of a turkey, a memo­r­i­al and the hol­i­day season

I write this, cruis­ing high above the crest­ing Atlantic, cra­dled in an air­plane speed­ing me to Amer­i­ca yet again.  Scarce­ly two weeks have passed since I was on my way home from Thanks­giv­ing, and what a whirl­wind those weeks have been.

Of course, being me, I had to make the Thanks­giv­ing jour­ney from Lon­don to Detroit into a dra­ma.  About an hour into the long, long flight, every­one became painful­ly aware that a baby was cry­ing.  Insis­tent­ly.  Per­sis­tent­ly.  Eye masks were removed in frus­tra­tion, peo­ple approached the flight atten­dants to be moved to emp­ty seats far­ther away from the caterwauling.

I, how­ev­er, took a dif­fer­ent view.

I found a flight atten­dant.  “Do you think it would be odd for me to approach that fam­i­ly with the cry­ing baby and just see if there’s any help I can offer?  I’m a pedi­atric social work­er,” I explained, stretch­ing a point.

“Yes, I do think it would be odd,” he answered, “but why not?  Fol­low me.  Let’s find that baby.”

It was­n’t dif­fi­cult.  A dad on his own, strained and des­per­ate, sought to soothe his baby, hid­den under a blan­ket in a car seat beside him.

“This lady wants to know if you’d like a lit­tle help, sir?  She’s a pedi­atric social worker.”

Would you believe it?  That dad sim­ply hand­ed over his baby to me, explain­ing that she was called Abi­gail and was nine months old.  With­in sec­onds he was asleep, leav­ing his child to a total, utter, com­plete stranger.  Me.

Abi­gail and I wan­dered around the plane for the next two hours or so, look­ing out at the sun­ny sky and clouds, meet­ing the gaze of fel­low pas­sen­gers grate­ful for her qui­et.  We played with my tray table.  We chat­ted about this and that.  Final­ly I saw that her father had awok­en and I gave her back, where­upon she fell asleep, to every­one’s delight.

Fel­low pas­sen­gers high-fived me as I walked by.  At the end of the flight, the father and baby had dis­ap­peared before I could reach them, and they weren’t at bag­gage claim.  Good­bye, Abi­gail.  But at my gate out of Detroit was a lady from our flight.

“I’m going to Indi­anapo­lis too, and I just have to say, I can’t believe that dad gave you his baby like that.  But thank good­ness!”  We chat­ted away, found we were seat­mates to Indy, and had a love­ly time.

And then it was “home,” Mom’s beau­ti­ful­ly dec­o­rat­ed home, for Thanks­giv­ing and for Dad’s small memo­r­i­al.  It felt right to be in my child­hood home, filled with Mom’s col­lec­tions of brown and white chi­na, and her own hand-sewn sam­plers, cre­at­ed in the days when she was at home with three small chil­dren.  Dad was there too, in the fur­ni­ture he built for her.

Jet­lagged, I awoke ear­ly and began chop­ping.  Jill and Joel and the girls arrived, more chop­ping.  Such fun to be togeth­er, in our match­ing aprons.

Mom was hap­py to have all her kids in one room.

We ate, and ate, and ate.  Joel’s par­ents arrived and were hap­pi­ly reunit­ed with their grandchildren.

Then they trooped off to the Colts game and Mom and I set­tled in for a hap­py evening with a cheesy Hall­mark Christ­mas movie, a heav­en­ly way to spend Thanks­giv­ing night.

The next day found Jill and me set­tled on the floor in the liv­ing room sur­round­ed by box­es of pho­tographs, let­ters, high school diplo­mas, birth­day cards.  Mom nev­er, ever throws away any­thing of sig­nif­i­cance, and my good­ness, I wrote a lot of let­ters back in the day.  And oh, the pho­tographs!  My famous white majorette boots!

Papers I wrote in col­lege on a dot matrix printer!

My love­ly high school friends, still friends today.  Weren’t we sweet?

Jill put togeth­er an album of pho­tos of Dad for peo­ple to look through, and Mom’s Chef Jen­ny arrived to cook a love­ly spread for every­one.  Jane and Mol­ly inspect­ed it all and found it quite delicious.

Our friends arrived.  Janet and Jill were so pleased to see each oth­er, after our sum­mer’s fun togeth­er at Mom’s birth­day celebrations.

My best friends from my whole child­hood were there to sup­port us and to remem­ber Dad.  He was such a lov­ing father.

Joel had arranged for a loop of still pho­tos to play on the tel­ly, and every­one gath­ered around with excla­ma­tions of how much Avery looks like Mom, how hap­py they all looked in the old days.  There were no tears.  Just mem­o­ries and hap­pi­ness, and Amy, my child­hood best friend, mak­ing friends with one of my very favorite nieces.

Because I moved away so defin­i­tive­ly 30 years ago, dear peo­ple I remem­ber aged 12 sur­prise me now, in their mid­dle age.  This is Brett, one of my very first friends and the son of Mom and Dad’s absolute best friends their whole lives.

Through it all, Mom dis­played the courage that has stood her so well dur­ing Dad’s ill­ness.  She is not one to moan or feel self-pity.  Life is here to enjoy, for Mom.  I hope I’ve inher­it­ed that backbone.

On the Sat­ur­day, we “did” Mom’s tree.  Now you would think that a “pre-lit” arti­fi­cial tree could hard­ly be sim­pler, less of an effort.  You would be wrong.  It seemed to have been thrown down the base­ment steps last year by an unhap­py elf, because many branch­es were wonky and crooked, and required much mas­sag­ing and love to bring them about.  And the lights?  Not so much.  Ful­ly 75% of them did­n’t work.

After extend­ed fam­i­ly con­sul­ta­tions, it fell to Joel and me to dri­ve to the local ACE hard­ware and pick up no few­er than 900 lights to sup­ple­ment this “pre-lit” tree.  Final­ly all was well.

Jill and her fam­i­ly depart­ed, with assur­ances of how short the time would be before Christ­mas — as indeed it has been.  I drove around the old neigh­bor­hood, stop­ping by the lit­tle house that we all pitched in to ren­o­vate, for Dad’s office, when I was twelve.  Mom was his sec­re­tary.  Such hap­py mem­o­ries for us all.

Every­where at home there was evi­dence of Dad’s love for his family.

The week­end was over, all too soon.  After one of those mis­er­able overnight trav­el night­mares, I arrived home in Lon­don, so grate­ful to be there.  Before I could blink, Avery was home from Oxford, what bliss!

I had a day or two to appre­ci­ate her before I fell vic­tim to a hor­ren­dous stom­ach bug that had me com­plete­ly wiped out for two days.  Mea­sur­ing our steps as we do these days, on our phones, I was hor­ri­fied to see that one of those days, when I’m used to walk­ing 10,000 steps, I logged pre­cise­ly 63.  Poor me!  John made chick­en soup.

Dur­ing my recov­ery, the Christ­mas tree arrived.

It was about 1000% bushi­er than last year’s tree, so of course more lights had to be ordered (are you sens­ing a theme here?).  Final­ly, feel­ing slight­ly mad that we were doing this at all, only to take every­thing down a scant week lat­er, we decorated.

There is nev­er enough time to stop and savour the beau­ty, but we tried.  As always, the glassi­ness of our house ampli­fies the lights in a quite mag­i­cal way.

The week sped by, filled with activ­i­ties and feel­ing lucky to have Avery home.

There were after­noons spent on the sofa, dis­cussing fem­i­nist pol­i­tics and lit­er­a­ture, art his­to­ry and his­to­ri­og­ra­phy, read­ing this ter­m’s essays togeth­er, while her cur­rent obses­sion, “The Phan­tom of the Opera,” played in the back­ground.  “Da… da-da-da-da-da.…”  One evening she explained The Siege of Leningrad to me, while I cooked, and the tree lights and all the oth­er lights sparkled in their reflect­ed glory.

The old, shab­by dec­o­ra­tions seemed so curi­ous, set against the Lon­don sky­line and shiny office buildings.

One misty after­noon, run­ning errands up and down South­wark Street togeth­er, Avery and I had a brain­wave to give the door­men per­son­alised cof­fee mugs.  Oh, the dra­ma of order­ing the mugs — not enough, must get more! — the porce­lain pens (“why does the red pen leave these lit­tle BITS all about??”).  Avery set­tled cosi­ly at the din­ing table with her mugs and pens and got to work.  I hope they are enjoyed by the boys down­stairs, who give us so much with their friend­ship, every sin­gle day.

What a warm and won­der­ful after­noon, enjoy­ing watch­ing Avery and her cre­ations, while I did Christ­mas cards and rewatched episodes of “Out­lander,” a total guilty pleasure.

Of course, my lit­tle social work kids wait for no woman, so one after­noon saw me at P3, my after-school club.  I had noticed the week before that there was a pal­try sup­ply of stunt­ed, lead­less coloured pen­cils, and the chil­dren seemed entire­ly resigned to this.  And no sharp­en­er!  It was but the work of a moment to bring a cou­ple of box­es of new pen­cils, and a sharp­en­er, as Christ­mas presents for them, and to set­tle down with a bunch of chil­dren to sharp­en them ALL.  Peace of an unprece­dent­ed nature reigned in the play­room while, for near­ly an hour, every sin­gle child drew, and sharp­ened, and drew some more.  What joy!  I got a blis­ter, sharpening.

I spoke to the chil­dren about Christ­mas presents.  “I have a daugh­ter who isn’t a child any more, she’s 20.  What do you reck­on I should give her?” I asked.  One lit­tle 8‑year-old girl said solemn­ly, “I think you should give her some­thing that will remind her of her hap­py child­hood.”  “Do you think she had a hap­py child­hood, Ara­bel­la?”  “Oh, I’m sure of it, since you’re her mum.  Do you know what I was thank­ful for, when you were away for Thanks­giv­ing?  I was thank­ful that you come play with us. And I’m hap­py you’ve come back.”

Well, one could die hap­py after hear­ing that.

I so wish I could show you pic­tures of these dar­ling, chal­leng­ing children!

One after­noon there was a goofy, ran­dom Christ­mas con­cert at the Globe giv­en by var­i­ous char­i­ties and vul­ner­a­ble groups around and about South­wark.  We laughed and cried.  Avery was glamorous.

I spent my sec­ond after­noon with my new Home-Start fam­i­ly, a love­ly lit­tle girl slight­ly set aside with­in her fam­i­ly by the birth of her new­born, very pre­ma­ture twin sis­ter and broth­er.  This lit­tle girl rush­es down the hall­way to greet me now, and was hap­py to spend the after­noon with me mak­ing a birth­day card for her dad.  How heart­warm­ing it is to spend a few hours — they fly by in the com­pa­ny of an imag­i­na­tive four-year-old!- bring­ing a breath of oxy­gen to that house­hold.  All these fam­i­lies report that just those few hours makes a world of difference.

Com­ing home in the bus in the grey late after­noon, sur­round­ed by school chil­dren shout­ing about their day, it’s a chance to eval­u­ate the small roles we all can play in pro­vid­ing light, where there’s shadow.

Our dar­ling Eliz­a­beth, who had heart­less­ly aban­doned us for two months in Amer­i­ca (she reminds me I was wont to do this to her every sum­mer, back in lit­tler-girl days), returned and came to din­ner.  Loch Fyne smoked salmon, peanut­ty chick­en in let­tuce parcels.  Friendship.

I tried too to appre­ci­ate the cats, so soon to be sep­a­rat­ed from us again for the hol­i­days.  These two get along only if there is ham involved.

Tacy is hap­py to pose as a Christ­mas cat.

In one last burst of insane activ­i­ty, I dashed to vis­it my beau­ti­ful friend Sue in Sloane Square, soon to move to Cal­i­for­nia, and her chil­dren whom I cher­ish so, most espe­cial­ly Nick who has been my friend since he used to drop in after Lost Prop­er­ty lunch­es in Barnes, in his too-big St Paul’s school uni­form.  He has grown up, quite sim­ply, and I’m torn between nos­tal­gia and a sense of a hope­ful future.

Cook­ing, too, there has been lots of cook­ing.  Tof­fee short­bread for John to take to a help­ful Coun­cil sec­re­tary, and this lux­u­ri­ous, deli­cious dish.  Fil­let steaks with a dux­elles sauce.  Heav­en­ly.

Yes­ter­day, before we flew away this morn­ing, was sim­ply mad.  Book Club in Carn­a­by Street with my cher­ished bunch of friends, then lunch with our hilar­i­ous friend Paul, his girl­friend Linn (both hav­ing dashed over from Berlin), Avery and her Oxford chum Char­lotte.  Paul has stayed a firm friend of mine since we shared a flight to Lon­don from New York with Avery over a decade ago, talk­ing non­stop the entire jour­ney (most­ly laugh­ing).  He is sim­ply the fun­ni­est per­son I know, and Linn is a delight.  And when Avery’s friend Char­lotte was in need of a place to stay in Berlin last sum­mer, guess who offered a sofa and friend­ship?  Paul and Linn.  I hope nev­er to lose Paul from my cir­cle.  Get his book!

Then it was a rush through the extrav­a­gant­ly dec­o­rat­ed streets of cen­tral London…

… to enter the mag­i­cal atmos­phere of the Wana­mak­er The­atre at the Globe, for a fes­tive, touch­ing, tear-mak­ing Christ­mas con­cert, sung by the Fourth Choir, Lon­don’s LGBT+ cham­ber choir for “advanced singers.”  Oh, my, were they ever advanced.  I want­ed the evening to go on for­ev­er.  You must make it to the Wana­mak­er if you can.  This was our first vis­it, but it won’t be the last.

And then I was off to ring at the his­toric St. Sepul­chre church famed for its role as the “Bells of Old Bai­ley” in the nurs­ery rhyme “Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clements…”

St Sepul­chre has twelve bells, which can be very intim­i­dat­ing to ring; I did not find them as tune­ful as my beloved Fos­ter Lane bells, but they were charm­ing in their own right.  And this year, I rang sur­round­ed by dear, pre­cious friends.

Last year, at Christ­mas, they were pleas­ant strangers.  This year, they are all warm, adored friends with whom I’ve shared prac­tices, Sun­day ser­vices, Quar­ter Peals, par­ties.  True friends.  Such fun to ring togeth­er, and how lucky I am, just a year on, to have them in my circle.

Thus ends our Lon­don year.  What a mael­strom it has been, with our house move, Avery’s tri­umphs at Oxford, Brex­it, social work, my dear dad, John’s Pot­ters Fields project, the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion.  May our Amer­i­can hol­i­day bring us peace.  We need it.