When my son used to come home from boarding school for the December holidays, I breathed a sigh of relief. The housework after office hours had been getting us all down. My daughter had been on night duty at the hospital, my husband wasn't well, and I seemed to have so many outside activities going that even the weekends couldn't give me enough time to keep everything up to date. I made a final all-out effort to get the house clean and tidy before my son arrived. Then I asked him to take over.
Home job
He had taken holiday jobs before and had been offered one again this time, but he turned it down and worked for us instead. And he is the most incredible worker. He kept his brothers and sisters under control without effort. He made the house shine like a new pin. The beds were made with precision, the kitchen was shone up with a dry cloth after being washed with a wet cloth, and he was thorough with the vacuum cleaner and the dust cloth.
There was only one flaw: he simply stuffed anything he found lying around into the nearest drawer or cupboard.
Lost in tidiness
My house was not big enough for a family of eight, and everything had its place; not because I'm so precise but because I had no option. But a week after my son took over domestic duties, we couldn't find a thing. Whether it was a pen, a needle, a pair of scissors, a hairbrush, a brother shoe or a teapot we were searching for, it simply couldn't be found. It was simpler to go out and buy a new tin opener or a potato knife then to open those overstuffed drawers.
My husband was no help when I went to him to complain. He thought my son's hoarding instincts were hilarious. "He's a boy", he said indulgently. "What do you expect?"
Things couldn't go on
Much though I enjoyed my rest, things couldn't go on like this. My son had an appointment in Pietersburg for December 16th that year, and I laid my plans. The 16th being a holiday, I took the 15th and 17th off from work as well, donned my apron, and got to work.
On the morning of the 15th I saw my son off at the station. As we said goodbye to each other, we reached a peak of mutual affection we had seldom felt since the time when he was small and told my sister:
"Auntie, I'm happy for a mom."
Help at hand
He was off, and I thought of how much I loved him, drove home, and got stuck into the house. Catherine Nicolette was off work, and she started at the other end. Holding up the detachable bristle part of my hairbrush, I said to her: "Won't we look well groomed for Christmas?" Whereupon she produced the nail scissors from the piano stool.
I had this oak furniture I would never allow anyone to touch with furniture polish, preferring to settle for elbow grease. But after my son's cavalier treatment of my dining room suite, I was forced to buy some.
Order restored
By late afternoon, order had been restored to the cupboards. My hair rollers were back in their vanity case; needle and cotton reposed in the sewing box; Catherine's peep-toe shoes had been triumphantly rescued from under a pair of heavy boots in the monk's bench in the boys' room, and she was making the furniture shine like the sun.
"This stuff's marvellous", she said, holding up the tin like the woman in the television commercial. "You must always use it, then people will think you know what's potting."
Unexpected return
I was still pondering the obscurity of this remark when my son was brought in by his brothers and sisters, whom we had banned to the garden for the duration of our cleaning spree.
"What on earth are you doing here?" my daughter demanded.
"Well, I live here", he countered, "and I hope you're not turning me out. I've carried this case back all the way from the station."
It turned out that he had fallen asleep on the train. No one had told him that he was to change to the Johannesburg train at Henneman, so when he opened his eyes he found himself back in Welkom.
The reason why
He had got out of the train uncomprehendingly, then had to jump on again as it set off to Allanridge with his luggage. Having spent several hours in Allanridge, he was again taken back to Welkom, from where he walked all the way home with his suitcase.
And that was the reason why he did not attend the ordination of the priest on December 16. Our family offered our belated congratulations in writing, which my son would have given if only our excellent organisation had not blown up into our faces...
*Photograph taken by Catherine Nicolette of the beautiful Free State in South Africa..
Please feel free to use photo copyright free for any worthy purpose
Luky;
When I was a teenager at boarding school, I was very unpopular and had no friends. At school this is a terrible humiliation. You want to be like everybody else. Everyone else seems to have someone to talk to and laugh with, and you tend to get the feeling all eyes are on you. You wish you could shrink into the wall.
"If everyone dislikes me, I must be a terrible person", you finally admit to yourself. I found myself praying that on Sunday one of the girls would be sick so that I could partner her friend on the long walk to Naval Hill.
Now I know why
In those days I never believed that the time would come when I'd see a good reason for my loneliness, but now I have. You see, being unwanted by everyone was the cause of my wandering into the church every day, and reading the pamphlets on the stand at the back. The riches I gleaned there have upheld me through all subsequent sorrows and trials. Besides, once I got the message God wanted to convey to me, my luck changed. I got my husband and children, and lots of friends too.
I think the main thing I learned from the pamphlet, was to say the rosary every day. This has been the key to my tranquillity through trials which otherwise might have destroyed me. The Archconfraternity of the Rosary had some very eloquent pamphlets there. Make a commitment to say five decades of the rosary three times weekly, they urged. Fill in your name on the dotted line and send it to us.
At the time I must have been saying more than fifteen decades per week. We said five daily with the nuns for a start, but I didn't feel that counted. For about four months I said those rosary prayers on my own. Then I took a deep breath, filled in the pledge card and sent it to the confraternity.
Memorable man
I was in standard nine when Fr Patrick Peyton came to school. He was a holy man. Although everybody in South Africa thronged to him as they had done in other continents, he breathed humility. When I shook hands with him, I had the feeling I never wanted to wash my hand again.
I have always been attracted to the Irish. The nuns at school were Irish, and they were so good to me. So I was all ears when Fr Peyton told us about the strength of Irish family life.
The family that prays together, stays together
He told us of his travels. "People were so much better off than those in Ireland. They all seemed to have a little house and a little car. When I compared their affluence to the poverty of the people back at home, I thought they must be very happy." Fr Peyton further told us that he found people of affluence had their own sorrows, and that the rate of family breakup was high. He started wondering why, and found that the strength of the Irish was that they prayed together.
"That is when I first felt the need to propagate my slogan:
The family that prays together, stays together."
Misfortune brought us back to prayer
Father Peyton was eloquent, and he convinced me. I started saying the rosary with my husband during the six months of our courtship, and we said it daily with our children when they were still at home.
There was a bad patch in the sixties when we tried not saying the ten Hail Mary's and instead spent two minutes in silence, pondering on each mystery. My husband soon became fed up with that, and we shelved the rosary for two years - until we had some new misfortune. This brought us back to our knees.
Blessings and miracles
If I told you the blessings and miracles that have happened to us, but I won't even try. Just start saying the rosary daily in your own family, and the miracles will start happening to you. Why not make a commitment! Sign your name on the dotted line! Pray daily with your family or community. It will bring you only happiness and blessings untold.
Catherine Nicolette;
I recently visited Welkom where I spent much of my youth. My brother Jo and I spent happy hours being chauffered around by Mom in her venerable car, Gertrude. As Gertrude sailed stalwartly around the Welkom circles like a galleon in full sail, Mom driving with her usual Amsterdam verve, we eventually bypassed a spot in the road near the Welkom clock tower. (To all you Wellies, yes; the clock tower next to where the Library used to be, next to the Horseshoe).
And, in a moment, I remembered many years ago...
I was all of seventeen, with long hair and great youthful dignity. Mom had hailed a taxi, and it was one which had been driven for years by a lady.
I had seen her many times, and Mom used to always stop and speak to her. They were great friends.
We climbed in the taxi and, as we drove along, the lady turned to me at the very spot in the road of which I have just reminisced. and said to me,
"My, but you've grown so big.
I remember you when you were just that height, why you must have been very young when I first saw you."
Mom nodded, "Yes, she was five years old."
"Well," continued the lady, "I have forgotten many passengers, but you I'll never forget.
As I was driving, I looked back at you. You were so small and self-possessed in the back of the car.
I said to you: "Little girl, do you have anything to say to me?"
And your little voice piped up from the back of the car,
"Home, James, and don't spare the horses." "
*Photograph of the beautiful Free State outside of Welkom taken by Catherine Nicolette. Please feel free to use copyright free for any worthy purpose
Luky;
ELLY, my sister, died last year at the age of 75 on St Martha's feast day, July 29th. With her, an extra dimension vanished from my life. She was a typical Amsterdamse. Feisty with an uncompromising tongue, a horror of betraying her true feelings and a heart of pure gold. A competent amateur actress, she believed in leaving her audience laughing. She usually did.
We grew up in the house in Amsterdam, Holland, where my father had a bakery. Elly and I slept in the attic. At night we'd pull down our double bed which in the daytime stood stacked up in a frame against the wall. My mom had been forced to mix and match the material for bed linen because it was war time and the people had to make do. Elly and I would kneel down and she taught me my prayers.
Elly was a competent worker and I was hopelessly lazy. On Saturday afternoons our mom sent us to clean the carpet and brass rods on the staircase. I hated the job, as I disliked all housekeeping duties. Resignedly, Elly would say: "I'll do the work if you provide de vrolijke noot [the note of merriment]."
I'd wear myself out imitating accents and recalling anecdotes to entertain her. The more she laughed, the faster she worked.
At Elly's First Communion, when she was seven and I three, I sat between my parents at Mass. The priest was saying: "Now children, promise Jesus that you will never again be cheeky to your parents or nasty to your siblings."
I dragged my mom and dad down by their arms and said so loudly that everyone heard;
"Oh boy, aren't we going to have a nice time from now on!"
When Elly was 16, our family left Holland and shortly after our arrival in South Africa we moved to Springs.
As we lived far apart, we seldom met. On the infrequent occasions we did get together, her five and my six children marvelled at similarities they spotted between us. "Big deal," she snorted, "Now if you said I looked like Sophia Loren, you'd have my ear!"
She remained the Martha while I tried to become the Mary.
Once when I was collecting signatures for the people to recite the rosary daily, I invited her.
"Tell you what," she answered. "You pray, I'll work."
I recalled those words when she died on St Martha's feast day.
In 2010 our only brother, Jos, died from cancer. Around the first anniversary of his demise last year, she telephoned me grievingly four times within two weeks. After the last time, I stood bemused, looking at the receiver.
"It sounded as if she was saying goodbye to me forever," I thought.
"But why? It must be my imagination."
Less than a week later she landed in intensive care with gangrene in her foot brought on by diabetes.
I tried but failed to get a ride to Springs, bowing to the inevitable. I contented myself by praying for her recovery and phoning for bulletins daily. These were tempered by my nieces so I was unaware of the gravity of her situation.
An hour or two after midnight in the early hours of St Martha's feast day, our younger sister telephoned me in a flood of tears to tell me that Elly had died suddenly on the operating table an hour earlier, minutes before her leg was to be amputated from the knee down.
Present during the gospel reading that morning, I heard the words of St Martha;
"Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died" and received consolation from Our Lord's reply. May God in his mercy keep Elly with Him and allow her to help St Martha polish the brass rods of the heavenly staircase. Perhaps some day I may provide de vrolijke noot.
One of my daughters phoned one of hers. Her cousin told her,
"When hours before her death we kids begged her to sign the consent form for the amputation, she grumbled:
'Easy for you to say! You won't be Hopalong Cassidy!"
The funeral was the way Elly would have liked to have it; sad perhaps but tempered by fun also.
I experienced great consolation from the words of the Deacon, who spoke about the meeting between Mary:
"She did not know Jesus until he just said, 'Mary!' When Elly died and entered the presence of Jesus, all He said was: "Elly!"
After the funeral, a friend told me that during visiting hours in hospital Elly had mentioned that when she was young she often bought shoes at sales. On one occasion when she came home she found that the shoe box contained only one shoe which she had then thrown away.
"I should have held onto it," she lamented. "It would come in very useful now."
As I burst out laughing when I heard this story, I realised Elly had done it again. She'd left me laughing.
But behind all her clowning it was Elly who, with my parents, first taught me to pray.
*Photograph is of Elly (right) and Luky on Elly's First Communion Day
Catherine Nicolette
Many are the joyful times I have spent in India. I love putting on my salwaar kameez with its cool and comfortable cotton, and enjoying walks in the beautiful countryside. Squirrels with two stripes down their back and Disney-like long lashes peek out at visitors from the trees. Purple lotuses drift timelessly among the green water leaves and the soft sacred water of India, reflecting the clouds back to the serene sky. Clouds of colourful parrots fly by in flocks, and peacocks trail long feathers with shining hues. Local markets sell wondrous fabrics glowing with golden thread, hand sewn embroidery and glorious patterns. Women drift by like flowers in the fields, each one a Maharani in sari or salwaar kameez and dupatta. Beautiful hairstyles are embroidered with living jasmine flowers, sold by the jasmine sellers sitting contentedly at gates and sewing the hair ornaments under colourful umbrellas.
Cows wander quietly through the streets, and every now and then an elephant makes its way down the thoroughfare, slowing as the traffic lights turn to red, and speeding up again as they turn to green. India is a place of magic and beauty, and the scents of turmuric, ginger, garlic and spices drift through the air as the street vendors sell wonderful masala dhosa and local food. India has a rhythm all its own, and the beauty of the landscape is a jewel of paradise on earth.
My time in India changed my set of values. There is great reverence for animals, and I saw some lovely sights. One of them was two dogs, both brothers, who used to sleep at night in each others' arms. As one of my friends who was offering me hospitality told me, the two could not settle until they both went to sleep at the same time together. Their mother was brought once a week to visit them, and also to her other sons and daughters doing watchdog duty at other local families' houses. The dogs were exceptionally sweet tempered and happy.
One day we were travelling through the town when I noticed that the horns - which in India are tooted almost non-stop in the streets - fell silent. All the cars slowed down to a crawl, and my friend who was driving our jeep started slowly following the other cars which were all veering carefully first to the left, before coming back again to the right. "What's happening?" I asked, concerned. "Shhhh," my friend whispered, "Look to my right". I looked over to where my friend had indicated, to see a mother dog lying with her puppies in the road next to the traffic island.
We quietly drove on for a while, then cars speeded up again, people bustled on tooting the horns, and scooters roared by, each with at least two occupants balanced securely on the seats. "What was that about?" I asked my friend. He explained that the mother had been crossing the road when she was overtaken by the pangs of birth, and delivered her puppies in the road where she was now nurturing them. The local people were waiting for her puppies to be weaned by the mother and able to get around independently. No one wanted to upset the mother during her time of feeding her babies, hence the quietness. Also everyone had passed the word along to be very careful to drive around the mother and babies.
I was extremely thoughtful on the plane back to Ireland. Was this not what I had been taught? To love and care for each living creature as God did? I went out that day in the jeep on a visit - I came back a changed person with a new reverence for all creation. My friend and his local community's understanding for the dog in the road had touched me...
*Photo taken by Catherine Nicolette
Luky;
"Does so-and-so have a daughter called Barbara, about seven or eight years old?" my husband asked me.
The man he was speaking of was a fellow worker of his, whose wife and I were friendly.
"Could be", I replied. "Why do you ask?"
"I found a purse containing money", my husband said.
"Look what I also found in the side pocket."
He took out a grubby little note.
It read: "I love you Daddy, very very much. Barbara van der Walt. "
We smiled. Mow many of those sweet little notes did we receive from our own children when they were in the grades.
We still got notes from Joseph, an entire page filled with the word "Joseph" which is the only word he was able to write.
One day I had raised my voice at him. Deeply hurt, he slunk away and started writing in his bedroom.
Half an hour later he came back with a sheet filled with Josephs.
"I can't read it", I complained.
"I'll read it to you", he said, and taking it back, he read out slowly:
"Dear Mom, I hate you. Love, Joseph."
But when I apologised and made friends, he tore it into little pieces and admitted:
"I know I'm a wrong one. But I'll forgive you".
Which is what he says when he means: "Please forgive me."
The next day my husband went to his colleague and returned his purse. He hadn't even missed it.
"There are two notes in it, a ten rand and a two rand", Sean said.
"That's right", his colleague agreed. "And did you spot the little love letter?"
"I did, and you can thank Barbara for getting your purse back by giving her the two rand note."
The man, his hand on his heart, promised to do so.
The following Sunday at Mass I spotted a dear little girl and I was sure she must be Barbara. She was.
"My husband wants to meet you", I said. "He's the one who found your daddy's purse with your beautiful letter inside."
Yes, her father had told her all about it.
"And this is Uncle Sean Whittle who wanted to see what the writer of that lovely letter looks like."
Sean smiled and melted, the way he always did when he saw little children.
"Did your father give you the two rand note, Barbara?" he asked.
"Not yet," she replied. Oh, the loyalty of a child.
"He'll be giving it to you tomorrow", Sean promised. With another smile she left us. We went to our car, discussing the love of a small child for its parents and how adorable all children are, even if they don't happen to belong to you.
"By the way, how do you know Barbara will be getting her two rands tomorrow?" I asked.
"Because I'll be seeing her dad tomorrow", my husband promised grimly.
Catherine Nicolette;
I smiled when I read my mom's post. It reminded me of an incident a long time ago.
I was learning to walk properly again after the car accident years ago which had left me with severe pain. I tended to shuffle somewhat, and every step was like wading through broken shards of glass.
The specialist had assured me that if I walked a lot each day, it would benefit me.
So I used to pray the rosary fifteen decades each day, while shuffling up and down the road outside as advised by the specialist.
Joseph used to accompany me whenever he could, and slowed his steps to my slow gait.
We had many conversations during the months my walking gradually improved.
Joseph spoke to me about his writing.
"You know, Nog, I have all the words in my head, but when I try to put them on paper, they only come out as 'Joseph'."
"Really Joe?" I asked, as he put his hand under my elbow to steady me as I tried to turn to go down the road again.
"Yes," he said, "Sometimes I wish I was as clever as you. You can read and write anything.
I sometimes think that you could just go into the library, pick up any book, and learn to do something new."
Joe looked at me with keen anguish in his eyes.
As I saw the emotional suffering in the beautiful depths of his kindly brown eyes, the pain in my own heart for him surpassed the pain I was suffering in my limbs. What could I say to comfort him?
So I asked him, "Joe, when you are writing Joseph, what are you writing about?"
Joseph looked at me, surprise in his eyes.
"Oh, " he said, "I write; Dad, I love you. Mom, I love you. Nog, I love you.
God, thank you for all the blessings I have, my mom and dad, my home, and my dog Norman."
And Jo continued to name all our brothers and sisters; he wrote that he loved them so much and how he admired his two brothers, considering them strong and his very good friends.
He mentioned by name many people, and what he admired in them, the blessings he prayed for them, and how much he loved them.
When Joe finished, I just looked at him in silence, the rosary beads still within my fingers.
Many, many times I have thought about what Joe told me.
I was saying many prayers through the rosary trying to learn the love and patience I needed to accept the car accident and how my life had changed, and the pain I was learning to live with. And I struggled.
And here was Joe, with a brain injury, who just was the living embodiment of love that he had poured out through his letters for years, and we had at the time not the code to understand the written words of this great and gentle heart.
And now, when I want to get upset with someone else, I often find myself thinking, what would Joe find to love in this person. Let me show caring and love as he would. Let me try to be non-judgemental as he is.
So Joe's writing changed my perspective on what is really important in this world... and to understand in a deeper way Christ's words,
"Love one another as I have loved you." (The New Testament, Gospel of John, Chapter 13, verse 34).
*Photograph of a wild poppy in glorious Ireland. Please feel free to use copyright free for any worthy purpose
Luky;
You cannot create experience, you must undergo it, said the French writer Albert Camus in his Notebooks, published in 1962. In these eight simple words he revealed an extremely unpalatable and disturbing truth.
Parents all over the world strive night and day to inculcate their hard-won wisdom into the unreceptive heads of their babies, toddlers and teenagers. Mostly their labours are in vain. Few people want to learn from the experience of others. Humanity is an inquisitive breed, always trying to get to the nub of the problems that abound, not by sidestepping these but by steeping themselves in them. We seem to have a need to learn from experience.
A British writer, Aldous Huxley, went one step further than Camus. "Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you," he wrote. The courts abound with offenders whose records show that they have been arrested for the same crimes over and over again. However, the average person is very often frightened off crime forever, once he or she has had a skirmish with authority.
Daniel Boorstin, an American, wrote of this in the New York Post in the seventies. "The messiness of experience, that may be what we mean by life." True enough, our mistakes often land us in a muddle. When an experience has cost one dear, however, it is often the resultant mess which convinces one not to repeat the error.
It could save children so much later anguish if only they followed their parents' sage advice when they were young but, as John Steinbeck says: "I know that no one really wants the benefit of anyone's experience which is probably why it is so freely offered."
What is the dearest lesson experienced by me and the one among all which I perennially find hardest to learn? To sit tight and watch the young people in my life make one mistake after another without yielding to the temptation of putting them back on the right path with a few well-chosen words.
Maybe I never will learn to keep quiet and let my children make their own mistakes without trying to interfere. Or will I learn to do so when it is too late and they themselves have all turned old and grey?
It's not impossible, for, as Judith Stern puts it: "Experience is a comb life gives you after you lose your hair."
*Photograph taken by Catherine Nicolette. Aren't the mother and foal beautiful?
