Yesterday we took down the last of the Christmas
decorations, which was our memory tree. Every Christmas we bring in twigs from
the boundary trees and dress them in things collected over the years from
various friends and relatives. Everything has a story behind it to jog our
memory ; a cotton wool angel from the Rudolf Steiner schools, bird feathers
tied to ribbons, things the girls made as small children, strings of buttons,
glass santas from Aiwee caves where the girls used to visit their santa/merlin
deep in the cave complex, various baubles donated by various friends, a bronze
key, woodland creatures and a birds nestbox, small replicas of Lascaux cave
paintings, tinsel and hanging ribbons, starched crochet snowflakes.As we dress
the twig tree we remember those who gave.
The snowflakes are particularly important. They were made by my cousin’s mother when she was in her 80’s and sent to us for our first Christmas as a family in Ireland. I never wanted children but when she told me the family secrets about my mother’s history and her father’s origins in India, his notoriety in London in the 1920s as a famous clairvoyant, I reconsidered, thinking this might be something worth passing on in the genes. Her information explained so many things. The year she sent the snowflakes was her last. I made the journey over to Shropshire when she was dying, a race against time, to introduce her to Sophy who was a toddler, to say thankyou . And so they met, though there is no memory of that meeting in either, just the crocheted snowflakes.
After Sophy came Jessica. They are “Freedom of Information Acts”!
