A Slice of Time

T-M's granny, or Omi as we say here in deepest Bavaria, is the kind of person who gets moaned at for messing about taking photos and recording things on tape... but who then, a few years later, can glow in smug, self-righteous satisfaction and guilt-driven praise when everyone looks at the photos and listens to the tapes she made and is reminded of wonderful things.

She was glowing again on Monday. We went round to see her and T-M asked her about a cassette she had made some years ago of William when he was 2. She had it of course and after a little reminder of how we had complained when she was making it and getting us to agree that she had been right to make it after all, she played it to us.

You wonder how you can forget these things and yet you do...and yet somehow you don't!

Suddenly, there was the William of 1997 with his googly little voice looking down from Omi's front window at the traffic lights across the square and saying, "Tlaffic light led! Tlaffic light gleen! Tlaffic light led again!" and all the other expressions he used to come out with then.

A little 90 minute slice of time from the past.

And you realise that you had forgotten it and yet instantly remember it. And I also wondered, "when did he stop doing that?" There must have been a last time he said it; just like there was a last time I could throw him up and catch him and a last time he would hold my hand as we walked to kindergarten; and just as there was a last time I did all those kind of things with Nicky, Biddy and Jimmy...

And even though it almost hurts to listen to these tapes or watch the videos and realise that this time is over, I also think, "I wish we had more..."

Well done Omi.