Dear Heather...
I’m 75 and yes, I’m still here. I was with you that first day at school, remember?-- just 3, so young, so bewildered, so frightened, but Mum couldn’t cope, we know that now-still 3 was young, but we survived.
I tagged on too when they labelled you thick and lazy, because at 8 eight you still didn’t understand how to read. Just hang on in there, you are not alone - in forty years that label will be rewritten and you will be recognised as being dyslexic. This is the last time you will be bullied, the last time you will let those in charge turn a blind eye.
Computers, spell check they will all help and of course being brave and owning up to having the problem will eventually make life so much less painful for you.
How lovely it was and how hard you worked to go to the “Big School” just getting there proved you deserved it, that you did have value, you were not stupid. You had friends. The future looked bright. Well done.
We have to agree you made some wrong choices, applying the values of others, from a time that was vanishing to a life which was bursting into a different world. At eighteen you should have followed those dreams, put “safe and secure” into the background and lived you life. I would have ! But you were not confident, not worldly wise and when Mum said no to University(that was for men) you didn’t know how to fight. I’m sad for you, but I understand. We are all human.
I understand too about your work choices, but admired from the start that you fought inequality. Surely it should always be about what you can contribute that counts, not whether your Dad worked here before you, your gender or skin colour.
That’s how you lived your life from then on and I admire you for it. It didn’t make you popular, but self respect trumps popularity every time.
When you got to the children stage, I think they suffered from the Victorian coldness of you upbringing. You did your best, but only they can voice whether it was enough. Who was it that wrote, “Your parents fuck you up – They don’t mean to but they do?” I just pray that you didn’t.
Holding your tongue has always been a problem too, words spoken not to hurt- but just the truth- some people don’t like it, so maybe tone it down and then again maybe not.
It was hard when cancer invaded your skin, the horrible jagged scar that cut your neck in two, no time to feel sorry for yourself though, your grandson put you straight, he scrutinised it, then declared he wanted one too, so he could be a real pirate and told all his mates he had a gangster Granny. His matter of fact ways taught you so much, I’m pleased to say.
Your catching me up now, the grey hair gives you away. You’re in the top tier of the family, the wise layer, the layer that takes a step back to see things clearly, the layer that loves unconditionally- keep it up.
And keep on walking those 4 miles a day, challenging your brain and bones not to atrophy and loving your family- because I think we have both learnt by now, that they are what really count.