Sitting round the table for a family gathering, not so frequent as they used to be but as cherished as ever, someone suggested we go around the table saying something we appreciate about the person sitting next to us. My great grandson, maybe 7 at the time, spoke up loud and clear, saying he appreciated that I had my daughter, who had his mum, otherwise he wouldn’t have been born! And that’s the truth!!

I am never so happy as when we are a great throng and laughter fills the house. In those early Mission Days, I loved the singing when everyone was gathered. We still sing, not quite in the same way as times past but they will still sing my favourites along with everything else they’ve gleaned along the way!

Now, we have a wee one who plays the piano, that’s Katryna, and her big brother Alex (Alec I always call him) who plays the violin, and Maggi, my youngest, who plays the guitar, accompanying her lovely singing voice. All my children sing. Which leads me back to my own big sister, the one so full of life, would fill her lungs and hit the high notes. It was my big sister too, when our children were growing up, who brought the modern record player into our house, with her Jim Reeves LPs, and her coffee pot; modern day luxuries we had not had before then!

The ones who made me laugh the most, besides the little ones(!) were my mother-in-law, Agnes Robertson, who could be really fun(!) and a woman who came from South Africa, Rena Thresher. She came as a supply teacher, found our People and made us her own. She was a riot compared to anything I had ever known. I would be sitting quietly sewing, not a sound, not a word being spoken, then, in would come aunty Rena from her work on the censorship in Belfast, and the house came alive. She could bring the place down with laughter. She had a way with stories.

She had found us in her quest to find God. Out on the ballroom floor one day in her native country, she looked up and saw.. Christ Who Died For All. So she went on a journey; going at Her King’s Command, she said. I for one was sure that God had sent her to brighten our lives, to show that God was not so fierce. Because God had told me He would make the dark things plain, and here was Sunshine!

So I found aunty Rena to be ’mum’, ’dad’ and ’aunty’ all in one. Me, starved for such company. We went long walks and talked and talked; brilliant! A kindred spirit if ever there was one. I even travelled with her. Grandfather Duncan McFarlane would tell her to take me along, even to the very far South of Ireland from where we were living in Country Antrim.

Sunshine too she brought to a little girl, to a little girl named ’Rena’, one of my daughters named for my bright friend. So this little girl grew with a godmother from a far away land and when she grew, she too went on her travels finding kindred spirits along the way and far from home. She said "I came ’home’, and ’home’, and ’home’ out there..."  And that’s the truth because of course, they’re all Jock Tamson’s bairns!

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 FOOTNOTE:

’Jock Tamson’s Bairns’: "We’re aw Jock Tamson’s Bairns" (Lowland Scots for we’re all John Thomson’s children) is a popular saying in Scotland and the far north of England, and is known in other parts of the world. Nowadays, the phrase is often used to mean "we’re all the same under the skin".

It has been suggested as a euphemism for God, so the saying could mean "we are all God’s children". The expression "We’re a’ the bairns o’ Adam", conveys exactly the same meaning. This is a common egalitarian sentiment in Scottish national identity, also evident in the popularity of the Robert Burns song A Man’s A Man for A’ That.

  Although Jock Tamson’s Bairns is used as a personification of the Scots nation, it is also used to refer to the human race in general. (from Wikipedia)