The Image and Likeness of God

LUKY:
WHEN my eldest child was working during the holidays, I asked her to remember me to one of her colleagues whom I'd known for many years.
     "Let me see, now", the woman said. "I can't remember. . .yes, now I recall, that was the woman who had a baby not so long ago, and was so distressed about it she almost wept."
     "That's not my mother", my daughter said sturdily, but she was much shaken.
It took two months before she told me about it and I couldn't believe my ears.
     "Wept?" I said. "For joy, perhaps, but for no other reason.
I was so excited when I found out about your sister that the sun shone more brightly, the flowers had prettier colours, and the birds sang a completely new tune.
     "As for your father, he was so thrilled that despite my swearing him to secrecy, he was telling people about the baby from the word go."

Reassured
My daughter felt relieved.
"I knew you'd never have said anything against having any one of us", she assured me.
"It shook me rigid that anyone could even remotely think you had rejected one of us, even only verbally."
A few months before I knew we would ever have our last little daughter, someone asked if I'd be upset to be pregnant again.
Though I didn't think it a likely contigency, I'm eternally grateful that my answer was: "I wouldn't like to say; you never know what can happen."
     I'll always say that. I never cared how many children I would have; each one is as precious as the first, a completely unique human being, made in the Image and Likeness of God.

When I told my mother about the baby, she told me a story about a friend of hers whose husband was a qualified lawyer by the time his mother had her youngest child.
They were a very large family, fifteen, I think.
     When the baby was born, the parents sent cards out to their relatives and friends, a common custom in Holland. On the card the parents listed the names of all their children, in addition to that of the new baby.
     Then a single line was printed below: "Which of these children will offer the greatest homage to God?"

An honour
     I come from an environment where the large family was not derided as it so often is now.
In our family it was an honour to bear many children.
I have at least sixty-one first cousins alive in different parts of the globe, and those whom I've met again were people you'd be proud to know, for all that some of them had to wear their bigger brothers' and sister' hand-me-downs as they grew up.

My youngest, our laatlammetjie,* is the joy of all our lives.
We may get annoyed with one another and disagree about every topic under the sun, but one thing we all agreed about: "There's no baby more adorable than ours."
One day a girl and I were talking when an untidy-looking woman passed by.
"Look at her," the girl said.
"Slovely, untidy, stupid-looking; I bet she's the type that has at least six children."
I didn't like to remind her that I'm in the same boat myself, but I marvelled at the contempt for mothers of large families she so frankly expressed.
Knowing how much effort, money and sacrifice a large family entails, I always respect such mothers, even though they may be untidy at times.

Surprise, surprise
There comes a time in all parents' lives when they feel past the age of bringing up children.
"Nice", they decide, "all the children are at school. We only do the laundry once a week instead of every day. The house is tidy. We live like civilised human beings. It's good to know there'll never be another little hurricane to disrupt our well organised existence."

And yet it is at this stage, very often, that the mother becomes pregnant again, making a mockery of all her careful planning.
So many of my friends had babies in their late thirties and early forties.
     And what was their answer if you asked about the youngest?
It seldom varied, and ran along these lines: "Oh, I'm so grateful for that little after-thought of ours. 
She helps to keep us young."

*Laatlammetjie - Afrikaans for 'Ewe lamb'

Don't be upset by the person in the mirror

 LUKY
DID YOU ever listen to Earl Nightingale in the early morning Springbok Radio show?
We did, and it always amazes me that this man could think up something new in the line of encouragement and inspiration each day.
One morning I missed him, though my husband, driving home from night shift on the mine, picked him up on his car radio.
"You'd have been very cross with Earl Nightingale this morning, Ma" he told me, struggling to hide a smile.
"How come?"
"Well", my husband said - subconsciously straightening himself - "he was saying how men of forty-five are lithe and trim, youthful-looking and at the peak of their professional careers, while their wives are overweight, dowdy and. . ." - his voice died uncertainly away.

"You know how it is", I said, shrugging, "Some people are utterly obsessed with weight and the body beautiful.
I saw a photo of Bette Davis last week and she looks like my teenage daughter, and so does Marlene Dietrich, although she was already a granny when I was in primary school.
You can't compete with them."

Funny how things happen in sequence.
An hour later I met a woman with a little boy of two or three.
He had a cast in one eye and she was trying to coax him into wearing his glasses, one lens of which was shrouded in plaster.
"He is so self-conscious about wearing his glasses", she said nervously, trying to smile.
"He thinks they make him look ugly."
And so this little chap of two or three already felt that he was looking ugly and trying not to.
I couldn't help feeling sorry for the child, because I have spent many years of my life worrying about weight and other beauty problems.
That little kid of two or three had more time on his hands than I did, but if he'd got any sense he would have put those glasses on his nose right away and forgotten about them.

There are very few beautiful women who would not lose some of their appeal if someone turned a garden hose on them.
Each of us has got something wrong with his looks.
Some people have bandy legs, and I often think that's why slacks made such a big hit with the female population.
Other people have cauliflower ears or square hands, buck teeth or blonde eyelashes.
I have heard girls crying about the shape of their noses and the colour of their eyes and hair.

And in the midst of that I always remember my mother's voice raised in warning:
"How can you be so ungrateful, moaning about your appearance when God gave you such good health?"
At the time we just sighed:
"Oh Mommy! You don't understand!"
Just as my daughter used to say to me: "Oh Mommy! I couldn't even begin to explain to you how I feel."

But I do know, and she didn't have to explain at all.
However, though I think it's important for everyone to be scrupulously clean and to try to make the best of personal looks, I'd advise anyone who has beauty or weight problems to stop worrying overmuch and to concentrate on his or her personality instead.
Because though I've seen that looks can attract friends, I've always found it was personality that keeps them.

Catherine Nicolette
I rather think it was myself who used to sigh from the depths of my teenage South African soul that Mom didn't understand how I felt.
Really, teenage years were not easy at all.
But the funniest thing I remember from that time is when I, in all seriousness, asked Mom;
"What is the difference between mere prettiness and true beauty?"
And Mom, without raising her eyes from her newspaper and cup of coffee, replied without missing a beat;
"Estee Lauder."

The Wonderful Earl Nightingale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5CrZ7lIO58

Don't you 'Luky' me, kids!



LUKY
I HATE young children to address me by my first name.
It seems to be a habit among the people I know to call everyone John and Mary, no matter what the age difference.
It certainly isn't a Dutch custom, or wasn't when I grew up.
I consider myself old enough for youngsters to have some respect for me.
For instance, a visitor came the other day with a little girl who at length asked a second cup of tea.
"Mommy, may I have another cup of tea?"
"I don't know, dear - ask Luky."
"Luky, can I please have another cup of tea?"
Why Mommy but not Mrs Whittle? I can't see it.

A Little Respect
I even called my own husband Mr Whittle for nearly two years before I started calling him by his name.
My own children aren't overly respectful to their elders.
If they can get away with calling an older person by his name, they'll do so, especially my youngest, because her own brothers and sisters are so much older than she that she doesn't have that natural feeling of awe most of us grew up with.
But when I'm present they don't get away with it.
A little respect for one's elders has never harmed anyone.

Even if my husband never minded being called Sean, or more popularly Paddy, his children were far more respectful of him than they are of me.
He was rather short, though this never worried him unduly, as he confided to me once.
"In my heart I feel ten feet tall", and his personality more than made up for his lack of height.

When I brought my eldest son home from the hospital as a babv, and we were admiring him, his father said: "He's going to be a very tall boy."
Then he laughed.
"Just imagine, Ma, when he's fifteen and I'm laying down the law to him, I'll be shaking my finger up at him.
Then he'll look down sheepishly and answer: "Sorry, Dad."

Funny
To me it is a pantomime to see how differently the children treated him from the way they treat me.
I'm good old ma, the one you can take for a ride, mostly.
He was pa, the unpredictable keg of dynamite who on his own admission "doesn't give tuppence" whether the neighbours heard him yell when the children drove him too far.

One day something happened between my son and myself which I described to his father that evening.
His father called him in.

Prophecy fulfilled
"What would you do", his father asked, "if your mother died and someone were to tear up her photograph?"
"I'd fix him", my son said, glaring balefully at the very idea.
"Well, that's the way I feel now since your mother told me. . ." and my husband continued, confronting him with his misdeed.

Suddenly his prediction of 19 years before came true.
His son, fully a head taller than himself, sheepishly muttered: "Sorry, Dad."
Never one to push his advantage, his father moved off majestically.

Retort
But you can't keep a good man down.
No sooner had he closed the door than my eldest son turned on me.
"You traitor," he hissed, shaking his index finger under my nose, "you went and betrayed me to Dad after the way I trusted you.
Just for that I'll let them tear up your photograph."

He strode huffily from the room, careful to take a different direction from the one his father had chosen, as I collapsed on to the nearest chair, helpless with laughter.

No wonder they don't respect me.

Children's charm goes straight to the heart

Luky;
A MAN I worked with has a little son, the cutest little character you ever saw.
Once I read a book about a bachelor who, when describing the disinterested regard of happily married women towards unmarried men, called it "the glazed indifference of the newly wed."

Having all those children myself, I suppose I regard other people's children also with a certain glazed indifference.
But my colleague's son is something else entirely.
Nobody could feel indifferent to him.

It is not only his appearance which brings us all to our knees.
He is short for his age - almost three - and he is intelligent enough for a four year old.
He wears little white-rimmed glasses, framing behind spectacles the most innocent eyes you ever saw.
But it's his remarkable self-possession that we all admire most.

Confidence
My office is at the entrance to the building.
The glass door has a low handle, and many's the time I've been  typing when I've heard the front door open.
Looking up from my typing, I'd spot him hurtling across my office to his father's door.
There the handle is high.

He does not talk, he does not greet anyone, and he does not ask anyone to open the door.
He simply beats a tattoo on his father's door (which his father does not hear on account of the air conditioning), then stands confidently, waiting for someone to open for him.
And someone always does.

His eyes brimming with laughter, lips twitching as he tried to keep his poise, the little guy practically forces you into acquiring some of your own.

Loving leap
His father, normally a shy man, smiles and holds out his arms and the little chap leaps on to his lap and peers through his glasses at the piles of papers scattered on his dad's desk, the perfect little accountant.

We have given up trying to have a conversation with him.
He is so patently an adult in his own mind that one would feel foolish to talk down to him.
I left him alone, hoping he would eventually strike up a conversation from his end.
And last week he did.
Wearing a pair of green trousers, he paused midway through my office and without preamble informed me: "Vandag is ek pragtig aangetrek." *
Then with his usual sang-froid he betook himself to his father's office, this time having the door opened to him by the sales manager.

Flu
His father was absent once with the flu.
Three days later he returned, pale and with his throat still hoarse, obviously far from well.
"I suppose your little man nursed you with unflagging care?" I asked, laughing.
He rolled his eyes heavenward.
"I love him, he's the light of my life," he croaked, "but heavens! He's industrious.
In and out of my bedroom with his toys and his tools.
Hops on the bed next to me, pulling the blankets straight and pulling up my pillows, then out again."
"I know," I nodded, "and as solemn as a little dominee throughout."

Special appeal
What joys children do bring us.
My husband put it in a nutshell.
"Often when we used to have a tiff, you and I, I didn't feel like coming home to you.
I'd think of the baby - and there always was one there - I'd melt at the thought, hop into the car and go straight home.
"If women only knew the power they have over their husbands when they give them children, they'd have more of them."

Large family
But then my husband thought nothing of having a large family.
Where he came from everyone did.
"My mother was ashamed of her life on Sundays, going to Mass with only seven children, what with Mrs Flaherty from over the road sweeping in with her ten, and Mrs Murphy's fourteen."

Perhaps we'll never see such big families again.
The smaller, more manageable family has become acceptable.
But to my mind, be they one or ten in your brood, children's charm go straight to the heart.

*'Today I'm beautifully dressed"

Every generation has its singularities

Luky;

ONE evening I was invited to a function and my husband Sean, having a night off, came with me.

We sat beside some unmarried girls I worked with.
Suddenly one of them dug her elbow into me and said:
"Luky, do you see that man?
He's the most good-looking guy I've ever seen."
I looked across, saw a tall fellow with a face only a mother could love, and marvelled at the change in what was called good-looking then and what was considered handsome when I was young.

A handsome man
If you'd asked me whom I considered handsome when I was a teenager, I'd have told you Archbishop Hurley, Gregory Peck, Rock Hudson and Stewart Granger in that order.
My colleagues' paragon of male beauty, in my eyes, fell far short of the standards set by those men in those days.
The girl who was talking to me wasn't a teenager.
She was an university graduate whose first language was not English.
She'd been battling to speak to Sean.
I said: "You'd have to speak English to that man, if he took you out."
I was rewarded by a beatific smile: "For him I'd speak ... er ... how do you say ... oh yes, Oxford English!"

Another colleague joined us.
She had been filling up her plate at the supper table, making sure everything she took contained the minimum of kilojoules.
She took a look at the young man with his perm and rugged face, and agreed: "Oh yes, he's beautiful."
As he passed me on his way to the bar, I wondered what had gone wrong with me.
Why has my taste never developed?
I hate perms on girls, never mind men.

Long locks
I felt like a fish out of water with the rising generation - even with my own children.
When my son arrived home one holiday, his glossy locks reaching way below his shoulders, the only thing that stopped me from doing a Delilah act and snipping his locks whilst he slept was the thought that he would never visit me again if I did.
I'm happy to say that his hair is shorter now, but the next holidays when he came home he was wearing a necklace.
I could have forgiven him that if he'd let me put a miraculous medal on it, but not a chance.

I suppose every generation has its singularities, but deep in our hearts most of us love God and try to live good and productive lives.
We should give the young credit for their sincerity, just as we wanted others to do to us when we were young.

The answer was a lemon - a Catholic lemon

Luky;
HOPING for a giggle, I asked the woman at the SPCA whether it's permissible for a Catholic cat to be spayed.
My joke fell flat.
Remember the Mrs Jones I told you about - the one who was going to call her son Referendum?
Well, I failed to add that she later became a Catholic, and joined her husband and children who already were Catholics.
I never saw such a joy in anyone, unless it was in Jenna, our housekeeper, who was married and received into the Church one Christmas.
Both Mrs Jones and Jenna had this in common: for at least two weeks both walked around in a haze of sheer joy, looking beautiful and smiling all the while.

Fruitful
Mrs Jones' ready wit did not suffer for long, I'm happy to say.
Visiting her sister to bring her a basket of lemons, she flinched when she was told off.
"Thanks for the lemons, but what's this I hear about your becoming a Catholic?
For shame, a staunch non-denominational like yourself!
Mommy and Daddy must be turning in their graves."

The sermon went on for another few minutes.
Then Mrs Jones got annoyed and looked at her watch.
"How time does run on", she said.
"I must be going now.
Can I have my basket, please - and are you sure you want these Catholic lemons?"

The Catholic cat I mentioned was a lovely white stray who was lost in the local convent grounds.
She went along to the pupils and their parents, rubbing her head against their legs.
"Mommy, please," my daughters pleaded when I came to fetch them, "can't we take the kitty home?
She doesn't belong here. We asked the man who's been working here since the school started, and he's sure she's a stray."

Time to claim
I'm not mad about cats.
"Let's take her to the SPCA instead", I suggested.
"Maybe there's a child crying her eyes out for her pet."
At the SPCA a woman took charge of the cat and promised to give her all the injections.
"Then, if nobody claims her, I'll contact you in three weeks' time."

Three weeks seemed a long time for the child to claim her pet, so I drove off confidently.
"People don't come back for cats - only dogs", the SPCA woman said three weeks later when she contacted me.
"Your cat has had all the injections, and you can come for her next Monday.
That will be eleven rand and fifty cents, please."

In for a penny, in for a pound.
"Why can't I fetch her today?"
"We're having her spayed first."
It was then that I made my corny crack.

Surprise!
It was quite a reception party which accompanied my husband to the SPCA the next Monday, while I stayed home and sulked.
We had so many birds in the garden, and I knew what would happen to them once we left a cat on the premises.
When the car stopped, the children came hurtling in to my room.
"Guess what happened, Mommy?
We couldn't get the cat today.
This morning she had four lovely kitties.
She'll have to feed them for six weeks, and then we can go back and fetch her."

My husband explained;
"How do you like that, Ma?
The doctor was going to spay the cat, but when he examined her he found she was going to have kittens, so that was the end of that.
"The SPCA woman said she was obviously abandoned because her owners knew she was expecting, but she has already found homes for three of the kittens."

My Catholic cat had had the last meow.

Miracles happen all the time

Luky;
THERE was a song we used to sing in church when my eldest daughter played the organ.
Our best singer would sing each verse, and we'd all join in the refrain:
"I believe in miracles; I've seen a soul set free /
Miraculous the change in one redeemed through Calvary /
I've seen the lily push its way up through the stubborn sod /
I believe in miracles, for I believe in God."
Do you believe in miracles? I do. Plenty have happened to me in my life.

I was there
The big ones I don't talk about much, because people always get an odd little smile on their faces when I do, as if to say "poor fanatic - and you can see she actually believes it."
Well, I do, because I was there when they happened.
And it's those who believe in miracles to whom they do happen.
If you truly believe that a piece of bread and a drop of wine undergo transubstantiation when the words of consecration are spoken by an ordained priest, then the little mriacles that have happened to me are puddysticks by comparison.
But, being human, I love my little miracles and get much comfort from remembering them.

Dusty volume of old Dutch series
At one time I was praying in a certain way, and got the feeling that I was unworthy to pray that way because of my sinfulness.
That very day I opened a dusty volume of an old Dutch series of books about our Lord's revelations to Saint Gertrude.

Sweet memory
My eye fell on a paragraph which quoted our Lord as saying to the saint: "why do you feel reluctant and unworthy to pray to me (in the way I was praying)?
Do you not know that the fragrance of the perfume is not impaired by the simplicity of the container?"
That day sweetness filled my heart and mind, and the memory of it still fills me with joy.

In a smaller way, something strange happened to me while my children were still growing up.
I was having a fight with one of my kids (that's not strange; it's normal.)
The child had mowed the lawn and tidied the garden, and was demanding payment.
I felt as though I had failed in bringing up my children.
I said: "How can you demand payment from your parents for lending a hand?
If you need money, tell me how much and I'll make a plan.
But surely you don't expect payment for helping your hard-working parents?"

Got soft
Well, my child gave as good as he got.
Gone are the old days when they would have run a mile before they dared to answer me back - I've become soft in my old age.
Just then a song started playing on Springbok Radio.
Rooted in my tracks, I listened; then I hauled the child in to listen too.

You may have heard the song.
It's about a a boy who brought his mother an invoice, detailing various chores he had performed for her and stating what each cost.
The mother produced a pen and wrote out an invoice of her own.
"To nine months carrying you in my womb - no charge;
to bringing you into the world in sorrow and pain - no charge;
to the tears I shed for you - no charge."

Nothing owing
By now I was shedding some tears of my own and ducked into the sitting room, but I could hear the end of the song.
The boy wrote at the bottom of his invoice: "Paid in full."
My heart was full, because I felt that again our Lord had performed a little miracle.
The child was very quiet too, looking rather taken aback.

I'm no diplomat. I like pressing home my advantage, so I wiped my tears and blew my nose and said:
"I was trying to tell you something in the corridor there, but I hadn't the eloquence.
So our Lord allowed a small miracle to happen by inspiring the disc jockey to play that very song to show you how He would feel about your demanding payment."

"As a rule, Jesus doesn't go in for performing miracles; He has nothing to prove.
So if you're wise, you'll remember this one for the rest of your life."

The child still regarded me mutinously, so I added:
"That piece of advice comes to you at no charge."


Revelations of St Gertrude
http://www.catholictradition.org/Gertrude/revelations.htm

Song; 'I believe in miracles'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMEJXFCGRHI

Lyrics to 'I believe in miracles'
http://www.hymnlyrics.org/requests/i_believe_in_miracles.php

Song 'No Charge'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiaY2GQuuzA

With thanks to Youtube