healingwords: poetry for the soul

Congratulations to my son, with love and pride for his achievements and best wishes for his future. 

Our children have been managing with varying degrees of patience and frustration with 6 weeks of being shut indoors due to the Covid 19 virus controls in Spain. Yesterday they were allowed out with a parent. My grandson was able to take his bike into the campo and spent his hour pedalling in the sunshine. I spoke to him on the phone, he was so excited, telling me he was outside, not just on his pocket patio, but 'the real outside'. Our changing reality is a challenge for families and it is good to see them reacting with such responsibility and creativity. 

This is a strange birthday. I am not one for big celebrations but 60 is 60 and I had planned to be with loved friends and my wonderful family. Today we are together only on screens and I can not share hugs and cake. Still, I am grateful. Grateful for another day, for my health, for the love I feel from those who sustain me, for all those keeping me safe, for all those working daily to keep us all safe. I look forward to celebrating with you all when we can and until then thank you for your love. 

Easter is a busy time in my village as houses fill with people coming back to their family homes. The church is full on Holy Thursday, Good Friday and at Midnight Mass and Sunday morning Resurrection Mass. The band accompanies the village on the Good Friday solemn procession and again at dawn on Sunday morning with the staging of the 'Encuentro'. I have been involved in the 'Encuentro since my eldest daughter first played in the band and more so since we moved to our home in the centre of the village. The band assembles before first light, youngsters bleary eyed from nights without sleep at their Easter camps. The streets are silent as a column of men process with the statue of a prone Jesus passing my house, whilst the village women walk behind the statue of Mary cloaked in mourning black. The two meet as the sun rises in the bakers street where a young 'Festera', her hair dressed with a black mantilla, removes the cloak to reveal Mary in her golden glory, in celeb...

When I was young I was fortunate to have a nana and grandad who who were always there for me, taking care of us when my parents worked. I didn't miss my other grandparents, not understanding what I had lost.  As I grow older and am now a grandmother myself I find myself thinking more of the grandparents I never knew. They live on in the memories passed down by my mother, stories told and retold. © 2020 Jacqueline Knight Cotterill.  All rights reserved.