I have noticed that many people use their blogs to rail against injustices committed upon them by their parents and family. I promise I will be no different (heh) but not on this occasion.

I want to share a happy memory.

I’ll get around to explaining why another time but circumstances are such that I only have one photograph that links me to anyone in my family. I hope it’s going to appear next…

Mum
:does happy dance! Yay!: (Sorry, I get stupidly excited when I actually manage to do something I intended to…)

This is a picture of my Mum. It was taken on a beach in Cyprus and I kept it because it show’s her happy. Sadly, that wasn’t a state she got to be in very often so this was quite a scoop.

You’ll notice that she is in a state of undress. That is actually a bikini from the 70’s! I know… they were pretty horrible, but what can you do? We were at the beach that day having a family picnic. Living in Cyprus allowed you these times. As schoolkids we attended school from 07:00hrs to 13:00hrs. The reason being it was too hot to be in school after that. This meant we could spend glorious days in beautiful places goofing about. It really was a halcyon time and I daresay I will share some more (who knows, I might even get hold of some pictures..?) but for the moment, I digress.

Mum had always had a deep-seated fear of water from when she had been a kid. She never told us why but getting her near the water itself was a trial never mind actually into it! So, over the course of the summer, me and my brother and sister had been gradually trying to tempt her to come to the beach. After a while, she relented. You can tell from the tan lines that she had spent some days before getting a tan.

On this day, we had decided as a family to go to the beach for a picnic. Looking at the background I can’t tell actually whether this is Curium Beach or Tunnel Beach… I’m thinking Tunnel Beach because it was closer to home (Mum didn’t drive, that’s another story…) and the pebbles stick in my mind for some reason but I am dredging a memory from 1974/5 so, ya hafta allow for Alzheimer’s! Anyway, over the course of the day we’d been cajoling Mum to come into the water. She’d been reluctant and I can understand why, this was the sea after all and not a swimming pool. The thing was, the sea there was generally flat as a pancake, so any fear of the water lapping up into her face (an understandable dread of any non-swimmer) was moot. Gradually she was persuaded to come for a paddle and then to dunk herself down into the water as long as we stayed close by to reassure her. We all three took the task very seriously and were very careful not to unsettle her. It always stayed with me that our normal tendency to daftness was stilled during this because we knew we were doing something very special.

Once mum had become used to the water, we then persuaded her to let us help her float. One of us by her shoulders and another by her legs, she slowly but surely settled down and let the water carry her, her breath steadying and confidence building in the water’s ability to hold her up. Before long, we were able to let her go and just let her drift on the water. Even when she realised that we were no longer holding her, she kept calm and seemed to realise that she was in control and wasn’t going to drown. Watching that realisation was pretty amazing.

As the day went on, she developed enough confidence to duck down into the water and then we were able to teach her some rudimentary swimming strokes. Ok, so it was her version of a doggy paddle but it did the trick. It was fantastic. You can see in the picture a real sense of elation and happiness that she had achieved something really important that day, overcoming a fear and feeling exhilarated at what she had done. I sometimes wonder if the strength she found in herself that day helped her when she had to do something far more difficult a mere few years later, which was leave my father. I like to think it did and I’m glad, despite everything else, that the three of us kids helped her to do that.