AN ODE TO CLAIRE

THE LANE FAMILY CREST

Family.


It can be bitter sweet.

It can be utterly sad.

It can be joyous.

It can be the only thing that matters.

All of these emotions packed neatly stored away in the cerebral cortex  to be retrieved in moments of celebration, renewal of the ties that binds or when death inevitably grapples unexpectedly.

Destination wedding,  death in a foreign land, renewal of familial love, the bitter sweet taste of unspoken feelings, the understanding of emotional barriers,  came to one poignant spot in the faraway land of mosquitoes, durian and Pad Thai. 

If you were to be a fly on the wall or a little less scientific, a spirit, floating around the gathered group, capturing love, nuances of pride, this is a  scene that repeats throughout history.   Yet for  one moment, its uniqueness to the people involved will remain forever in memory.  One group flew in from Koh Samui, the other flew in from London joining forces with  eldest brother, father and nephews and nieces.

Cousins, half-brothers, uncle and aunt all excited to see each other.  The frenzy of hugs, kisses caused a slight commotion within this quiet exclusive club. Objectivity is best when the story is told from an in-law.


When World War II ended many soldiers long for large families and a loving home.  One such man, a soldier from the Regiment of the Royal Engineers called George lost in the debris of peace,  picking up the pieces, found himself in Cheshire,  and met the perfect family that owned a farm.   It didn't take long for romance to blossom with the youngest daughter.   Two sons, and ten years on, the war was of the distant past; the love that not really there, became resentment and things seemingly  have changed.  He grappled with his decisions for another 10 years and made the hard one.  His mid-life madness broke one family only to restart another one. 

Estranged only to be tenuously renewed by an act of curiosity of the two older boys.......the story unfolds when they arrived unannounced to see their father. Instead of what could easily have been an alpha-display of who's the better man, it became an act of love which with one stroke of  gentlemen's understanding stood a test of love that continued until he died.   

So under the bougainvillea,  swimmers splashing the pool, hardened drinkers in the air-bar, lawn bowlers pretending to be olympian winners, the story of this one family, uninteresting to others but to them highly charged with emotions spent the afternoon by the pool and an evening under the stars.  

This was George's seed, his legacy brought about by war, his change of heart and what it did to four grown men.  The hurt, the anger, many times repeated in nightmares for one;  the delusion, the abandonment by death, carries a deep wound with the other; and then only to be found in the love of each other.  

It took maturity, a wedding, a death, for these half siblings to re-unite after a long stretch of time.  It took both of them to be fathers; it took both of them success and it took the younger one to reach out in the most gentlemanly ways.

Only wives can soothe, only wives can take charge when all else breaks down.  Whatever went down that lovely evening, I know the Lane Spirit made sure 8 little Lanes were in unison however far apart in distance, cross-culturally or ageism, the familial responsibilities assures that love carries on.

If only he knew that he left behind, the lesson to these men, the act of being a true gentleman.  That was his legacy.