| Sunny Side Up Nov. 8, 2006 �2006, Kathleen Gibson Don't mimic the parrot When our children were young, the Preacher and I lived on the same Port Alberni street as a feisty Scotswoman named Margaret Ashbridge. We couldn't have been more different, Margaret and I. Freshly divorced, Margaret had two older kids and took in numerous foster charges. She swore, loved her neighbours, and seldom went to church. Freshly married, I had two young children. I never swore, didn't have much time for neighbours, and I lived in the church - or so it felt. Margaret swept our family under her broad wing, and somehow she and I became good friends. That friendship has stuck for a quarter-century. I've always loved Margaret's stories, particularly those about her upbringing in Glasgow, Scotland. My memory's ear still hears her leftover brogue recounting the day she went to live with her pertinacious grandmother after her mother died. Grandmother served Margaret gruel for breakfast. Margaret, used to finer fare, refused. Nana didn't make a fuss; just put it away, and served it again at lunch. Margaret declined. Again, Nana made no fuss, just brought out the stuff once more. Cold, for dinner - and n'owt in b'tween. The two repeated this into the next day, neither budging. Nana won, eventually. Margaret told me she was so hungry she almost ate the bowl. Her grandmother earned her respect over that gruel, and Margaret grew up just as stubborn as the old lady, if ye don't mind me sayin'. Margaret has vivid memories of WW2. She sent me one of them yesterday, about an air raid referred to later as 'The Clydeside Blitz'. I'll let her pick it up from here: "My sister and I were visiting a step-aunt when the air raid siren went off and we went to our backyard air raid shelter. We slept there for 8 hours on benches, and wakened to the sound of the ALL CLEAR. Venturing out timidly, we found that our tenement building was flattened to the ground. "All those people not in the air raid shelter were dead. What a ghastly sight! We searched, but all we found surviving was a 100 year parrot which had belonged to a neighbour. The parrot hadn't spoken for 50 years. (Children of its owners told us later that the parrot had been given to their mother and father as a wedding gift, but had chosen to remain in silence for yea many years.) "I took the parrot to our offered billet across the road. The night following the Clydeside Blitz, the Germans raided again, and the air raid siren boomed its warning wail. I grabbed the parrot in its cage and proceeded to the shelter. Once inside, our friend the bird called out loud and clear, "OH, MY GOD!" then shut up and was not heard uttering another sound." That parrot had watched human beings too long, I think. If there's been a lengthy silence between you and God, don't wait for a crisis to break it. You may not make the shelter. Reply Home |
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