2 weeks, 1200 miles, 2 adults and 2 teenagers ( Mia and Joss ) in a little VW camper van.
And we are all still talking ( mostly ) although Mia and Joss disappeared for their
" teenage fix," the moment our feet touched the familiar wooden floorboards of home.
We have wandered the dusty streets of Toulouse, gazed through the dark at the spectacular fireworks at the San Sebastian festival and floated through the clouds and tumbling geraniums of the Picos mountains.
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| The best way to end a festival |
The strange thing about the journey from the coast of North West France to the Northern edge of Spain, is that I had travelled much of it many times before..
" We used to come this way on our holidays when I was little," I explained to no one in particular.
" Look, that's the mountain dad made us climb even though none of us wanted to. We all moaned the whole way to the top and when we got there we had missed the last train back so we had to walk all the way back down in the dark. And when we got to the bottom all the shops were closed so we couldn't have any dinner!"
" Why didn't you just say you wouldn't go?" asked Joss, fixing the headphones into his iPad, " That's what I would say."
" Why would grandad make you do something so stupid and boring?" asked Mia, " Can you turn this song up?"
I turned up the music and carried on sharing my memories with the unlistening ears of my family.
" We used to put all our clothes in big bin bags and pile them into the boot of our car, tie the tent onto the roof- rack and when we got off the ferry at Calais we would just drive and drive and drive.
We didn't stop until we found the sun because otherwise my sister got too grumpy
When dad or mum got too tired to drive, they would just pull over and sleep slumped over the steering wheel."
" Your family holidays sound horrible," said Ninesh, without taking his eyes off the road.
I stared at him.
" What do you mean, horrible. They were amazing.`'
Ninesh said nothing, just carried on staring straight in front of him.
I sat back, staring out of the window, watching the scenery roll by, as I silently unwrapped my memories.
Like an island surrounded by weeks, our family holidays were one of the most special things about my childhood.
For a few weeks of every year we were on an adventure, with only the road and the weather as our guide.
And for just a few weeks of every year we were a family, sharing a dream, living in a bubble of togetherness that no one else could touch.
But personal memories have little meaning to anyone else.
Although the thread that has connected all the places we have just visited is the memories of strangers.
One hundred years since the beginning of the First World War and all over Europe, in enormous cities and lost mountain villages, the men and boys who gave up their lives are being remembered.
Suddenly we would come across a wall of sepia photos, proud young men in smart army uniforms staring out at us.
And next to the pictures names or sometimes scraps of letters.
We are determined not to forget.
We will never stop searching for meaning in the enormity of such a loss.
And next to the pictures of soldiers there are pictures of others.
Men and women staring with a passion and fury out of a past tinged with sadness.
They are part of " The Resistance."
Young men and women brave enough to stand up and fight against what they believed was wrong even when they didn't need to.
In the Spanish Civil War, in the Second World War, today.
They sacrifice their lives saving strangers, sheltering victims, helping refugees.
Because they cannot stand by and watch evil win.
My grandmother, a part Jewish refugee from Vienna always used to tell me that it is not the bravery of great heroes that should be remembered from war, but the remarkable courage of individuals who risked their lives each day by giving food and shelter to Jews and other victims.
I have often wondered if it was me, if I would be brave enough.
I hope so but I know it's just a hope.
As a parent, there is nothing I would not do to protect my family.
The courage of love is unshakeable and knows no depth or limits.
Years ago, when Mia and Joss were little, we visited Dachau, the concentration camp.
Once visited, the horror of such a place never leaves you.
lt seeps into your bones and scars your dreams.
The enormous chimneys, the " shower," rooms, the kennels where some men were forced to live like dogs.
Past and present collide in a nightmare of ghosts and raw emotion.
For a moment Mia stood and stared.
Slowly she turned to me.
" If this happened now, " she asked, " would we be living here?"
I looked into the pools of her dark, 7-year-old eyes and my heart broke.
Because as a part-Jewish, part Sri-Lankan family we would have no hope if such horror were ever to visit us again.
And all I could do was stand there silently, clutching her and Joss and Ninesh to me.
And I knew, right then, that with every bone in my body I would fight to keep them safe.
But fighting to keep your family safe is one thing.
It is innate.
It demands the kind of bravery that comes when you have nothing left to lose, when it is all or nothing, when you are fighting for your life.
Fighting to protect other people's families when you could be living safe and unnoticed, that's a different kind of courage.
I hope that I would be brave enough to do it.
I hope that I would not stand by and watch evil triumph.
I hope that I would have the courage to fight for what I know is right and against what I know is wrong.
But I know it's just a hope.
And what makes it even harder is that today I find it very hard to know what is right and what is wrong.
Israel, Palestine, Ukraine, Russia, Iran, Iraq.
Perhaps it is my ignorance that leaves me so confused and uncertain.
I understand that the people who are fighting believe with a passion in their cause.
But I find it hard to understand how people can fight and kill in the name of religion or country or race
It is as though the world has lost its memory.
And all I feel is a sense of loss as I look at photos of the young men in army caps who never came home.
More than 40 years after the Second World War, my 70 year old, Viennese grandmother spent her life fighting for good causes.
Undaunted by age and discomfort, she would camp out at Greenham Common, write letters for Amnesty, stand outside South Africa house campaigning against apartheid.
And often she would chastise me, her teenage granddaughter for being uncaring and disinterested.
" There is injustice all around," she would say loudly in the heavy accent that she never lost, " why aren't you doing anything?"
And she was right.
I was too busy worrying about the injustice of being a teenager to worry about the rest of the world.
But I wasn't uncaring or disinterested, I just didn't understand.
I didn't have her compass of memories to guide me.
I had none of her experience of the horror and fear and loneliness of war.
Memories take time and time is what war steals from us.
Now, as I have collected the memories of strangers from our 1200 mile journey, I understand how fragile and precious memories can be.
It is our memories that give us the courage to fight for what we believe in.
And I think, perhaps today the only thing worth believing in is: peace.
Peace to be who we want to be.
Peace so that we will never need to walk in the shadow of fear.
Peace so that we can go on family holidays.
And for as long as our children will come with us, I will wrap them in a blanket of warm memories to give them strength and hope and courage....even if they do involve walking down mountains in the dark.
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| La Rhune, France- easier to walk down in the daylight. |
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