nieces and nephews – Just another Christian woman…

Here we go with this week’s Five Minute Friday… five minutes of unedited, non stop writing on this week’s given theme ‘Last’

Being the youngest of 8 children isn’t so bad. And I challenge anyone to hold the title of ‘baby of the family’ as long as I did, with oodles of nieces and nephews arriving hot on my heels. (The first one when I was 2½!)

Now that I am a mature adult (*coughs) I try to balance the ‘kid sister’ thing (cos let’s face it, it comes in handy the odd time) with the equal family member with all associated privileges, rights and responsibilities. 🙂

Me with my husband, parents & 8 older siblings on my wedding day 19th August 2000 — Me with my husband, parents & 7 older siblings on my wedding day 19th August 2000

There is one striking memory I have of being last; one of those bitter-sweet ones.
It was when my mother had died and she had been waked at home and now it was time for her removal to the local church. We had to leave the room so that the funeral directors could get ready to take her from the house for the last time.

I can’t remember who asked the question but it was thought that we should file out in order. Initially I was to go first, but then it was decided we would do it the other way – and start with the eldest. We said our final goodbyes, got into a line, and after my Dad, one by one we filed out of my parents’ house, with me the last to leave.

I was proud to take my place in the line. I was the last one to be born to her. The last of her children to live there with her and the last to leave the house; just before she did, for the last time.

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Round and round it goes.
The whirligig of life.
No stopping it, impossible to catch
There it goes, hatch, match, dispatch.
Babby becomes mammy and she becomes granny
And around we go again.

It’s a wonderful thing.

The next generation consoles the loss of the last
The sights and sounds of new life ease the pain of absence, a salve.

But I’m stuck with this half circle
It keeps moving one way but refuses to come back around.
I feel the benefits and blessings of the salve of others
They ease the sting.

But the absence for me is doubled-up pain
and never more than on this day.
Each year Mother’s Day comes around
It holds my half circle in front of me
I look at it and smile through tears
For in it I see my 27

Dedicated to the memory of my mother, and to my 27 nieces and nephews.