Bohemia Village Voice

Daisy Chains

Pamela looked around the flat in Hastings she and her daughter Debbie had moved into. Contemplating another box to unpack, she put the kettle on and made a coffee. Her mind wandered back to six months ago, when they had lived in a five-bedroomed house, garden and bank account! Now they had sold the house with negative equity, had rented this flat and were living on benefits, divorce pending and hormones running amok! What a year!
Back to the task in hand, Pamela began to unpack. She hadn’t been in the box very long when she came across an old diary, one that she had as a little girl. Opened up the first page and read on:-
July 1972
Holiday at Nan’s in Wales.
Her mind went back in time, smelling the honeysuckle around the door, making pies with her Nan from the blackcurrants from her garden, best of all was making daisy chains from the field at the back of Nan’s house. Telling Nan all her secrets, Nan had time for her, she taught her to knit, they played snakes and ladders, went on picnics, etc. Pamela was always sad to go back home to London when the holiday was over. Pamela thought life as a child seemed so easy, carefree, secretly she yearned to be ten years old again, with no worries and cuddling up to her Nan’s big chest once more. She read on:-
May 1973
Letter from Nan, Terrible News, the council were digging up the field at the back of Nan’s house to build a factory!! I feel scared!! No more picking daisies or making chains.
A year later in the summer of 1974, Pamela walked to the back of Nan’s house, looked out into the field and saw a factory. Summer holidays would never be the same again!
1975
Moving to Wales to live with Nan.
Pamela read the diary remembering the smell of the honeysuckle and blackcurrants, also the smell of the hospital when her Nan had died of a stroke. Tears spilled down her cheeks now as she remembered her Nan’s funeral. Turning the page, she found the remains of a pressed daisy and touched it lovingly. Pamela said out aloud “This is all I have left from you Nan. I miss you.”
Pamela picked up a pen and began to write:-
March 1997
We have got to get through this together. I want to make Debbie’s memories of childhood as good as mine if not better. Isn’t it funny how life is like a daisy chain, Debbie and I will get through this divorce as there is a lot of love from me to my daughter to go forward into the unknown? We have to go through life’s green fields and life’s cloudy days together hand in hand. Debbie doesn’t have her Nan living near to confide in or play with her or her father living with us now, so it is up to me to keep this daisy chain going. This daisy chain will survive!!
Pamela put down the pen, wiped her tears and put the diary to one side knowing that one day she would show Debbie when she was older, looked at all the boxes and shook her head, called Debbie to get her coat on as they were going out for a walk to pick daisies and make daisy chains. They walked out into the sunshine smiling and happy.