When They Were Young
I’m digging around in my memory box trying to find a photograph of my grandparents as they were when I was a child, when I come across a photo of my mother, aged around 16, standing astride a red Vespa.
It gets me thinking.
At this age she would’ve been fresh out of school, still living with my grandparents and training to be a shorthand typist. I realise as I look at her, that this is a young woman I never knew. Was she happy? What were her values, her secret hopes and her dreams? Who were her friends and what did she do for fun? What music did she love and did she have a boyfriend at that time? Did she care about the civil rights protests, the election of JFK or the war in Vietnam or was she more concerned with day-to-day matters, the death of Eddie Cochran, the Beatles and the first-ever episode of Coronation Street? What was it like for her to be witnessing these events as a backdrop to her everyday life as opposed to the history it is for me? These are questions I will never know the answers to, questions I can no longer ask of anyone who might know. They are all gone now.
I’ve seen this photo a hundred times or more and yet suddenly I feel like I’m seeing the young blonde with the shy smile for the very first time. I run my fingers over her face and blink away unexpected tears.
I return to the box and find a photo of my father in his university days. He has thick jet-black hair like his mother, slicked back in the style of the day and is half smiling at the camera. I wonder who took the photo and what he was thinking? What was the occasion and where was he? He’s a handsome man, did he have a girlfriend or maybe even more than one? What were his dreams and did he know back then that he would move to England just a few years later? I could ask him but we don’t talk these days.
I place the photos side by side. Physically, I can see myself in both of them, but I wonder what we would make of each other as people if there were a way for a similarly aged me to meet them at the age they were then.
As I look at the pictures with new eyes, I realise that I was raised by a shy and clever blond girl who was born in Austria and moved to England just ten years before this photo was taken and a rather serious raven-haired mining engineer from Germany.
I realise too that they were not gearing up for first my existence and then my brother’s and that their lives at that point were not, in actual fact, about us at all. They had no idea they would even meet.
As a young child, I would look up at them in wonder, in awe of their wisdom, their seemingly endless knowledge, their style and the apparent ease with which they navigated the world. As I got older my view shifted like a kaleidoscope and with typical teenage arrogance, I began to see more flaws than fine points.
We spend more time with our parents than they, or we, spend with anyone else. We’ve seen them angry, sad, anxious and laughing hysterically. We’ve seen them with tousled hair, tired eyes and we’ve seen them sick as well as in their prime. We might know that mum can cook and Dad can fix things, but do we really know them as people?
Yes, my parents made mistakes, and no I’m sure they didn’t mean to, for I wholeheartedly believe that they always did their best for each other and for our family. They loved me, that I know.
Looking once again at the photos, I suddenly have a greater sense of appreciation for the shy blonde and the serious-looking student who together gave me the greatest gift one can bestow upon another—life.
I began my afternoon searching for photos of my grandparents, but as I sit here in the dark with a lump in my throat, I am aware that I found something quite different, something I didn’t expect to find.
Understanding.
Thank you so much for reading and have a blessed day 🙏🏼
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