1st June 2007 - Making her feel special

I talked to my Dad today about the wee girl that went missing in Portugal - Madeline McCann. I wish I hadn't. I was leafing through the paper and her picture was in it and that of her parents with their other two children. I was telling him how horrble it must be, wondering how anyone could take a child. I was meaning that I didn't know how what state of mind you'd have to be in to take - and keep - a child from it's parents. He took what I said rather differently. He said he supposed it would be quite easy to take a child. He surmised that the abductors probably told her lots of lies about how pretty and clever she was to make her feel special, then she'd go with them willingly she'd be so full of herself. It was such a Dad thing to say, so typical of the things he'd have said - the attitude he'd have had to me when I was growing up - that I was fuming. Pointlessly, frustratingly angry with him. My eyes smarted with redundant never to be shed tears "Of course she's special, she's pretty, she's clever, she IS special. Every child is special". "Well, you would say that. I hope you don't go telling your two they are special. Turning their heads. Making them think they're more than they are". Well, Dad, I'm rather afraid I do. Daily and then some. I tell them they are clever, they are gorgeous, they are wonderful, they are loved.
Why did this flash of self have to be THIS flash of self? Don't get above yourself, don't think you're anything special because you're not. We are all living in the gutter - some of us might be looking at the stars but others are blindfolding us and telling us it's where we belong.
I know it's not his fault. I know it is his old self peaking through, untrammelled by the dementia, but how he came to be the person that would think like that is lost. What turned him into the bitter soul that would want his daughter convinced of her ordinariness, her mundane abilities, her average looks and lack of wit? No, Dad, my children are special. And so is Madeline. And so, I suppose, are you Dad. Except your potential is behind you, is that what made you so bitter?