My mother sits at my side.
Anna Mary Kelley; and proud of it.
As passionate, beautiful, good, and strong an Irish Catholic
as God ever made.
As a child, I used to love our dinner conversation when my father
would bait my mother with his "I'm of English descent, and
therefore, superior" comments.
We all loved to watch her,
her face flushed, her brilliant blue eyes snapping,
as she delivered the last word to the discussion.
"THEY,
(meaning the English, and in particular, my father's family)
THEY, took the potatoes out of the wee ones' mouths!"
There was no worse horror.
There was a time when I was a teenager
(she reminds me)
when I declared I liked the English better than the Irish!
Siding with my father,
it was indeed calculated to wound.
She had always counted on my support in the millennium old battle
between the Saxons and the Hybernians.
But, those days of rebellion were behind us.
Much like the peace, which was a month old then, bravely initiated
by the IRA.
I was forgiven.
My mother wanted me to share one of the great dreams of her life:
A trip to her beloved Ireland.
She knew, for all the myth she helped to create, and for all that
is just me, it was my dream too.
She tells me I'm just like her father,
(with a laugh and a worry)
as I gleefully explore every "back-and-out" road.
(which most of them are).
I catch her out of the corner of my eye.
(Which is all I could do while adjusting to
driving on the left side of very narrow, winding,
roads. Solid rock fences on either side made unforgiving
challenges.
She turns the map this way and that.
"Relax" I say. "It's an island. Eventually we'll
hit water."
So, we decided to throw away conventional
cares about time and destination,
and see where our dreams would take us,
for our dreams knew the way.
Every breath-taking sight.
Every kind Celtic face and comforting brogue, every salty,
or woodsy smell.
Flowers growing in tangles and patterns of colors spread on
a green so green it shimmers.
Jagged rocks that pierce the sky, grey and ancient,
mottled with lichens and moss.
The sea, cold and crashing, pounding
the land into pebbles that shine like onyx.
There are rough craggy hills, dotted with sure-footed sheep.
There are golden brown marshes, and dunes, and drops to
the coast-line from dizzy heights.
Sometimes it seems lonely;
A forgotten faire land.
Sweet Bridget, the widow of my great grandma's nephew.
Eighty-seven and living still
in the cottage where she was born.
A peat fire warms the room and sweetens it
with smoke.
We have tea and 'catch-up' on lost generations of family.
Our connection is confirmed,
a light shed on who we are.
