Francis Gay

MY WEEK

Caroline wondered why her Jack Russell pup was getting so agitated. It turned out there was a large caterpillar on the patio.

The pup didn’t know what to make of it but her cat wanted to make lunch of it!

So, Caroline laid a leaf down, waited for it to crawl on board, then gently removed it to a safer place. And then she looked it up online.

That caterpillar will, in due course, become an Elephant Hawk-moth, with striking copper and lime-green colouring.

“I’ve never seen such a beautiful moth before,” she told me.

Maybe she will, soon. But it occurred to me that beauty rarely springs fully formed into this world.

Nearly always, there will have been a difficulty or a vulnerability, and a kindness or an encouragement will have helped it be all it was meant to be.

In that way, we can all make beauty.

Maureen’s mum, Lena, moved into the cul-de-sac as a new bride. She raised children there, held the wake for her husband there, and outlived most of her friends there.

After the other original inhabitants moved on, the council used the cul-de-sac as temporary housing for problem families. As far as Maureen knew, this had been a lonely few years for mum.

But, when the funeral cortege left, she saw children and young mums lining the pavement.

The next day, she met a woman tying wildflowers to Lena’s gate. They talked. It seems almost every young mum in the street had benefited from Lena’s experience, practical advice, even her babysitting. The cul-de-sac saw her as a communal great-gran.

“She outlived her own generation,” Maureen told me. “But she gave that extra time to the modern generation.”

And it seems they appreciated it.

It was a wonderful thing to watch. Stephen’s demeanour went from “tired” and “down” to “up for the challenge” in the space of our conversation – and he did all the talking!

“It’s the anniversary of my dad’s death today,” he told me. “And I’ve been thinking of all the things we said, or didn’t say.

“I’ve been thinking about the things that stick in the memory, and how, eventually, they come to define us. Really, in the end, we are all writing the story our children will either forget or remember us by.

“I looked at my children this morning, wondering how they would remember me. And I realised...that’s up to me.

“They might choose what to remember, but I’ll supply the material.

“And I like a good story, a page-turner, with lots of surprises – a real feelgood story. And... I must head off. I need to start writing!”