A Hundred Small Lessons by Ashley Hay
When we look back, or even when we look ahead we come to
realize the small lessons we’ve learned are what shape(d) us. As with any
lesson, there’s the expectation of having learned something from it.
For Lucy Kiss and her
husband, Ben, the learning is in figuring out how to be completely new and
different people with the birth of their son, Tom, and a move to a new city
where they are dependent solely on each other.
Before Tom, Lucy and Ben were travelers, explorers, adventurers, but now
they are homeowners and parents and Lucy is homebound.
Lucy and Ben moved from Sydney to Brisbane when Tom was just
a year old. This move took Lucy away
from her whole family support system.
The realization terrifies her.
They bought a house that had belonged to Elsie and Clem Gormley for
sixty years. But now Clem is dead and
Elsie is very old and has fallen and her children found a place for her in a rest
home. This transition isn’t going down
well for her. Lucy is convinced Elsie “is still there” in the house and talks
to her presence, she finds small things left behind, a few photographs, a tea
cup, and even the birds seem confused by the new inhabitants.
Between Elsie remembering her life in her home and Lucy
adjusting to living in Elsie’s home, we come to believe the house has its own
memory. And why not? Wouldn’t the house feel like an old shoe,
molded to someone else’s foot and now must accommodate a different size being
put into it? As the past and the present
are manifested in Lucy’s and Elsie’s lives, centered around the house, we can’t
help think of our own hundred small lessons.
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