Days Like These by Lorna Nelson
Sometimes a day, or the second it takes to make a decision on that day, can make a huge difference to a person, changing their future for ever.
In a corner of the nursery in a huge Victorian mansion given over to a Nursing Home, lay a tiny baby. She was tightly but comfortably wrapped up Egyptian mummy style in a white shawl with her golden curls just peeping over the top of the bundle. She looked as though she had the worries of the world on her shoulders with a frown on her little brow and her small fists clenched. Her mouth had started to make a simulated sucking movement and little snufflly noises came from her as she began to waken to the uncertainty of her future. An unknown father and a mother who had been forced to abandon her had put paid to any certainty for this little mite.
Jean and Robert Armstrong were a most fortunate couple. Jean, young and pretty with dancing hazel eyes and curly brown locks, was about to marry Robert, eleven years her senior and considered a good “catch” for her being a very successful banker. Both families were delighted with this match so there was an air of euphoria. They had a fairytale wedding with all the trimmings and two hundred guests attended so money was no object which at the time was unusual. 1939 was the beginning of World War 2 and the year that their marriage took place. Generally, people were worried about spending but they were financially unconcerned. Jean was a beautiful bride and Robert struck a fine figure in his well tailored dinner suit and shiny patent shoes. He was an accomplished dancer and they glided across the floor as one. All eyes were upon them, a couple with the world at their feet despite the turmoil in the world.
Robert enlisted in the Royal Air Force as a plotter but this was short-lived as he developed stones in his kidney and was subsequently discharged from duty. His condition was well monitored, not requiring surgery, the stones being dissolved successfully. He returned to his job at the bank.
Jean, who had worked for the Inland Revenue in the Tax Department, did not need to contribute any money to the home. She retired the day before their wedding becoming a “stay-at-home” wife with little to do as there was a cleaning woman and a gardener. They were indeed a lucky pair but one thing was lacking as they would have loved a family.
Robert was the youngest of a family of eight and Jean had two brothers and a sister so they were family orientated however, the months and the years passed but they remained childless. They felt pressure from their parents to provide grandchildren but there was not the technology we have today to assist them. Eventually, they made an appointment with an Adoption Agency run by the Church, Jean being a keen church goer and a Sunday School teacher. Adoption at that time was a much easier process than today and there were more babies to choose from. Very soon they were invited to inspect some new borns in a local Nursing Home and they chose a fine baby boy, healthy and vigorous and took him back to their comfortable home.
Robert would go off to the bank with a big smile on his face and Jean felt her life was worth living with a son to look after. No baby could have been brought into better surroundings or had such lovely parents to attend to his every whim but life can be cruel and their world was about to be turned upside down when the child fell gravely ill. The doctor was summoned diagnosing bronchitis. This diagnosis proved to be incorrect and the downfall of all concerned because it was “Silent Pneumonia”, a killer of that time. The little boy succumbed to the illness on his second birthday. After the devastation of arranging the child’s funeral, Jean was distraught. Neither Robert, whose hair had turned from golden fair to white almost overnight, nor anyone else could help her. It seemed as though their lives no longer had meaning and no amount of consolation could make any difference. People find it hard to know what to say under such circumstances, starting to avoid those concerned through embarrassment.
After a great deal of soul searching, they decided to seek assistance once more with the Adoption Agency but just before they did, a neighbour, a local lawyer, had heard of their plight. He was at that time, dealing with the case of a young woman who was about to give birth. She had been in the Royal Navy and had a liaison with an officer who was already married with a family. The woman’s parents had emigrated to South Africa some time beforehand but her mother was returning from Cape Town to collect her daughter after the birth. She would take her back to begin a new life on the condition that the child was left behind and never spoken of to anyone. This must have been a most traumatic and unforgettable experience for the young woman but that was the way of things at that time.
Jean and Robert had been advised to adopt a girl this time so that they would not be so likely to compare her with their little lost boy and, as fate would have it, the child proved to be a girl. They went to see her in her little crib. They fell in love with her screwed up face and tightly clenched fists but, most of all, with her pretty golden curls, the colour that Robert’s hair had been. They bundled the baby up in their arms and took her home. This child, hopefully, would be the answer to their dreams and prayers and, indeed, I hope that I was.
Jean and Robert died some years ago but I have always been thankful for the decision they made on the day that changed my life.
