Ye find ye can communicate with complete strangers more
satisfyingly than you can with your own family. Words can often get in the way,
as the old song says. Sensitivities and old sores are like land mines; the
merest hint of criticism or rebuke is like twenty Becher’s Brooks to jump.
Relatives possess antennae that the world’s radar specialists are yet to
replicate. And yet, the love….
Conversations among these people are like faulty engines
spluttering and farting out fuel and smoke and stalling and bucking up a busy
road like Keystone Cops or Laurel and Hardy and a car just about to fall apart;
first the doors, then the wheels and finally Ollie is left holding just a
steering wheel and Stan is wondering how it inevitably came to be his fault.
“Aye, but” “I didnae mean it that way” “That was just a joke”
“I know she was good in other ways”
“My mother never even cuddled me or ever
told me she loved me” “Aye, but?”
Different conceptions, mis-perceptions, allegiances,
different stories understood in different ways. A lifetime of hurts and
squashed feelings. Squandered emotions.
And yet the love lies yearning, latent and ready....
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