As the rain dashed off the window panes, I felt an upsurge of nostalgia hit me. It’s funny when you get older, more flashbacks about your youth seem to permeate your mind. And little by little, the jigsaw pieces fit together to make you realise that all that has happened in the past has made you who you are. Does that make sense?

I remember coming home (I was about 11 at the time) to my mother’s door with a battered, half-blind donkey who was abandoned up the road. My mother just looked at me and together over the weeks we nursed him. When he took his last breath and gazed at me with his beautiful brown eyes, I was devastated. Inconsolable actually. My mother just said wisely: “Goodbyes can be painful but you will bounce back. You always do.”

And yes, I did.

I bounced back to school and Sister Macaletta told me that I walked like a chivers jelly. She pulled on my flaxen curls until my pink scalp turned a deep shade of crimson. She caned the backs of my legs until I walked like a rag doll. Then, when I was 15, Maureen came into my life, who was heavily handicapped. She was told to sit beside me in class because I would take care of her. And I did. When she became too ill to come to school, I visited her every day after school to read to her and fill her in on the latest gossip.

One day, I arrived at her doorstep to be greeted by her mother who told me that “Maureen had gone.” She had died during the night. I stood there in the rain with my bright new red raincoat and cried until I thought that my tears would stop the rain. They didn’t.

When my 20-year marriage ended, I felt like that young girl again, lost and forlorn in her bright new red raincoat. But my desolation turned to a new hope. I heard my mother’s words echoing in my mind. “You will be as right as rain.” And yes, I know I will be - in time.

The door bell goes but I don’t want to answer it. Is it another friend that wants to talk about her problems? Is it another lost cause trying to break my heart? No, I refuse to think like that. The rain has stopped and a glimmer of light shines through the living-room. The knocking and banging continues.

It is my daughter. She is home early from school. She forgot her key. I let her in. She bounds up the stairs breathless and enthusiastic. She says, “Mom, wait until you hear what happened at school today…”

I think back to my own girlish enthusiasm. Yes, it will be okay. We bounce together around the room. An excited Mozart wags his tail. The rain has definitely stopped and I can fight another day.

Niamh
 

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