How suitable is it that this year, Remembrance Sunday, falls on Nov. 9 — the 25th anniversary of my mother’s death. On that day, I shall coincidentally be in my hometown, the place we both loved, to honor her memory, and all the time that has passed between us, since she passed.
Remembrance Sunday is observed on the second Sunday in November to remember the service and sacrifice of those who have served in the armed forces and protected freedoms in the U.K. and Commonwealth since World War I. The poppies people wear are a symbol of remembrance, inspired by the flowers that grew on the battlefields of World War I.
I always greet her when I am home. I walk along the beach to our tower — the South Lookout — and I pause exactly where we used to sit on the beach and swim from it daily all those years ago. In that exact spot, I stop walking along the pebbles, and I greet the North Sea once more, saying hello to my Mum and to my baby sister and to the many others who loved that part of the beach as well as me. I comb the beach, as we used to together, thanking her for any treasure I may find — a cornelian, slight slither of agate or citrine — always in the search for the coveted chunk of amber.
Sometimes a seal will raise its large black head in a remembrance nod to our black Labrador Retriever Julie who used to hang out on the beach with us, occasionally swallowing a stone that would need to be surgically extracted. It is sobering how many who loved that spot have since moved on to another planet, just a few feet perhaps from where we currently stand — above our heads maybe, or through the portal that occasionally we can travel. My grandparents on both sides, my great aunt and uncle, family friends, childhood friends, my mother and my sister….
It’s Sunday morning and I hear the church bells, the call to the faithful from that lovely old church on the hill. I may enter her hallowed doors on the 9th of November for a number of reasons. Not because I’m a standard believer, but for the opportunity to pay homage to a precious memory, a special relationship between mother and daughter, the lasting love that transcends time and physical presence. You have to be open to the opportunities that bump into you, I tell my friends. These separate universes can collide when you least expect them.
On arrival into my town, I stroll the familiar pathways in the black of night, listening for the whisper of my ancestors who are surely coming forth from the ether to greet me. The old boats are still turning to dust on the beach, the fishing huts a little more faded than they were the last time I was here, but mostly everything is in its rightful place — the same place as it was the last time I was here and the time before that, since my birth over 60 years ago. In all the devastation and ravages of the world, there is something so very comforting about that.
“Hi Mum! Hi Bud!” I say randomly, as I pause at the staircase by the South Lookout, where our DNA is surely engrained, looking out to sea. I walk past our old cottage and the memories flood back fast and furious. Funny how you recall the small things in life, the details that were always just there, when they are no longer there in your daily life — the hardware on the door is the same as it ever was, the stoop also. The windows are the exact ones that always had our pudgy fingerprints on them. Our prints are all over that cottage — mine, my parents, my sisters, my grandparents, great aunts and uncles, other members of the King Street gang now living in Saint Elsewhere. I like that familiarity, even though none of it is ours anymore. It is still there, a part of us. You can’t take away the memories.
I stroll along the shingle towards the Martello Tower, the old war tower that guarded the coastline and is now part of the Heritage Trust. The light changes every few steps and I find myself grabbing my camera for that captured moment in time — one snap at a time.
I spy a large, black, block-headed seal — the Labrador of the sea — popping its head up and down in the waves. It seemed to be following me towards the tower. Every time I tried to capture him for eternity, he would duck down in the water, as if we were playing a game. No one would believe I was just talking in my story about that very same creature a few minutes ago and here he is. We had fun with our game along the coast until we came upon a lone fisherman trying to cast his line. The seal disappeared for a minute and then popped back up with his lady, also large and black. As the cormorants flew overhead. I had quite the giggle to just myself. I found myself reminding my friends once more that you have to be open to the magic that exists. If you look for it, it will find you.
Day one back in my hometown and the magic is all around, changing as swiftly as the colors in a Suffolk sky. I’m delighted to feel the spirits of my ancestors exactly where I left them — in the air and sea and beach all around this special place. I shall soon be moving back into my childhood cottage for a few days; though the décor is unrecognizable as being ours, the aura of my people is so very strong there and I welcome it.
Did I tell you it’s so good to be back home? This year I think I shall proudly buy and wear a poppy.
My childhood memoir, “The South Lookout; Our Aldeburgh Childhoods,” is available at River House Books in Carmel, The Aldeburgh Bookshop and at Amazon.com; or by contacting the author at lu*************@***il.com.
