Short story theme - "I remember when"

Angie
Subject: I remember when

I remember when Easter was full of sunshine and my beautiful sugar egg had a window at one end to peep inside and see the chicks. When there were cowslips everywhere, and everything seemed fresh and yellow.

I remember when, playing in the field of Michaelmas daisies at the end of our road, I found a dead baby rabbit and proudly took it home to show my mother. How she shrieked and recoiled in horror that germs were being brought near her new baby, the precious bundle whose nappy she was changing.

I remember when I got into the school taxi on a whim, and passed my mother struggling up the hill pushing the big bassinet pram to meet me, as she always did. When the driver asked for my address I could only tell him, 'the house on the corner in the stoney road'. Perhaps the long wait for my mother's return, and the dread of her anger was punishment enough, memory blurs......... perhaps the kindly neighbour who found me crying by the back door helped to diffuse the wrath!

I remember when my grandma had her bed in our lounge. One day I saw her very old and wrinkled bottom as she was about to use the commode next to her bed.
She wasn't with us for very long before she died but she gave me two shillings to spend at the fair.
I remember the smell of carnations on the day of her funeral, they still smell of that day, seventy years on.

I remember when my mother was terribly upset because something very sad had happened to a pretty lady who lived with her husband in a big house down the road. She had a beautiful charm bracelet that jangled as she moved her arm.It was years later they told me she had shot herself.

I  remember when we went to the shops. The grocer's that had a wooden pillar which I swung round by one hand till I was dizzy, while my mother waited for him to slice his tight wire through the cheese.
I remember when, at those shops, I was terrified by the lady who pushed a pram with a witch inside. The pram was big and the hood was up but the witch sat upright, peering over a tightly pulled cover, just her pale white face, straight thin ginger hair and a brown beret. I utterly dreaded seeing that pram every time we went shopping.

I remember when, in spite of these fears, and even with the arrival of the new baby,  the days were full of sunshine, happiness and joy.

I remember when everything changed. We no longer lived in the big house on the corner in the stoney road, but in a tarmac road, in a row of houses all the same shape, with no fields anywhere and busy roads close by with red buses, trolley buses and people rushing to get to places, it was the town.

I remember when school changed from my small private house in grounds,  to a huge cold grey stone Victorian building, where you could get lost in the corridors and where boys fought till they bled in the playground. Where school lunches were so horrible I walked home but that meant another terror! I might see a man called Norman who grinned at me and talked rubbish and petrified me half to death!

I remember when I left that school after just one year to go to a very different one, just for girls up to eighteen, all in such an enormous building with a gallery around a huge hall and classrooms everywhere on two levels. With teachers who were very strict and prefects who had lots of power, and rules for everything, from which shoes you wore for what, to when you couldn't talk or run or eat or be late.

I remember when I started to have asthma. Breathing became a thing to have to work at, each breath an effort, straining to get enough oxygen but too tight to let the air out. Shoulders hunched and just walking was so hard when it was bad.

I remember when life was all joy before I was eight years old.
When I knew lots of the families in the stoney road. When Mr Petley the green grocer came every week with his cart and beautiful black horse and I could give him a carrot.
When my father pedalled home from work up the road from the station and wore long johns in the winter and sometimes brought me a new book to read.
When the two old ladies opposite, Miss Paidy and Miss  Durey came out every evening to call in their cat in their sing song way 'puss puss puss puss pussy'
When Mrs Morant, the widow who lived in the quaint and charming cottage by the woods, came to bring us red currant jelly she had made from her fruit and stayed for a chat with my mother.
Her daughter had died of a bad illness and she seldom saw her son but she was sweet and calm and gentle.

I remember when the end of childhood heralded the start of responsibility and pressure and expectation and reality. Unlucky are those who don't at least start with those years of freedom.


Jackie:



Letter to my Mother
Hi Mom,

Look at me!   I’m all grown up and I’m even so grown up that I can call myself a Senior person.    I have children and grandchildren of my own - they are your family too, although you are no longer there to see them. 

Since I saw you last I have had such a very full life - I’m now officially a permanent resident in my adopted country of France - a European citizen.  
I have put into practice all the things you taught me in our short time together.  I missed every second of your not being there though to help me on my way.

  I was working in a London hospital,  I was 17 years old and the Californian university, my life, my friends had all stopped abruptly when you became ill and we had to move back to England after having settled there 10 years previously. 
To work. 
I remember when Dad telephoned on that fateful day just a few days after your own forty forth birthday in 1968 to say that you had gone to join the God you had so intensely worshipped - the God you had said would save you had we prayed and prayed.   And so we did;   we went to Evensong, spent hours in the confessional, recited Hail Mary’s galore, attended low Mass then high Mass.    You had said that if I was good it would all work out and you would be saved.    But it didn’t turn out that way.    God must have been occupied with someone else that day.   I wasn’t even there to hold your hand as you had been there for me those growing years.
 My first job was in the typing pool of the Neurological Hospital in Queen’s Square, London.   It was grim.    Together with the fluorescent strip lighting - the bruised yellowing London sky barely showing through the only window high up on a cheerless ink-splattered wall,  didn’t compare to the Californian sunshine I had grown up with.
The clic clack of typewriters, the chainsaw sound of the return carriages at the end of every typed phrase,  as 20 or so women in that dim room  printed the fate of the hospital patients and deafened any feelings of homelessness. 
  

Mourning is private work and as I walked aimlessly round and round the London streets that day after Dad had told me of your death,  it was impossible to cry,  the reality of my grief was too unreal.
I kept “remembering when”;   our shopping days, my hand in yours, your sewing my clothes, you teaching me manners, the praying and more praying in church - your protecting my girlhood - our trips together youth hosteling - our walks and searches for crabs and pebbles on our travelled beaches. 

I ask myself  :   is it good to “remember when” ? - is it ok to go back into one’s past and cry a little - tie your stomach in knots with heart rendering frustration that all those years have gone by like a flash and looking back is so hard .  I can feel your gaze on me Mom, ( yes I can still say that word after all these years)  you are in spirit still attentively guiding me through my life .    Yet, I ask, is it so necessary to attach oneself to one’s past life to reflect and “remember when” … but then … listen …a soft tinkle of laughter comes fluttering down from above through my memory - floating down in and out of the years like the slow clearing of morning mist over the Golden Gate bridge and “I remember when” for a moment,  my tears flow.   This life goes on, I laugh, I cry,  but I will never say goodbye. 

Annemarie:


 I remember when...
>>
>> Andrea packed the car with her homemade lemon drizzle cake, Gran's favourite, and some velvety,crimson roses with an intoxicating scent. She popped a small overnight case in the boot and set off in eager anticipation. She had always adored her elegant grandmother. Some  of her friends' mothers  faced their twilight years with glum endurance, complaining about the young, drugs, sex and computers, whilst sat in their beige stretch slacks in their high-backed chairs watching endless replays of their favourite tv programmes. Gran on the other hand had her own Facebook page and with Andrea's help was committing her memories to print. She had led a colourful and eventful life but their seemed to be somewhat of a mystery surrounding her time as the ship's matron on a grand liner, which ran luxury cruises to China  back in the thirties and Andrea hoped to unveil the secrets.
>> Although it was almost a year since seeing her Gran looked as effortlessly elegant as usual and despite her eighty-six years, spry and agile as she welcomed her granddaughter with a beaming smile., her very short, funky haircut exaggerating the wonderful high cheekbones. She was wearing a pair of smart black slacks and over a black vest an unbuttoned blue shirt which exactly mirrored her still clear, nforget-me-not blue eyes.
>> "Well, my darling Andrea! This is a lovely surprise. And my favourite cake! We'll  have to tuck into that with a cup of coffee. The roses are divine and so fragrant. Now, you put your case upstairs - your usual room- whilst I make the coffee."
>> Five minutes later Andrea came downstairs and found her grandmother in the garden reading a book.
>> "Where's the coffee then, Gran?"
>> "Oh, Andrea it's so wonderful to see you. Of course I'lll go and make some coffee."
>> "And I'll cut the cake, shall I?" asked  Andrea.
>> She carried the tray with the delicate bone china cups, silver teaspoons and flower-patterned plates, which must have been at least as old as Gran and probably older, into the sitting room, the French doors opening onto the lush green garden.
>> " Gran, I do love that photo of you taken before you met Gramps. Where was it taken? You look so incredibly happy and far too young to be a matron!"?
>> " Oh, my dear, that was such a long time ago, when I was working on the liners. Only the very rich and well-heeled could afford to travel then. I really saw  the world - all quite different from now. That photo, I think, was taken in China and what a country! The petite Chinese women in their beautiful costumes, faded Russian countesses who'd escaped the revolution, stalwart English missionaries come to show the Chinese our ways , always thinking they know best...Hmmm!"
>> The old lady fell silent, her eyes seemingly gazing into a distant past.
>> "What was life like for you on the liner, Gran?" asked Andrea.
>> "Oh  Andrea, it's so lovely to see you! Would you like some coffee?"
>> "Oh, Gran, I've had enough, thank you. You were telling me about your life on the liner going to China ."
>> " Oh yes, I remember ...Peking , what a country China was in the thirties!  So many people and such diverse cultures. On the way out there the liner had  taken a new young doctor on board. All the nurses were in love with him."
>> "And were you too, Gran?" Perhaps this was the mystery in Gran's life, that had always been hinted at, thought Andrea.
>> "Was I what, dear?"
>> "Were you in love with the dashing doctor?"
>> "Which doctor, Andrea? "
>> "The doctor on board the ship to China, when all the nurses fell in love with him."
>> "Oh that doctor!  My he was a good looking young man. Tall, dark hair with a hint of auburn, eyes so deep and brown you could drown in them. I remember he had this scar like a tear, down his cheek. We all thought he must have got it in the War. Now I'm going to tell you something I've never told anyone before, Andrea, but I'm an old lady now, so I think the time has come to let you into my secret. Gordon was the love of my life. Now don't think I didn't love your grandfather. On the contrary we had one of the happiest marriages, so many interesting years together..." And Gran was off in another reverie, eyes  focussed again on some distant past.
>> "Tell me more, Gran. Did you not think of marrying the doctor? Is this something we should be noting for your book of memories? Gran..?"
>> Andrea waited , the old lady still lost in thought. She gently touched her grandmother's be-ringed, slender but slightly bony hand and her grandmother gave a slight star.
>> "Oh, Andrea, it's so lovely to see you. Would you like a coffee? "
>> "We have just had coffee, remember Gran. You were telling me about the love of your life, the doctor on board ship...? said Andrea.
>> "Yes, dear ...well, yes I remember ... when I was a young woman. I've never told anyone else. There was a new handsome young doctor on board ship and we fell in love, desperately in love. I remember when we reached Peking we spoke of marriage... Have I told you how wonderful Peking was in those days, the Chinese women in their traditional costume, poor Russian countesses who had escaped the Revolution with little but their furs and jewels. The city was split into different quarters, different nationalities in each."
>> "And that's where you fell in love with  the dashing doctor?" asked Andrea. She felt that at last Gran's mystery was unravelling
>> "What a wonderful time we spent there, I think about a week. I can still remember the scent of spices, the vibrant silks, the Chinese women shuffling along in their tiny shoes - how big and gauche I felt next to them. But Gordon didn't think so - we were so in love and we spoke of marriage..." and Gran once again retreated into her memories of the past gazing into the garden.
>> Andrea took the tray and dirty plates out and was washing them up when her grandmother appeared beside her.
>> "Well, Andrea, dear, what a surprise! What are you doing here and washing up? Who let you in ? You should have let me know and I could have baked a cake."
>> Andrea hesitated, wiped her hands dry and gently guided her grandmother back to the sitting room.
>> "But Gran, don't you remember? We've just had coffee and cake and you were telling me about your time in China with a gorgeous doctor."
>> "Was I, dear? I don't remember any doctor in China.  I do remember when I went to the doctor last week he asked all sorts of stupid questions about prime ministers' names and I had only gone to have a prescription renewed. Well let's have a nice cup of coffee and one of our chats. It's so long since I've seen you. Have I ever told you about the dainty little Chinese ladies in Peking?"

 
Monica: 

I remember when I went to my very first Dance/Ball with black tie and evening dress or cocktail dress.   The evening was magical in fact the most magical evening of my young life.   It was magical for me, for its youth, the innocence, the opulence of the damask napkins and the shining crystal glasses on the table.   
I hadn't been on the stud farm very long when one of the large wealthy farmers came down to give us a neighbourly call and suggested I might like to join the young farmers;   hence how I came to be at this magical evening in 1959.

The young farmers ball was held at the Tillgate Forest Hotel what we would now call a boutique country house hotel.

When he asked if I would like to come to the ball, to say I was ecstatic was an understatement.

A small problem of what to wear was a minor detail.   Something would turn up and it did.   My boss and her sister went through their wardrobes.   Something like the fairy godmother for Cinderella and we came up with an A line cocktail dress with a wide skirt.   The sort you wore with lots of petticoats.   I remember raiding the huge larder for bags of sugar to starch them with.    The colour of the dress was a cross between a light blue and turquoise in a silky taffeta material.  Shoes were found at the bottom of some enormous wardrobe and they almost matched the colour.   my first pair of nylon stockings was bought with my weeks wages and I had my hair done.  Helen my boss's sister did my nails.   Mr Beard the big farmer and his wife came to pick me up and guarded me all evening in the most discreet way.    I was introduced to all the table in the most natural way to all the farming bigwigs and the sons and daughters also.   Mrs Beard showed me where the powder room was and made sure I enjoyed myself.   I can still remember this large round table with the afore mentioned opulence.
The menu was for starter's a huge prawn cocktail and some sort of cream chicken dish but this is all I remember.   I do remember feeling a cross between a Princess and Cinderella.   We danced the Scottish reels and I recall the hefty farm boys stomping around getting completely tangled up and some of us girls lost with  complicated dance steps.   The Waltz was wonderful and gave me the Princess feeling again.   Before we left, I recall having my photo taken at the foot of the magnificent sweeping staircase which I must have somewhere amongst my photo albums.
Shortly after midnight Cinderella was duly taken back to the stud farm by Mr and Mrs Beard and I was on cloud nine for days afterwards.

EVE

I looked at the devastation caused by Katrina and was shocked,my dogs as well.I just got off duty,raced home to check the damages,it was beyond belief,a moon scape.People were walking around like zombies,the silence was deafening but for the helicopters above,assessing the damage.I stood in front of the remains of my lovely house,my belongins strewn all over the neighborood.I couldn't cry,just stood there and taking it all in,the dogs were upset,looking at me,ears twitching.I walked to Sandy's house,left a note on the door telling her I was at the Gulf Hills Hotel. We had 9 feet of water in the house which was built on a 13feet bluff,my car was full of water,all the doors, walls were gone everything destroyed,some of my furniture was  down the road,the trees were full of paper,flying in the wind saw a Santa Claus,dolls etc etc Some people died at the end of the street,refusing to evacuate,still I felt no real emotion,like a walking dead.The heat was unbelievable,about 40 degrees,100% hum idity.I looked a last time at my garden,nothing left,so much time spent working there.I went to the hotel where all the resident of Gulf Hills had been invited to stay. No other place to go, no water,electricity,  noAC and wearing the only clothes I had on my back.I started to think about the things I lost,pictures,clothes my purses and shoes etc. Went back to the jail,talked to the ,Sheriff, in a daze himself,told him my story,got some deputy clothes and kept my patrol car.They didn't see me for a week since I had to patrol the neiborhood because of looters and I was the only cop around.Everybody was armed and ready and drinking a lot,they all went back to their distroyed houses,salvaged the booze and bought it back to the hotel.    Unless you have been in such a situation you just can't picture it.We were all damaged by Katrina and it seems like yesterday, flashbacks etc I miss the states and MS but I don't think I could live through an other disaster like it. And sleeping in a room with 5 people and 2 German Sheperds was a bit much after a while.