Today, for no particular reason, I have been thinking of the ginger beer I never quite got around to making for my Dad. He drank ginger beer to help with the nausea of it all and I thought what a great idea it would be to make some. The lads could watch the plant grow. And making ginger beer, it would be something we could do, something we could give him.
Making ginger beer was something we could do.
I remember that we went to Gaganis Brothers, the lads and I, to look for bottles to put the ginger beer in and I remember the lads bought a packet of wafer biscuits (‘can we have one each, can we, please’), but I don’t remember – and I don’t understand how I could forget – whether we found the perfect bottles or not. And I can’t remember if we did buy them, what happened to them next.
We didn’t quite get around to making the ginger beer.
I hope, if we did find the bottles, I gave them away in the great cleanup before we left. I hope I cried over them as I wrapped them carefully and put them in a box for the Salvation Army to come and take away.
I hope that they did not go into storage.
I would hate to find them, the perfect bottles for ginger beer. Unused.
I understand. I found letters I never sent, but had written to my grandmother…
oh god, it is so often the little things that can hold the most painful meanings. especially as the littlest reminder of someone can take us so unaware; due to its size we don’t even see it sneaking up on us.
Such a lovely way to write about your father. Sideways as it were. I still find little baby-clothes that will never be worn, -its not always a bad thing, but very poignant.