ANOTHER MEMORY

These memories come at the oddest times. This morning I was watching a news report of the tragedy on 9/11, listening to a very dignified lady talking about her son who died in the attack when, out of the blue, back flooded my memory of that day.

Davy and I had recently bought a flat in the city and were happily shopping for "stuff" in the John Lewis store when we noticed groups of people huddled around TV's in the electrical department. Wondering what was going on we strolled over and were horrified to see the image of one of the Trade Centre towers burning. As we watched another plane smashed into the other tower. The shared grief in that group of strangers can't be described. Strangers who didn't speak or look at each other but somehow had a merging of minds. After watching in silence for an hour or so we walked back to our flat in silence and continued watching on TV for the rest of the day.

There has been the usual publicity approaching this anniversary again, including the mad Pastor who wants to burn the books of the Koran, but it wasn't until I saw this beautiful lady being interviewed that memories of Davy and I slamming from extreme happiness in anticipation of buying new things for our beautiful little flat, to the horror of seeing that scene unfold on TV, came back and I felt the two extreme emotions all over again.

Memories are strange things aren't they? I was prepared for our wedding anniversary on 27th August and I'm preparing for his birthday on 1st October, I was even prepared for his favourite TV programme to end afte 40 years. What I wasn't prepared for was hearing the intro music to this show and watching this poor brave woman talk of her son this morning.

I must admit that I'm a bit all over the place at the moment because I have been embroiled in a delicate and difficult family situation since immediately after Davy died. It finally came to a head a few days ago and I had to make a very traumatic decision. Again, it was the unexpected that that managed to creep under my radar. A birthday gift being delivered, the door unexpectedly being opened with a hypercritical smile after I had suffering months of abuse resulting in me "behaving badly", refusing to say hello and the children being told that "nanny needs to learn how to behave towards her family". I guess that was the final straw for all of us and it's left me a bit shaky.