So, I mostly remember being cold and scared. Not a great start to a life altering revelation - right? Or maybe more life altering revelations happen like that than we think. I was standing with children I could barely control in the sea off Portrush (in the very cold water in the north coast of Ireland!). Their mother, from the beach shouting at me to go further in. “ SWIM, SWIM, Take them swimming!” And all at the tender age of 18! It’s only now, looking back, that I can see the scariness for what it was. This woman had to be tough to survive. Her husband was in prison and she was the person who had to provide. We were holding a holiday for prisoners families “from both sides” (as we say in N. Ireland). So she was sitting on that beach on holiday with her enemies and she had to tell this uppity middle class girl to look after her kids - when she was meant to be having time off! At least this is what I imagine was going on. Who knows what she was really thinking - certainly not me. But never the less I learnt a lot from her and our encounter.
My Belfast was not the same as her Belfast. This made me better. It opened my perspective - gave me a balcony view of living a parallel life in the same city.
The trauma of being burnt out of your home doesn’t go away over time. Her experience moved my learning from endless depressing headlines to real impact in real peoples lives.
Everywhere I looked - a long line of amazing strong women. I kept meeting these extraordinary women. Solid and unyielding even though they had lived through times when all their foundations were shaking.