6? candles

On my children's birthdays, I always have a few nostalgic moments remembering the actual day when they were born (or in Chris's case, adopted)---who was around, how did I feel, what scared me, what brought me joy.  On my own birthday, I always think of my mother, and what it must have been like for her.

I was born in England, in wartime; my mother was in her early twenties, living with her family, my father somewhere in Europe cowboying around on a motorcycle as a dispatch rider.  Mum always told me that she sat under a tree in the yard waiting for me and that she was too inexperienced and purposely unaware of the reality to be scared.  It never occurred to me to talk to my aunts or uncles about that day---for one thing they were always telling me stories about how I ate all their egg and butter rations, so I was careful to let them know I was grateful.  And I still am.

I do wish my mother had talked more about that time, but I do understand.  I told my kids funny stories about my first days with them, but I had good care, and there were no bombs around.  My big regret, and I really didn't feel it until my children starting having children, is to have lost the closeness I must have had with my grandmother, who was running a house, caring for and worrying about her own children and minding me while my mother went back to work.

Our lives don't run textbook-style for so many reasons, and I wouldn't change much of mine, but I do wish I'd recognized, years later, when we were back in Canada, and Nanny and Papa came to visit, that I was seeing seomeone who'd cared for me every day for the first 3 and a half years of my life.

Nanny and Papa

4 generations starting with Mum

 

 

As I said, birthdays bring out the nostalgia in me.