Secrets

Reading Brigid’s letters forever changed my thinking on secrets. The muttering’s, ‘leave well enough alone’, holding onto their truth, nurturing it. Emotionless faces as I tried to get them to understand, it consumed me. No one wanted to help carry their cross, no one knew what to do with their pain, a pain that was familiar.

Brigid, never left my mind’s eye, a cause for constant internal debate. One night amidst my turmoil, she came to shake me out of my sleep, it was ok to tell her story. I needed that, after decades of fear. Encouraged to speak of the not obvious questions, the path paved with possibilities, information flowed.  

Heartache from the research no longer held any power, only a motivation to understand their truth.  Walking in their footsteps, chasing them down, those that punished.  Greeted only with love, so much willingness to help, all with a bit of Irish in them. Knowing this road needed to be travelled, their story told. 

Brigid and Kate, had succumbed through no fault of their own. Brigid with her want of all that Yankeeland had to offer. Kate, never had the want, ‘she’s just diferent’ they said, has the trauma in her soul.

I too, inherently had their sense of righteousness. Not always considered becoming, of a female, in polite society. Had it mattered that they had been born in a different century? Would the outcome of their lives have changed?

That generation long gone, yet their story had remained. Documented in the contents of their estate that found me that Bostonian September morning.  Stored in a drawer, in a cupboard, a container of history. Why had it persevered? Why had those that knew, held onto the darkest of correspondence, innermost thoughts laid bare, cared for, waiting for its destiny.

Lives that are lived in pain do not allow for awareness. Existing, the sole occupation of the sufferer.  There must be no doubt that they wanted future generations to know, nothing by chance, entirely by design.  

A giant puzzle, the pieces in the black bags. Humbled and ecstatic that it was me who was reading these letters for the first time since they had been penned. Piecing their journey together, with the excitement of an avid sentimentalist, it’s either in you or it’s not. It was always part of the fabric of who I am,  collecting stories like beautiful memories. Taking the place of reality, it was easier that way.

Fiercely resilient, not a chosen attribute, ‘aren’t you awful lucky to have it’, be grateful for childhood troubles. Without it we would not have the greats, the thinker’s, the talker’s, the singer’s, all rising to the top of their scars. 

It makes you powerful. It makes you tired.  

Most will say they didn’t ask for any of it, you can’t ever hand it back.

Brigid’s resilience supported her leaving the village life into which she had been born. Was it a knowing or just a want of a different way? Upstanding members of their community, good Catholic stock. Any number of marriage proposals the length and breadth of the county.  

What was it that drove her to overcome the not obvious reasons that were staring others in the face. What was it that pushed her through all the nay sayer’s and do gooders. Was it a knowing, an inherent sense of what was laid out before her. 

Had she seen it written in the stars. It could only ever have been a knowing for there would never have been any talk.

Hidden away, in a drawer, in a cupboard, a container of history.

Truth is fragile.

Youthful enthusiasm won.