The Dream

Do you believe in God? I mean really believe? Do you believe in Jesus? The Saints? People like St. Peter, and St. Paul. Do you think they really existed? I do. And what’s more, I believe it with absolute certainty because of something that happened to me as a child. It was a dream, but a dream like no other.....

It was the summer of nineteen sixty three and I was ten years old. The school holidays had just started and I had six weeks of bliss ahead of me. It had already been very hot throughout the month of June, and July was no different. It was my last summer before going up to the secondary school. I was told it would be five years of hard study and all I could think about was the fact that I didn’t have to do anything for six whole weeks. Bliss!

The first week passed pretty uneventfully, and I remember spending most of my days getting up late out of bed and then spending the rest of the day exploring the local woods and fields. I had four sisters and two brothers which meant my house was always crowded and in many ways it was a relief to get out on my own. Only occasionally would I return to scavenge for something to eat, or to quench my thirst with a cold drink of water against the blazing hot sun. There was no such thing as lemonade or coke in our house. With seven growing children there was no money to spare for those kind of luxuries. I was lucky if I could find a crust of bread to eat.

You have to remember that those days weren’t like today. Rationing had only finished a few short years before I was born and I didn’t even see a colour television until I was thirteen...

One thing that did occur in the summer was a holiday at our grandparents house. As there were seven of us our parents would allocate each of the six youngest to spend one week in turn visiting our elderly relatives. It meant there was one less mouth to feed, and worry about, during the long hot summer and also it was a way for us to spend some time visiting and getting to know our relatives. We rarely saw our grandmother except at weekends when she would sometimes visit us at the house. Our grandfather never visited. During the first world war he had been gravely injured losing his left leg from above the knee. He had also been gassed, I’m not sure from which side, but the result was that he was invalided out of the army and sent home to die. For the rest of his life he would struggle to stand up from a sofa or be out of breath walking a hundred yards down the road. The mustard gas had completely ruined his lungs and his leg was sometimes a rough and reddened stump. It’s funny the things you remember abo ut your grandparents isn’t it.

Anyway, on the second week of the holiday my grandmother was due to arrive that Sunday to take me back to her home and return my younger sister Ann. The only problem was that on the Friday afternoon before this was due to happen my grandfather died. My grandmother returned home from a visit to the local shops to find him sprawled across the living room floor in a pool of urine. The doctor said he had died of a stroke, whatever that was.... It was an event that would change my live.

The funeral was very quick and none of the younger children in our family were allowed to go. Only my eldest brother and sister went and as funerals meant nothing to the rest of us none of us were sorry to stay at home. All it meant for us was that grandad wasn’t going to be seen anymore.

"He’s gone to heaven" is all I can remember my mother saying about it. That, and a lot of tears from the grown-ups. There was nothing else too remember.

I was the next one due to go to my grandparents house now that my sister Ann was back home. We were all sat down watching television, something like ‘Emergency Ward Ten’ if I remember correctly and my parents were discussing what they should do.

"Do you think we should send John down to Mum’s?" I heard my mother say quietly to my Dad.

"I don’t know. She’s pretty upset at the moment. I’m not sure she’d want a little brat running around under her feet." he said, somewhat unsure of what to do.

"It might be a comfort to her though ... and give her something to think about. I mean, if she has someone to look after it would help to keep her mind busy, wouldn’t it?"

"I don’t know. Do you think it would help her?" said Dad cautiously.