The old house

This old building used to be my paternal grandmother’s house. Number 8, Calle Enrique Olmos, Valencia. Possibly nearing 80 years since the time it was built, it is a puzzle to me why it remains standing.

My recollections of the place are now remarkably indistinct: several flights of gloomy, stuffy stairs, an old wooden door and a small hall. Other than at Christmastime, I would rarely go there. One clear memory I do have, however, is to be standing on that balcony, calling out to my brother, or perhaps my cousins too, to come upstairs because the big Christmas lunch was going to get started.

I can hardly remember my paternal grandfather, my Iaio – he died when I was very young. But I do remember, and very well, my paternal grandmother. As a teenager I would see her often at the grocery shop she owned, the place where she worked very long hours. As she grew older and wearier, she would frequently choose to stay in the shop overnight instead of walking back to her Enrique Olmos house.

I actually think I held my first proper ‘job’ at her shop, helping restocking shelves and fridges, particularly on summer weekends, when we sold lots of bottles of beer, lemonade and Coke, as well packets of crisps, salted dried nuts and many other groceries. The pace could get frantic when we were nearing closing time, with everybody wanting to buy cold drinks and last-minute essentials. On more than one occasion we closed the shop past 2:30 pm.

Although I have no clear recollection of having done so, I must have pointed out the house to Clea during her only visit to my home town in July 2005, aged 2 and a half. Who knows if she actually understood what I was talking about when I explained it to her who Iaia Carmen had been.

To me, it is completely absurd for an old uninhabited house to endure like this for years. The home of Clea’s great-grandmother is still standing many years after her death, while my little one was buried when she was six and nine months old. For quite unexplainable reasons, I sort of resent this old house now. It should have fallen down years ago, should it not?

The vagaries of death, decay and destruction seem quite incomprehensible and whimsical. The absurdity of it all is baffling.

Presents

At Christmas time, instead of giving presents to each other, Clea’s brothers have made a valuable gift to unknown children in other parts of the world where life is nowhere near as easy as in Australia through World Vision. It is the second year in a row they have done this. At a time when the Australian Government has shamefully cut its foreign aid to the poorest countries, we continue to encourage our kids to give to others less privileged.

For quite a few years now I have made an annual donation (a modest sum) to The Smith Family to help disadvantaged Australian kids. That’s where my Christmas present goes. Yet one of the very people responsible for cutting down Australian foreign aid had the gall to ask all of us in Australia to “spend up big at Christmas”, as if by spending up big one could somehow improve the world. Definitively, stupidity knows no bounds, and seems to get voted in every few years.

There are other kinds of priceless gifts, too. Someone I have only met via the internet, someone whose literary work I enjoy and feel deep respect for, will spend the holidays in some sort of psychotherapy hostel, away from his family. He is in a bad way - has been for more than a year now (and he seems to be improving, hopefully). If I could, I’d give him the present he deserves: the chance to be with his children.

Parents who have lost a child (having to bury your child is the most unnatural event that can occur to a parent) do not look forward to this time of year. As a child, I used to like Christmas Eve, or La Nochebuena – (The Good Night) as it is known in Spanish, which is really the most important date of the Christmas period in Spain – because our family all got together, because on the table there was a fabulous feast of food and in the living room there was a lot of good cheer. After losing my daughter more than five years ago, I do not look forward to this night any longer because our family cannot be together. Clea, who so loved this time of year, will be absent. She will not awake early on Christmas Day to open her presents.

The truth is, however, that we still get presents or souvenirs for Clea whenever we travel. Small things we can leave by her grave, like the ceramic puppy and the wristlet from Turkey in the picture above. Or the silken scarf I bought for her two years ago in Penang.

The night I bought this (I think) beautiful pink scarf, I bought a very similar one for a Chinese PhD student who had presented a paper at the Translation Conference I was attending. It was difficult to explain (or for her understand, I guess) why I was asking her to accept such a small gift from me, a perfect stranger. She had been able to fulfil a dream/project my own daughter has not even been given the chance to start upon.

There is only one present I’d wish for, but no one can give it to me. No one. Ever.