belgianwaffle

Family

We Live in an Imperfect World

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Posted in: Boys, Daniel, Dublin, Family, Ireland, Michael, Mr. Waffle, Princess

My lovely mother-in-law died on the evening of Wednesday, November 8. She had been really ill with dementia for a long time and the news wasn’t entirely unexpected but still a shock. We got a phone call from the nursing home. In fairness to my brother who was staying with us, he scooted up to bed even though it was only about 10 at night. Mr. Waffle set about the gloomy task of calling his siblings and notifying relatives. It’s not all sitting in the front seat of the car being the eldest, you know.

On Thursday morning I rang my great new boss and told him the news. I kind of created quite a lot of stress for myself by going into work and collecting the laptop which probably wasn’t necessary and certainly added to my overall tensions levels. Then Mr. Waffle and I traipsed across the city to the nursing home. We spoke to herself on the phone as we drove across. These things are always harder when you are away. She was a bit miserable. “You’re both orphans now,” said she. A pause. “Very fat orphans.” Herself, keeping it real.

We went in to the nursing home and took my mother-in-law’s things. Not so many things. She was never very interested in possessions anyway; she was much more interested in people. Going into that room where we had visited her over the last number of years and seeing her in the bed was hard going. It’s funny, she was largely unresponsive for the last couple of years but there is quite the difference between a person, however ill, and a dead body. God, it was just really sad.

We had a couple of hours before Mr. Waffle and his brother were due to meet the undertakers so we went for a walk and a cup of tea.

In Ireland, people are usually buried quite quickly but because her daughter was coming from England, the funeral was deferred to the following Thursday. That was a hard week to put in. I went back to work and so did Mr. Waffle. It was a bit weird and neither of us were at our most productive. Poor Mr. Waffle was also very busy at work so that didn’t help much.

My sister has been a bit unwell and it was also her birthday so I went down to Cork at the weekend to see her. I felt a bit strange abandoning my poor orphaned husband but there it was. On Friday night, there was a deeply unpleasant smell under the stairs – hadn’t we suffered enough? I said to Mr. Waffle that if it was still there on Sunday, we would have to do something. My poor sister has moved into an apartment/hotel thing while getting works done in her house. It’s all very nice (though she saw a mouse in the kitchen, so not that nice) but obviously, she would rather be at home when she is ill. The works seem to be going well though. A side benefit is that the builders are waking my brother, who is living next door, at 7 in the morning. I am really enjoying his anguish as I am basically a bad person. Also the awful smell had gone by Sunday but is it really gone? Time alone will tell.

I was glad when we got to Wednesday lunch time and I finished off work to go to the removal. Because Dublin is a traffic nightmare we had to leave the house at 2.30 to get to Mr. Waffle’s appointment at the church at 4 in advance of the removal. In fact we were there at 3.30 and went to a café. For reasons I cannot understand all Dublin cafes close at 4. This is an unbreakable rule. When the cafe closed, Mr. Waffle went off to the church to meet the priest. His sister who had just arrived from England went too. The guys and I sat in the car and waited which was fine actually. We saw a man who looked just like my father-in-law with a shock of white hair and the orange trousers he favoured striding energetically along the street.

When Mr. Waffle came back we went into the undertaker’s. The removal was from 5-7 which is, I can tell you, a long time. The early attendees included a lot of retirees and relatives and actually a couple of our neighbours who made the trip across town. Later on came friends of the grown-up children who had been at work until then. The boys put in two good hours talking to lots of friends and relations including my brother who, I was slightly terrified, would only arrive after seven but all was well. My brother-in-law who is, quite possibly, the most popular person any of us will know in our lifetimes, was known by everyone and there was a long queue of neighbours, orienteers and relatives waiting to talk to him. He also has a big gang of friends who I first met nearly 25 years ago and who are remarkably close and who came in numbers. It’s funny, to see at regular intervals this group of people moving from students, to parents, to kings (and queens) of the corporate world.

I really felt for my sister-in-law who had, probably wisely, decided to leave her young daughter at home in London with her husband so in consequence didn’t have her own immediate family there to support her. That’s tough going.

After the removal, we had a bite to eat and then drove home. I went off to the airport to collect herself. She is in the middle of exam season so it was a bit of a struggle but she got home. God, I was glad to see her. I remember when her Dublin grandfather died she was in France and a colleague said, “The only good thing about this is that you’re getting that little girl home for a bit.” I can’t help feeling it was true again this time. She reminded me that when my own mother died she had been in Zambia and unable to get home and that in consequence she was never totally sure that her Nana was actually dead. I know what she means.

We were up at the crack of dawn on Thursday to make the funeral at 10. In fact, we were a bit too early and ended up going for a cup of tea in advance. I noticed (mother’s prerogative) herself had a hole in her tights and sent her off to buy a new pair. They were just out in the chemist having sold their last pair. “I might have a novelty pair in the back,” said the chemist. “Would they do?” They would not. She made good the deficit with black pen.

The quest for photos for the funeral missalette turned up very few good ones of my mother-in-law. As a rule, in photos she was turned sideways talking or laughing with someone or facing the camera with her eyes closed. I was somewhat surprised to see on the cover of the missalette a lovely picture of her with baby Michael. I was the only person in the extended family who knew it was Michael and quite a few people thought the baby was Mr. Waffle (she was a really attractive looking woman and aged very well but still and all). In the missalette there was a picture of her from the 1970s and Michael, quite genuinely, asked why a picture of his aunt was included. My sister-in-law is the spitting image of her mother and also very like her in temperament, it’s one of the reasons I am so fond of her.

The funeral service was beautiful. My mother-in-law was very musical and my sister-in-law has a friend who is a conductor and she put together a choir that sang some music from a number of classical pieces including Handel’s Messiah and Fauré’s requiem. Mr. Waffle and his brother did the readings, the grandchildren did prayers of the faithful and my sister-in-law did the eulogy. I love a eulogy, it really gives a flavour of the person who has died and my sister-in-law is a writer and I think she really did her mother justice – her charm; her love of travel and languages; her openness to new things; how she loved to walk in the mountains. It’s funny my sister-in-law’s latest book is just coming out and she dedicated it to her parents who loved the Wicklow mountains which feels pretty appropriate.

In fairness to the priest, he did a good job on the sermon as well and read a poem by Seamus Heaney – my mother-in-law loved poetry and I can never see a cherry tree without thinking of her reciting “Loviest of trees, the cherry now”. The poem the priest read is called Scaffolding.

Masons, when they start upon a building,
Are careful to test out the scaffolding;
Make sure that planks won’t slip at busy points,
Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.
And yet all this comes down when the job’s done
Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.
So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be
Old bridges breaking between you and me
Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall
Confident that we have built our wall.

It was so appropriate. All the time she put in with her grandchildren; all the support she gave their parents; every Sunday at her house for years; the holidays in Kerry every year. She and my father-in-law are a large part of the reason we all know each other so well and that we have so many family bonds. She was a wonderful mother-in law and she adored her grandchildren. She was genuinely fascinated by their concerns. She had a great gift for listening and never offering advice unless asked. A rare and wonderful talent which, alas, I do not share. She was also, obviously, the mother of my husband and, I may be prejudiced here, but I think she did an excellent job.

After the mass, we met mourners outside. One of them was a man who was my boss of bosses at the time I got engaged to Mr. Waffle (he’s looking very well – somehow these senior men who never retire always do look really well). He came up to me and sympathised. I remember when I got engaged he sought me out and told me that I was very lucky as I would have the most wonderful mother-in-law. An odd angle I thought at the time but he was absolutely right. A couple of my own friends came which was really lovely. So did my sister who schlepped up from Cork notwithstanding being ill and shelled out cash to the kids to boot.

Lots of Mr. Waffle’s friends were there including the man who is legendary in our family for the following story. When he was a little boy he stayed with Mr. Waffle and they were given hot chocolate. Mr. Waffle protested to his mother that it was not nice but she told him to drink up. When his friend said the same, she investigated and discovered that she had inadvertently made the hot chocolate with Bisto. The friend told the kids that their grandparents were definitely the hippiest parents of any of the boys who went to their rather strait-laced school. No surprises there.

Then we all repaired to a room in a nearby pub and, while many people had to leave after the mass, I was amazed how many people came to the pub. Tons of relatives and loads of my brother-in-law’s gang of friends who would have had to take the day off work (local mores are that it is acceptable to leave work for a couple of hours to go to a funeral but if you stay on you have to take the day off). My brother-in-law had done trojan work pulling together slides from when my parents-in-law were young including many from when they lived in South America and they were supposed to play as a slide show but alas it didn’t work. But that work is definitely not wasted because I have them now. We were in the pub for hours – you kind of have to stay to the end but we were all exhausted and I was pretty glad when we had to leave to drop my sister-in-law to the airport. Poor Mr. Waffle was a shadow of his former self; so sad and tired and quiet.

Herself went back on Friday morning and then I went back to work on Friday afternoon and now it’s all done. A mountain climbed, appropriately enough.

My mother-in-law had a philosophical approach to difficulties. There were sad and difficult years towards the end of her life but overall she had an exciting and charmed life full of joys and adventures. She was utterly beloved by her family and had a wide circle of great friends. Not a bad tally and, as she often said so wisely herself, “We live in an imperfect world”.

The Condemned Man


Posted in: Boys, Daniel, Family, Michael, Mr. Waffle, Siblings, Travel, Work

Earlier this week, I went for a cycle in the park with my loving husband. The place was pretty much deserted on a damp Monday afternoon.

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We had a cup of tea at the lake.

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Then we headed for home where we arrived safely notwithstanding the fact that this stag looked pretty dubious about our bikes. You have to imagine the sound effects – Mr. Waffle saying in increasingly urgent but low pitched tones, “Don’t stop to take a picture, keep cycling.”

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The weather was lovely on Wednesday and I went for a swim in the sea with my friend who swims in the sea every day of the year. She has several pairs of magic little bootees which fool your body into thinking it’s not going to be unbelievably cold. I am a big fan. I think I might buy my own for summer time swimming which would look stupid but do I even care anymore? It was lovely swimming – yes really – and then we went for lunch afterwards.

We went to Wicklow overnight with the in-laws. Of the younger generation, only Michael and the youngest cousin (6) came but they both seemed to have a good time. Daniel was home alone for the first time. Delighted.

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It was lovely to see everyone and my only regret was the bank holiday traffic which was horrendous. In fairness Wicklow (the garden of Ireland as it styles itself) was looking pretty good.

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My sister was in Dublin for the weekend and came to dinner last night. It was great to see her. To my absolute horror I realised that her birthday is coming up in November and somehow, in all of the other excitement, I am not as on top of her present as I might be. Never mind, there’s still time. She filled me in on her extensive building works – she’s moved out until Christmas at least. Terrifying.

Today Mr. Waffle and I cycled to Howth, stopping off for breakfast on the way. I raced him back – I wanted to cycle and he was going to get the suburban train, the DART which allows you to bring your bike on board on bank holidays. I got home first but, alas for him, he had to cycle as well as the DART was undergoing bank holiday Monday repairs. I feel that correct competition conditions were not observed. Howth was looking lovely although there was a woman photographing a rat sitting up and eating some fruit and nuts on the pier. “He’s only a baby and people keep leaving stuff out for him,” she explained. He looked very large for a baby, if you ask me.

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I am fully decorated for Halloween tomorrow.

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Although none of my decorations are as effective as those of my neighbours up the road who have impaled turnip heads on the spikes of their garden fence.

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A busy week. What am I trying to avoid thinking about? Why the return to work tomorrow. It has been fantastic being off. I’ve been lucky to do it. And the job I’m going back to will be grand, I think. But currently this music is playing on repeat in my head. As the young people say, “If you know, you know.” Wish me luck.

To Dust You Shall Return


Posted in: Boys, Cork, Daniel, Family, Ireland

We went down to Cork on Saturday to bury my aunt’s ashes. It was a much deferred event and in the end this weekend didn’t really suit because a) Mr. Waffle and I had a party on Friday night; b) Daniel was staying out at a friend’s house to do a Friday 13th horror marathon and had to be picked up from there on the way to Cork and was up until 5 am being jump scared; c) my sister was enjoying a rolling crisis at work and ongoing illness and d) she and her partner were moving out of their house the following Monday to make room for the builders who are moving in until Christmas.

At the party on Friday, an old friend of mine from Cork asked me how Aunty Pat was and I had to say, not great, we’re interring her ashes tomorrow. I felt a bit sorry for him but there you are.

Anyway, we got to Cork, we got to the graveyard and we did it. It was a short ceremony and it’s pretty surprising to see how small the box of ashes is. The gravedigger knew Aunty Pat and had done some gardening work for her in the past, so that was actually quite nice.

We went for lunch afterwards which was not entirely successful because it was vegetarian which not everyone loved, Daniel was exhausted, my sister was sick and it was so loud that it was difficult to hear anything. Alas. Before we went to the graveyard, my sister had sustained us with a snack including a Cornish pasty from Marks and Spencer’s. “Look Mum,” said Daniel excitedly, “an English empanada.” Good point.

At lunch we were trying to tell Aunty Pat stories over the din. My brother said – which was news to me – that she loved rugby and when he was a kid, he used to go into her house to watch matches. Mr. Waffle and I went round to her house – where my brother is now living – that evening to watch Ireland play the All Blacks and, honestly, with one thing and another, it would have been nice if the Irish team had won. But no, it was that kind of weekend.

I feel a bit sad but I guess it’s good that she’s interred there with her uncles and aunts, brother and grandparents (her parents are elsewhere). And, as they say, she had a good innnings. In fact, she was pretty much perfect and driving about until her late 80s. She was 94 when she died and living at home. Things could have been a lot worse.

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I Knew You’d Want to Know


Posted in: Family, Ireland

I cannot tell you how often I have got emails from friends and acquaintances, telling me that someone’s parent is dead saying “I knew you’d want to know.” My heart kind of sinks. I actually didn’t want to know at all and I glumly go about re-ordering my week to attend the funeral or removal, thinking that if I hadn’t known, I could just have sent a card.

One of my most used websites is rip.ie which i basically regard as a public service.

In Ireland, there are a lot of funerals in your life; that’s just how it is. You are honour bound to go to the funeral of someone you know’s parent. Unless you’re abroad. It doesn’t matter where the funeral is, if it is a friend’s parent and the funeral is on the island of Ireland, you schlep there. Sometimes the removal is sufficient. For someone less close if you have to travel more than an hour, you probably don’t have to go but context is all important and at the very least, you must send a card. There’s a whole set of unwritten rules which only fellow Irish people know how to apply and they will know, if you’ve fallen short. By God, they will know. My uncle’s funeral was on the day we were moving back from Belgium to Ireland in 2008. By car with our three small children and all the possessions the movers were not taking for us. I think, quite genuinely, my aunt never forgave me for not coming to my uncle’s funeral. My situation was not helped by my cousin (also a niece) flying home from New York to attend.

I have no idea how many dead bodies I have seen. Loads anyway. Even my kids have seen at least five or six. When I was a child and UCC was much smaller than it is today, my mother would have a look at the flag on the mast on the quad to see whether it was flying at half mast; just in case anyone was dead.

One day over the summer, I spent most of a beautiful day in the car to get to the removal of the parent of someone I worked with years ago. I was filled with rage. But when I got there I met loads of people I knew; the daughter of the dead woman was really pleased to see us all and I think it made a real difference to her at a horrible time. And I remembered all the random children of her friends who took time to come to my aunt’s funeral over the summer and how nice it was for us to have them there.

So, I suppose, yes, they’re all right, I did want to know after all.

Revolutionary Heroes as Crisps


Posted in: Family, Reading etc.

Recently someone painted a junction box with a mash-up tribute to revolutionary hero Michael Collins and the tasty snack known as the chickatee. The artist had written Mickatee on the box over the picture of Collins done in the radioactive yellow associated with the snack. People went bananas (insert your own snack joke here).

My loving family found this very inspiring and came up with a range of crisp/revolution related puns including: “No man can Lay the boundary to a nation” and “We serve neither King nor Kettle“. Sadly I’ve forgotten the rest. Please feel free to share your own revolution/crisp related content in the comments.

Driving Lessons


Posted in: Boys, Daniel, Family, Michael, Mr. Waffle, Princess

We missed the boat with herself and, due to Covid, she went to England without ever learning to drive. I was determined to get the boys sorted. It took a lot more bureaucracy than I expected.

Firstly they needed to get public service cards. As they were under 18 at the the time, I had to go with them to the centre where you get your public service card. I was confused by the queuing system in the centre. I asked another person waiting whether we needed a ticket and she responded in Ukrainian, that she didn’t understand. Well, this was the opportunity I had been waiting for. My lessons, my duolingo and my time spent listening to Ukrainian in the cesspit that is YouTube shorts were about to pay off. I repeated my question in Ukrainian. She looked baffled. Her teenage sons sniggered unhelpfully. My teacher said that part of the difficulty might be in the way I pronounce “ticket”; apparently, it sounds like “flower”. Alas.

Anyway, eventually, we sorted Dan’s card and Michael was the beneficiary of the scoping exercise I had carried out with Dan the previous day. The next day Michael and I were in and out in 10 minutes. One of the officials was the mother of a friend of his from school and while this made no difference to the speediness of the operation, it made us feel very well connected to the corridors of bureaucratic power.

Later, I was appalled to see that the cards ran out on their 18th birthday in September. The idea of going through it all again was very distressing. I am, however, pleased to report that following their birthday, new cards arrived automatically in the post. The relief.

Once they got PS cards they were able to do the driver theory test. If you have just done your Leaving Certificate, prepping for the driver theory test presents precisely zero difficulties. They sailed through it unlike their mother who failed the mock test they made her do online. In my defence, I would say that I answered some questions with what I thought they would like you to do rather than what I would actually do and, it turns out, what I was doing was actually right. Who knew? It was ironic that I shortly afterwards received a notification that my own licence was due to expire. However renewal is, in fairness to the driving licence people, extremely easy, if you have a licence already. Crucially, no resitting of any tests is required. I mean, maybe it should be?

Once they had their theory tests and PS cards, the boys could apply for provisional licences. Daniel, as a glasses wearer, needed a piece of paper from the optician following an eye test. We did it. Then I realised that everyone who wants a driving licence has to do an eye test, not just people who wear glasses. On balance, a good thing but back to the optician with Michael, of course, on the morning of our flight to Argentina. The optician’s credit card machine was broken. Extra trip back. Sigh. Anyhow, Michael’s form in and everything in order. Hurrah.

Then we got a message about Daniel’s form. Due to his eye condition, he needed a medical form as well within ten days or the application would not be progressed, his fee would be forfeit and he would have to start again. I rang the helpdesk, they were helpful. “We’re going on holidays today, we won’t make the 10 day deadline,” I said. “You can go to any GP at all,” said the nice man at the other end of the line. “We’re going to Argentina,” I said. A pause. “Look,” he said, “I will flag it on the application and maybe they will wait but it might be rejected.”

When we returned from Argentina, Michael’s provisional licence was there waiting for him. We went to the GP with Dan as soon as we could get an appointment (she got to look at his injured shoulder as well, so a win as it is €70 for a GP visit and it is nice to get more than a quick once over and a form filled in) and put in the form and, hallelujah, it was accepted and he too got a provisional licence. Though the physio said that he couldn’t actually drive for at least a month so no urgency really then.

Michael had his first actual lesson on the road at the start of September and was genuinely horrified by the power of fourth gear. He has to have a number of lessons with an instructor before he can be put on our insurance and drive with a parent (something that will be possible at the end of the month and, quite frankly, something we’re all dreading).

It’s funny that Michael is the most advanced in his progress towards actually having a driving licence because he has zero interest in it really, it’s just something useful to have. The other two are much keener. The physio has finally cleared Dan to have lessons and I actually think he will quite enjoy it. This will make a pleasant contrast with Michael who heads out to lessons with the demeanour of a condemned man and comes back a shadow of his former self. When these lessons are costing you a fortune, it is hard to take this with equanimity.

A friend of Mr. Waffle’s points out, most unhelpfully, that it is hardly worth their while to learn on a manual gear stick as they will be phased out for all cars by the end of the decade. However, our current car, on which they will be learning to drive, is a manual car so I really don’t think we had a lot of choice. It’s much harder, of course, but it will make them mentally strong, I am sure.

They’ll both be on our car insurance in the next month or so. That’s two 18 year olds. I shudder to contemplate what the cost will be. Good job I’m planning to go back to work. I don’t at all remember learning to drive being so administratively challenging when I learnt. Although, I did nearly send my mother to an early grave with my near misses (favourite expression deployed on my rounding a bend too quickly in the city centre, “What would you have done, if there had been a cow lying in the middle of the road?”). I vividly remember her clutching the door handle and pumping an invisible brake with her foot. At the time, I thought she exaggerated but I did notice that as I became a more experienced driver those behaviours disappeared. I suppose it is all ahead of me.