First Born

First Born

Her first born child was beautiful: golden hair, blue eyes and a
wonderful smile. The months passed and occasionally she wondered if he
was a little lazy: happy to be wherever she was, disinterested in
movement of his own: but he walked eventually.

The months turned into years and it was with a wrench that she sent him
to playschool. He loved it. There was a multitude of different toys to
play with and he learnt to hide one or two up his jumper and bring them
home, too. She pretended not to notice this. After all, if she turned a
blind eye, he would stop, wouldn't he?

Then the playschool years were over and infant school loomed. He did
not like this. They expected things of him. So he worked as badly as he
could and was rude to the teacher. She found another school for him and
he seemed to settle.

Soon the years were a decade and a half. He seemed, at last, to have
found his path: glowing reports from school; predictions of marvellous
exam results. He found a group of friends - they were nice boys,
although none of them ever seemed to have much homework to do. She
turned a blind eye to the state of his room, digging it out when she
became short of pots in the kitchen.

Exam results came: they were a disaster. He had smoked weed - to calm
his nerves, he said, - and failed them all, bar one. She found him a
college course which he later abandoned. He found himself a job, an
apprenticeship, and her hopes soared. He said that he liked it and they
liked him. She talked to him about why the apprentice had to do the
menial work and he seemed to accept it; but then, when she thought he
was at work, she found out he had been looking for wild mushrooms
instead; and he could never make it to work the morning after a rave -
after all, that was completely unreasonable. They sacked him
eventually.

He signed on and was sent to work in a factory. He lost the job a few
weeks later when he accidentally burst a bag of cocoa powder and
scooped it back into the mixers along with the dust and wood shavings
from the floor. The next factory objected when he sneaked out under the
barriers to relieve the boredom and the one after took exception to his
game of demolition derby with a forklift truck.

He told her that the world was wrong. There was no place in it for him.
He gave away his possessions, packed a bag and set off on the road to
freedom.

He returned a month later, homeless, bedraggled, skeletal and with a
dog by his side. She took them in, fed them and listened to his tale;
but the dog kept chasing her cats so she found them a flat of their own
with only a few white lies on the council housing form.

Time passed and in her mind she left him. She had tried to teach him
what she knew; she had tried to mould him as she thought he should be.
They saw each other occasionally , but mostly she heard of him through
his brothers and sisters.

Mid life arrived and with it weariness. Her younger children drained
her energy, sometimes, it seemed, her very life force. She worked
harder to earn more money: she must give them what they wanted; she
must ease their path through life. She took on their emotional traumas
until, at last, she felt she had nothing left to give. She longed to
sleep and wake no more; but two of her children were still very young
and needed her for many more years to come.

The first born child came to visit. He, too, heard of her through his
brothers and sisters. They talked for a long while: they had much in
common. He taught her how to harness the power of the wind, to use it
to regenerate her life force - a skill, he said, that he learned on
Iona. He showed her how to meditate and ease her burdens. He took on
the weight of his siblings. Finally he taught her to live for herself;
to do what she wanted to do; to try what she wanted to try.

She cried when he left. Her first born child was beautiful: golden
hair, blue eyes, wonderful smile and a heart of pure love.