Mindful of Images

As I lay in the long grass the clouds drift carelessly over my head, changing the shade of the landscape and my mind drifts with them to times gone by and images I have stored in my hard-drive. I wonder why my mind stores some images and not others? Memories are different – I remember the events leading up to dad shooting my dog Judy, but only have an image of my mam playing with me in the aftermath. Maybe because it’s Christmas another image came to light today. When I was four years old my mam had a brain hemorrhage and was still in hospital on Christmas Day. In 1961 kids weren’t allowed in neurological wards, so my dad, in true Baldrick fashion, hatched a ‘cunning plan.’ Opening a window from inside someone plonked me on the window ledge from outside and I sang ‘Away in a Manger’ to the ward. It’s not my memory, I have been told about it, but its my image of all the poorly women looking up at me as I serenaded them. It was the same Christmas I became an Astronaut, hmmm,  what would a therapist make of that I wonder 😉