All that comes with it

We rarely get the local paper but a headline on Wednesday about maternity services being moved from Huddersfield to Halifax caught Kerry’s eye and so she handed over her 40p. After dropping Amy off at nursery this morning I’ve been at a bit of a loose end and so ended up flicking through it despite the fact its two days old. For some reason I took a look at the remembrance section and saw this:

I remember Ruth. She was in the year below us but her form room was next to ours, and the two classes mingled while waiting to be let in after lunch. I can’t remember what she looked like, but I remember thinking she was pretty. She had a crush on my friend Carl and I felt an affinity somehow (I had various crushes of my own at the time). She was hit by a car walking home by the same route I did. My Dad knew the person who hit her, I seem think that it was one of those purely accidental things - both were at the wrong point at the wrong time, but I could be wrong. I was shocked at the time but that was about it, I don’t think it ever sunk in.

Roughly eleven years ago I remember having a conversation with my friend Neil. We were on the verge of leaving for our respective universities and we were pondering the uncertainties before us. Neil told me that he had a firm conviction that everything always works out in the end, that something, fate, God, or whatever ensured that we would be All Right. In those days of optimism this seemed almost obvious. With the death of Joseph, Neil’s three-year-old son, last year, his faith in a positive future shattered, as it did for me. In fact, of the three friends from college who have had children, I am the only one who has not had a child bereavement. While I count my blessings every single day, I have no delusions that it “could never happen to me”.

In 1992 when Ruth Hack died I had no perspective on the waste of potential, the grief of her parents, or the pain that it undoubtedly still causes. But I do now. May they have peace. Ruth, Joseph, and anyone who has lost a child.

This Sunday Kerry, Amy and I spent a very enjoyable day in the company of Dave, Paul and Becky messing around on my Dad’s narrow boat. Since Amy’s been born we haven’t gone out on it as much as we used to, so it was really nice to get back out there and bounce £10,000 worth of boat off the stone sides of the canal. Amy’s at an age now where she can be left to charge up and down the barge as her whim takes her, with adults at either end to make sure she doesn’t fall off obviously. She warmed to Paul and Becky extremely quickly. In fact she warmed to Becky so quickly we’re considering making her an offer to quit her job as a teacher and come and be Amy’s nanny (and do my ironing as well, its important to have diversity in your job I always feel).

Highlights of the day included some spectacular stunt work from Paul and myself, leaping athletically off the boat, sprinting gracefully along the towpath, and opening a swing bridge without the boat ever having to stop. Dave refused to replicate this feat despite encouragement, probably because he saw how close to a heat attack we were when we had finished.

There were a few minor disasters as there always are. I managed to get one of our ropes wound around the propeller, a swing bridge was broken and took three of us to shift, and the boat’s chimneypot fell victim to a low branch and disappeared into the canal never to be seen again. Generally however I think a good time was had by all. It was certainly nice to see Paul and Becky outside a gaming situation, especially for Kerry who hears me go on about these people but rarely gets to meet them.