Mary O'Reardon: your child minder was Irish
Dear Ester,
If you could see this scrapbook you would be impressed by the creativity. My entry will be somewhere near the back because it has taken me some time to find the courage to express my own thoughts, with the limited creative powers that I have.
Your name has been at the top of my ‘to do’ list for a few weeks now and I would rather leave it there than try and put all of my thoughts into a final email. You deserve so much more, least of all because you gave so much more. For you; an email to a stranger was as important as a letter to a friend. Everyone was your friend (except the Home Office of course but you were well able for them!) If you were faced with the task of writing this email, I can imagine that you wouldn’t even see it as a task. You would just start and the words would flow. Maybe you spent longer chewing over words and playing with semantics but I don’t think so. I know that you had a natural talent, an ability to express your profound understanding of humanity and the human condition. As you wrote about the mundane, and the miserable, your clever mind and quick wit would guide us towards thoughts of Guinness filled Easter Eggs, tax credits on dangly earrings and the potential for a People’s Republic of Kilburn.
The first time I met you Ester, you told me that your child minder was Irish. I readily assumed that you therefore had a child. It seemed reasonable, because you were so self-assured and complete in who you were that you exuded a special sort of wisdom, and grace. A certain maternal intelligence. Now I realise that you very much mothered LDSG. You cleaned our grazes when we fell, you fed our weary minds with savoury words of hope and passion, you did our homework for us when we were confused, and you did it all in a way that helped us grow. I am taller today than I was before I met you Ester. You needed those ridiculous boots to give you a few inches, and like everything about you – they represented so much more. You would blush reading this so I’ll soften the tone with a comedic note. We had an LDSG evening for you. I sat through the whole night thinking that you had left behind a child and that Jerome had simply ‘forgotten to mention it.’ I was too shy to say anything until finally about three bottles of wine later I blurted it out to Aoife. She is still laughing at me. It takes me all that alcohol and a friendly face to say what I think….you would have been braver. You would never have been confused in the first place because you would have known….you would have asked…..and you would have listened.
Just like those boots will not ware thin, and by all means they will certainly never biodegrade….your memory and your legacy will not fade. Thank you Ester, for all the work that you have done, but more importantly for showing us how it should be done.
With much love,
Mary
If you could see this scrapbook you would be impressed by the creativity. My entry will be somewhere near the back because it has taken me some time to find the courage to express my own thoughts, with the limited creative powers that I have.
Your name has been at the top of my ‘to do’ list for a few weeks now and I would rather leave it there than try and put all of my thoughts into a final email. You deserve so much more, least of all because you gave so much more. For you; an email to a stranger was as important as a letter to a friend. Everyone was your friend (except the Home Office of course but you were well able for them!) If you were faced with the task of writing this email, I can imagine that you wouldn’t even see it as a task. You would just start and the words would flow. Maybe you spent longer chewing over words and playing with semantics but I don’t think so. I know that you had a natural talent, an ability to express your profound understanding of humanity and the human condition. As you wrote about the mundane, and the miserable, your clever mind and quick wit would guide us towards thoughts of Guinness filled Easter Eggs, tax credits on dangly earrings and the potential for a People’s Republic of Kilburn.
The first time I met you Ester, you told me that your child minder was Irish. I readily assumed that you therefore had a child. It seemed reasonable, because you were so self-assured and complete in who you were that you exuded a special sort of wisdom, and grace. A certain maternal intelligence. Now I realise that you very much mothered LDSG. You cleaned our grazes when we fell, you fed our weary minds with savoury words of hope and passion, you did our homework for us when we were confused, and you did it all in a way that helped us grow. I am taller today than I was before I met you Ester. You needed those ridiculous boots to give you a few inches, and like everything about you – they represented so much more. You would blush reading this so I’ll soften the tone with a comedic note. We had an LDSG evening for you. I sat through the whole night thinking that you had left behind a child and that Jerome had simply ‘forgotten to mention it.’ I was too shy to say anything until finally about three bottles of wine later I blurted it out to Aoife. She is still laughing at me. It takes me all that alcohol and a friendly face to say what I think….you would have been braver. You would never have been confused in the first place because you would have known….you would have asked…..and you would have listened.
Just like those boots will not ware thin, and by all means they will certainly never biodegrade….your memory and your legacy will not fade. Thank you Ester, for all the work that you have done, but more importantly for showing us how it should be done.
With much love,
Mary
posted by Ester memories at 9:47 am
