walked on air. To have a child in the medical profession had always been a dream of mine.
