Tags
bathroom, church, death, get married, grave, have kids, humor, Normans, Recreation
[Throwback Thursday Note: with so many of us separated from family right now, I was somehow reminded of the importance of family ties. This post was first published seven years back when we were still living in one tower of this castle in the north of England…]
WARNING: This post gets sentimental near the end. (Actually, almost immediately.) If you don’t have tissues, you might want to stop reading right here. You’ve been warned.
What if you’re away on vacation, and you come back to find that a whole bunch of people have been having a party at your house? It’s your own fault, you realize, because you left the lights on and the door open. And there might have been a couple of tweets… But the weird part is that they don’t use your best dishes or drink the good booze or even raid the fridge. They just want to use your bathroom.
That’s how I felt after being gone from this blog for a week. Even though I wasn’t home, several hundred people stopped by. Most of them were lovely, but a surprisingly large contingent were looking through my (virtual) bathroom cupboards.
When I was a teenager, I couldn’t figure out how my mother always knew we’d had a party. Years later, she revealed that she checked on the level of toilet paper left on the rolls. Well, my blog’s ‘toilet paper’ is the scary-extensive list of stats provided by my host, WordPress. For example, they reported that visitors came from 44 different countries last week, and more than a hundred of them were referred by search engines. What were they looking for? Over half were searching for this post on reasons not to get married. The second most popular search was for this post on reasons not to have kids. (Less statistically significant, but perhaps more disturbing, was the person who arrived at my blog using the search term, “old granny Taub.com” – and my blog came up tops on that search…)
I was thinking about all those readers looking for reasons not to get married or have children as the dog and I did a spring-check walk through St. Brandon’s churchyard next door. Since well before the Normans arrived in 1066, there has been a church on that site. The weathered graves outside aren’t that ancient, but the inscriptions are almost worn off those more than a few hundred years old. The dog ran into a patch of sunlight containing a single marker surrounded by blooming forget-me-nots.
St. Brandon’s churchyard, grave of Mary Gatiss
The inscription reads:
SACRED To The Memory Of Mary Gatiss Wife Of Luke Gatiss Of Brancepeth Colliery Who Died On The 14 Sep 1855 In Childbed Five Hours After Been Delivered Of A Still Born Child Aged 23 Years Rest Happy Mary With Thy Infant Dear For Hard Thy Sufferings Were The Child Thou Left Thou Loved Sincere Shall Be Her Fathers Care.
I tried to imagine Mary, and what her life and ‘hard sufferings’ might have been before her early death. Church records show a christening a year earlier for Jane Gatiss, infant daughter of Luke and Mary. The gravestone is imposing, clearly a huge expense and a testament to the love and grief of a young husband from the colliery (coal mine), left to raise their little girl. Their names appear on genealogy searches by descendents in Australia and the United States, who were (I assume) pleased that Mary and Luke didn’t look for reasons to avoid marriage or children.
St. Brandon’s Churchyard
Along with heartbreaking testaments to young lives ended tragically early or in wars, the churchyard is full of family markers showing husbands and wives living to hearty old age, laid to rest among family members. Surrounded by spring blooming buttercups, forget-me-nots, and delicate cow-parsley, their crumbling graves are tended by current parishioners in the much-grumbled but faithfully performed grass cutting rota. The ancient cross-slabs of their many, many-times-great fellow parishioners, the graves of their several-times-greats and the current members of St. Brandon’s Church show centuries of connections that are still foreign to my American self. But they do make me think about what I’ll leave behind.
So I welcome all those who come to this blog looking for reasons not to get married or have kids. Those are tough decisions, and that path isn’t right for everyone. Just don’t look to me for justification. My truth is I’ve been married over thirty years and still haven’t made it past my first husband. But we’ve produced four of the greatest kids ever born.
(Of course, if you’re just stopping by to pharm my bathroom cupboard while I’m out, you’re welcome too, but be warned: there isn’t any vicodin, so you’ll have to be satisfied with Old Granny Taub’s tweezer collection.)
Barb Taub 
hahah. I was looking for a pair of tweezers, thanks!
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Haha! You’ve come to the right place.
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I love this post, from the humorous way it begins to the sentiment turn it takes
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What a lovely comment! Thanks SO much.
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I just remembered when we had any visitors to the house my mum locked the bathroom cupboard and removed the key. In later years I realised from her behaviour she must have have checked out other people’s bathroom cupboards. I tend not to but only because I’m afraid the door handle falls off in my hand.
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I grew up in American suburbia, where houses often come with a “guest” bathroom. I think those cupboards wouldn’t contain anything of note. But now I kind of wish I’d checked more of them!
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What bliss to have a guest bathroom – my mother dreamed of having two toilets – Ladies and Gents! When we visit our children we are amazed at the hundreds of toiletries and that is just the ones not in a cupboard. How many bottles do you need to keep clean and Beautiful?
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Clean? One bottle. Beautiful? They haven’t made enough bottles for me yet…
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My mother had little sayings like ‘never marry a man’, or ‘I’m coming back as a man next time’, or ‘I would rather have pets than children’. No my father was quiet, but very patient and certainly not an example of the sort of husband to avoid. Those things were said when I was young, so perhaps it was a bad day. More recently? She and Dad were happiest before they had children! Great, thanks Mum! So no illusions about marriage or having children, but I don’t regret doing it.
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My mother used to tell her (ten) children that she was going to move into a one bedroom apartment with only one key. When we asked about whether she’d share a key with my father, she would look thoughtful.
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You certainly did produce some awesome children AND now you have surpassed that achievement with two grandchildren. Good thing you decided to have children!
I asked your Mother once if she had PLANNED to have 10 children. Her response was ‘OH, Good LORD, NO ONE plans to have 10 children’ ! ha, ha simpler times before birth control ?
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Thanks for a grand laugh and little tear to wash it down. It always breaks my heart when a mother dies in childbirth or loses a child. Those things you really don’t recover from, ever. Strange visitors you get. I’d keep a guest bath just for them. I was looking for where I got my toilet paper. It’s an unusual brand and don’t know who put me onto it. Since I didn’t find it here, I’ll say good day and see you later. Keep the light on. 😉
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A very enjoyable post. The sweep of history in “the old country” really can put us in our place.
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For an American, the sheer amount of history is staggering. I remember giving directions to the castle: “Turn right at the ‘Rising of the North planned here 1569’ sign.”
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Wow! That was a post with Barb humor and also a story to cause deeper thinking. Here in New England they used slate to make gravestones, therefore the writings and carvings remain unworn. Yes, I enjoy strolling through our local old cemetery and reading the “stories”. My mother once commented that she was lucky all six of her children lived through childbirth. Best to you, Barb.
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Considering that you’re one of the six, I’d saw we’re ALL lucky she lived!
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I never know what to make of search result referrals. I once wrote a post called “Reno is so close to hell you can see Sparks,” which is an inside joke that only someone who’d lived in Reno would understand but it gets hit all the time! (Reno and Sparks are twin cities in Northern Nevada) I do love reading inscriptions of very old gravestones. They do tell a sad tale more often than not.
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