Marilyn Stowe Blog

The Family and the Circle of Life

Yesterday, in the changing room at my local gym, I met a young man aged three and his mum. They had been swimming and were going home to watch the rugby. He had red, chubby cheeks and fair hair cut into a pudding basin. He was playing with the padlock on his locker, which he proudly showed me because it had flashing lights. He said he was being very careful with it.

I told him how I had my own little boy, who could sometimes be very careless indeed.  I mentioned how my own little boy had once phoned me for help very late at night from London, because he had unfortunately dropped his flat keys down the lift shaft. As the boy tut-tutted, I went on to tell him that because I was 300 miles away at the time and it was the middle of the night, there was little I could do. I also pointed out that my little boy is a whole 20 years older than him!

“Well, I’m very careful with my padlock”, said the boy, while his mum laughed proudly.

Looking at this gorgeous little three-year-old, as he chatted away merrily, I wondered whether I’d go back 20 years if I could, and do it all over again. Back to the days of Ben and his cousins all growing up together, playing and having fun. Those were great years: the photo above has pride of place in my home, and makes everybody who sees it smile.

But you can’t turn back time. Instead, time rolls on and people grow older. That truth is beautifully captured in The Lion King, a magical show that the children loved to watch. They first saw it when they were all around six to eight years old, and it was probably the first time they ever had to think about the meaning of life, although as little children they couldn’t have understood it properly.

The “Circle of Life” is The Lion King’s best known song. As we adults know, that circle never, ever, stops. We can’t keep that wheel from turning: however hard we try it won’t stop, not even for a minute. Time never stands still or goes backwards. Millions of people are born onto the wheel and millions of people leave it. It is the way of Nature.

Those carefree cousins are now 20 years older. They have finished their education and are out in the wide world. They have started to live their own lives, make relationships and move onwards. Their grandmother is also 20 years older – and she is now very ill. She is fighting hard and is, as always, brave and uncomplaining. It is incredible how she handles it all. There is no bitterness. Her frail body may be betraying her, but her mind is still as sharp and as bright as ever. She keeps smiling!

In extremis last week, she responded to her devoted husband as he sang “Unforgettable” to her, quietly, over her hospital bed. She opened her weak eyes, looked up at him and smiled. Her watching children, every one of them heartbroken by the sight of this ever-loving couple, were in tears. And then amazingly, she rallied again overnight, as she has done in the past.

My sister, known to our family as “Aunty Doo Doo” from those early years when the children made it up and loved to keep saying it instead of her own name, has devoted herself to rebuilding our mum’s strength as best she can. Last week she was searching around for a wide-necked flask which would hold not only her own special chicken soup, made at night when she came home from the hospital, but homemade kreplach and knaidles too. Unhappy with nurses run off their feet and high levels of MRSA in our mother’s hospital ward, she has scooped up our beloved mother and our father as well into her personal care. She has taken them to her home and, if sheer willpower, round-the-clock dedication, chicken soup and good haimische food will once again get them both back on track together, she will do it. She has done it before.

It has now been two years since my mum was last very ill, with what was then the first terrible impact of type 1 diabetes. The young adult cousins, coming to terms with their grandmother’s increasingly debilitating illness, have responded selflessly. They are travelling from all over the country to visit and help. My brother knows how to supply the humour – and even Mum, tired as she is, can’t help but laugh. It’s a pleasure to see.

Thinking of how we are all coping in different ways, with the very heart of our family in turmoil, I have been thinking back more than 20 years ago –to when Aunty Doo Doo started “big school”, and I was a year ahead. On her first day I went to see how she was doing – and I found her in the sick room, crying. She wasn’t crying for herself, but for our mum and how she would cope without my sister at lunchtimes!

Aunty Doo Doo has never changed. She has always been the same. She has looked after her family, her parents, the young cousins, all of us, as only the most devoted daughter and family member ever could or would. Her parents, of course, set her that example. They did the same for their parents. And it’s because of our mum that my sister can now turn out the perfect Dutch apple pie (big or individual size), every variety of kuchen, darkest ginger cake, chocolate cake, strudel and double cream velvet cheesecake, besides the obligatory (and perfect) fish balls, holishkes, tsimmes and pot roasts.  Not forgetting that chicken soup filled with onions, carrots, thick knaidles and kreplach. In fact, when I think of my mum’s cooking, the most simple food always tasted delicious, especially her pastry – and it’s no wonder I was a chunky teenager! I loved her warm buttered scones and jam tarts that were just coming out of the oven when we came home from school…

Cooking is very much about love and passing it down the family. Aunty Doo Doo has learned it all from her and is continuing the tradition. Aunty Doo Doo’s daughters are learning from her in turn. Although I can claim no credit at all, my son Ben is also tremendous in the kitchen.  He may be careless with his door keys, but he is a diligent cook and he loves to cook for our family. Ben served lunch to all 18 of us, including my parents, at the Jewish New Year. His beaming face said it all.

As time relentlessly turns, we face what the future has in store for us. Our family is the same as every other family. We have our ups and downs and highs and lows. However because of the three-year-old boy in the changing room yesterday, the memories have come flooding back and I am filled with gratitude, respect and love for my family, with whom I am so privileged to travel the Circle of Life.