I Bless the Day

The attic room at the top of the tall Belfast town house was chilly, even in summer.  I shared the slanting space with my little sister, Pauline Mary. She is just sixteen months younger, but littler than me, nonetheless. The house faced the busy Oldpark Road, a wide thoroughfare which led up to Cliftonville Circus and onwards towards Ballysillan. The bus stop was right outside the house, a fact that irritated English visitors, but never us. We were used to the slither and smack of doors and the regular expiration of air, like a sigh from a large animal. A garden the size of a picnic rug protected us from the road, the narrow space bordered by a low wall sprouting a dusty hedge. There was also a fuchsia bush, a splash of colour against the grey, and I showed my sister how to suck honey from the base of the waxy flower.

It matters where you come in a family. I am the bossy big sister. On Sundays we were taken to church at least four times: morning Sunday School, morning service, afternoon Sunday School and evening service, at our own church or in one of the mission halls where our father worked. In between (was there any in between?) we were allowed to engage in Sunday activities only: no ball games, riding bikes or reading comics. We did not own a television.

I can recall assembling my siblings in the parlour where the two bar heater took pride of place. I arranged them on the settee and the meeting began. I led the service, chose the hymns and preached the sermon. I think I put my sister in charge of giving out the hymnbooks.  She was compliant, as ever.

Our mother made our clothes. One year our Sunday-go-to-meeting outfits consisted of blue grey tweed skirts and bolero jackets with matching hairbands. I vividly remember suffering agonies of shame in case the fabric bands did not properly constitute a head covering. Would God be happy with the hairbands? My sister was not worried. I was older, so if there was any divine retribution, it would fall on me.

I always got the blame. She discovered early on that if she kept quiet and stayed under the radar, I would fight the battles for her. And battles there were aplenty:  wearing trousers to church, reading non-Sunday books, begging to go to the cinema, refusing to go to the Girls' Brigade/Christian Endeavour/Sunday School.

Our father was a preacher and as we grew older, he took us with him to the meetings. Too young to play the organ or give our testimonies, we trundled up to the front to recite Bible verses or perform. We cannot have been more than seven or eight when we sang acapella:

Clean hands or dirty hands,

Brown eyes or blue,

Pale cheeks or rosy cheeks,

Jesus loves you.

I was dark-haired with wan skin, so I dirtied my hands for dramatic effect and splayed my fingers on cue. My eyes are blue so I twinkled them in harmony with the notes.  My little sister has brown eyes so the song worked, but as I recall the experience I am amazed that our parents allowed her to point cheerfully to her rosy cheeks.  She was, in fact, born with a birthmark on her face which may have added weight to the spiritual message, but now feels like exploitation. Pauline bore it all without complaint.

 

Pauline and me

Back in the attic, the room glowing orange from the streetlights, we sang the Everly Brothers in two-part harmony: 'I bless the day I found you/I want to stay around you/ Now and forever/ let it be me.' At Christmas we lay together listening for Santa's sleighbells and squealing with delight at the discovery of an orange in the toe of one of our father's old socks.

When we moved to Newtownards, our lives went in different directions: different schools; different friendship groups; different careers.  At one point, however, we did date brothers: John and Sandy and wasted innocent sunny days together among the yellow broom in the Easter Field. My quiet sister worked in Cafolla's after school and on Saturdays - always earning her own money, always independent.  She became a nurse, riding a scooter to work in the Ulster Hospital and going on to qualify as a midwife. She married the naughty boy she always complained about in school and is the mother of four lovely young adults and grandmother to her precious Evie.

Now she is sixty and I am blessed to know her. She has shown great resilience and love in supporting her husband through unimaginably sad family loss; she leads the local community midwifery team with justice and fortitude; she has helped all of the women in the family through the traumas of pregnancy, childbirth and breast-feeding; she meets crises with inner calm and she demonstrates a spiritual strength borne of a faith that has survived a plethora of meetings and a big sister who would only let her hand round the songbooks.

Congratulations, Pauline, on your sixtieth birthday! I love you and am glad God gave you to us - born in our parents' bed and beloved by all.

Thank you for being my sister.

 

Pauline