Family Of Four: Feeling Things Keenly
...The day arrived, and on returning from school I noticed that the curtains of their house were drawn. I thought nothing more about it because I expected Edward would have to be kept quiet after the operation.
Presently Daddy entered the dining-room where I was alone, sat down on the couch without a word, drooped his head and sobbed. I was astounded. I never knew grown-ups ever cried, and I stood, solemn and dismayed, not knowing what to do.
"Poor little boy," Daddy said, gulping, "poor little boy, only twelve years old, so very young to die."...
Mrs Vivien Hirst recalls the day she had to comfort her father.
Mrs Hirst's nephew Raymond Prior arranged for her memoirs to be published under the title of Family Of Four. To read earlier chapters click on that title in the menu on this page.
It was at about this time, probably to console us, that one of the youths living two doors away invited us to see his white mice. I watched fascinated, as he let them run up his sleeve and appear out of his trouser leg, and vice versa. He teased me, tempting me to have a mouse run about along my clothes, but I cannot bear the scuttling creatures, and shied away with a scream.
There were three boys, Theodore, Ronald, who owned the mice, and the youngest, Edward. He was twelve years old and was to have his tonsils removed at home.
The day arrived, and on returning from school I noticed that the curtains of their house were drawn. I thought nothing more about it because I expected Edward would have to be kept quiet after the operation.
Presently Daddy entered the dining-room where I was alone, sat down on the couch without a word, drooped his head and sobbed. I was astounded. I never knew grown-ups ever cried, and I stood, solemn and dismayed, not knowing what to do.
"Poor little boy," Daddy said, gulping, "poor little boy, only twelve years old, so very young to die."
Now at least I knew why Daddy was so broken, and timidly placed a hand on his knee. Convulsively he drew me to him, struggling to control himself, and using the large handkerchief I had drawn out of his breast pocket.
"Is Edward dead?" I asked incredulously. It seemed impossible when he was playing among us only a day or two before, and we had not thought an operation for tonsils to be dangerous.
Edward had died under the anaesthetic, and it was found that a gland that should have disappeared in the first years had not done so, and this was the cause of Edward's unexpected death.
It was the first time that the mystery and suddenness of death entered into our lives, and for a few days we were subdued, and full of wonder, and questions.
Daddy felt things keenly. He was affectionate and self-sacrificing, sensitive to a fault, an odd mixture of earnest thought and worry, and boyish delight in all that went on round about him: the loveliness of nature; the joys of physical endeavour; the happiness of little children; the simple everyday pleasures.
With such a nature, Daddy was wide open to the snubs and slights which come to most people as they go through life. Grieving too easily when hurtful things were said, blazing into anger, perhaps too hastily. He once or twice forbade us to talk to the children of such and such a man as
Daddy had been offended, or made furious, which I always thought absurd!
