TV Tragedy
Their dark-eyed, desolate brown faces
stayed with me for days; the documentary
was about the Catholic church’s view
of contraception and abortion –
no matter what the circumstances.
I was cocooned safe in my home –
my luxurious, spacious, peaceful home,
while I watched this family
of five or six children, all under 8 years old
live out their days in a two-metre by two-metre crate,
right next to a busy railway track.
Around them were hundreds of blank faces,
(all the men were out at work)
bodies crouched in small, dark spaces
too low and too narrow for an adult
to stand or stretch out in sleep.
“My patience, resolutions and beliefs are tested to the limits – sometimes daily.”*
Right at this moment one of my challenges is the constant, tuneless whistling from my elder son. When my boys were babies it was getting them to sleep or trying to figure out why they were crying. On any given day now, it might be squabbling, fighting, teasing, screaming, shouting or rudeness. Who’d be a parent? We might well question ourselves after the event, but we can’t very well put them back! Just how we find those inner resources, how we constantly demand more of ourselves, how we keep marching up that hill with a smile on our face and gladness in our heart at the sight of our ‘babies’ is one of life’s mysteries.
* © from Being Mummy by Anne‑marie Taplin published April 2007