Life

Nuala McCann: The trick is to catch your egg surely but gently

I used to lift her youngest, sling him over my shoulder and race about the living room shouting 'Bag of coal! Bag of coal' like I was the delivery man. Nobody lifts things over their shoulders any more... not bags of coal, not old metal bins... those days are long gone

Nuala McCann

Nuala McCann

Nuala McCann is an Irish News columnist and writes a weekly radio review.

Our fledglings have fledged, the days of Easter eggs and hunts are long gone
Our fledglings have fledged, the days of Easter eggs and hunts are long gone Our fledglings have fledged, the days of Easter eggs and hunts are long gone

EASTER Sunday. We call over to hover at a safe distance on my sister's doorstep. It is sunny; icy; Baltic – take your pick.

“A cup of tea?” she asks. But it is too cold to sit out her back, even with two coats and a hot water bottle. And the days of Easter eggs and hunts are long gone. Our fledglings have fledged. The Easter bunny is dead to them.

It seems like yesterday since I was lifting the fresh eggs from the carton in her kitchen and shouting "egg catch" before tossing a raw egg at a startled child.

It was the surprised look on their faces… the fun of catching not smashing the egg. The mad giggles.

“The mess,” sighs my sister.

Yes, wasteful; yes, ashamed; but it soon became a firm favourite with them all even if their mother was not so keen.

Gone too are the days when they'd laugh and shriek and run about wildly as I chased them round the house with their ma's good throw over my head... like a rubbish ghost from a Scooby Doo cartoon.

Or the days when they’d lie on the bed and I’d play waves, shaking the duvet up in the air and down over them. Wot larks, wot larks.

Remember, says my sister, standing in the doorway surrounded by her three big sons… all a head taller than her. She reminds me of the time she came home to find that, in fulfilling my babysitting duties to the best of my abilities, I had bathed the youngest and got him into his jammies. Perfect – a five-star show.

Only, there was none of the usual bubble bath about in the bathroom so I had to improvise.

"Do you remember when you bathed our youngest fella in my Jo Malone Pomegranate Noir?!" she says.

“Well, it was handy and he smelled adorable,” I tell her. She’s not over it yet.

Twenty years ago. I used to lift her youngest, sling him over my shoulder and race about the living room shouting "Bag of coal! Bag of coal" like I was the delivery man.

Nobody lifts things over their shoulders any more... not bags of coal, not old metal bins... those days are long gone.

Her son’s musical taste has not a little to do with me either. I taught him the best of country – he does a mean Johnny Cash Walk the Line, is partial to Bob Marley – Stir it up – and adores the Boss... he the man!

When this whole pandemic is over, we’ll jump in the car, throw on the music full blast and sing our way over the hills of Belfast, free at last, just free at last.

My sister was a model aunty to our boy too. As a toddler, he led a charmed life… café society where are you?

He loved nothing more than being pushed around the supermarket in his buggy nibbling on a gingerbread man or twirling a small crusty bap on his finger.

She took him to every coffee shop going. Then, when I'd put him in said buggy, he'd go mad and shriek and push off the reins to get out at every café on the Ormeau Road… from the Three Bears cafe onwards. So that I did consider buying him a set of blinkers to wear like a horse, just for an easy life.

But all that was over 20 years ago. Twenty years a-growing and they're a beautiful sight for our sore eyes, even if we get a crick in our necks looking up at them.

There she stands at her door on a pandemic Easter Sunday with her beanpole sons… as my big son and I look back at her. Happy Pandemic Easter, we say on the doorstep.

And I drive home with my son who is kindly but does tend to hold his breath a little at my driving… I veer off course as my mind wanders and the car meanders across the road.

I'm looking at the cherry blossom and thinking how beautiful it is and how fragile it is. How time slows in lockdown but flies when your children are small. How when you throw someone an egg, the trick is to catch it surely but gently – grab and you smash your prize.

Beautiful and fragile as cherry blossom are the moments of our lives… catch and cradle them gently in the palm of your hand.