Untwisted

Ben had some Catalan homework and I was the only available help as Agu was out. I sat there unravelling a piece of Playmobil towing rope while we worked through it and I was reminded of how lucky we were to have time to sit in peace and discover a new language together. I would never have thought I would be doing this eight years ago.

And then I remembered the other piece of string. A few weeks before Christmas, the boys had been playing while I was upstairs and it had suddenly gone very quiet. I went down and found them with the picture that my parents had given me when I first moved over here. They had pulled it down somehow and the string had snapped. I showed them as I put it together again, that my father had tied the knots so carefully as I unravelled them. Ben began to cry, remembering his grandad and his sailors' knots. Agu cried too as he was born after Dad died and only knows his face from pictures. We all had a few tears and then I told them how grandpa wouldn't want them to cry, so we put the string in a drawer to keep safe.

He would have so enjoyed seeing Ben learn so well and so quickly. Another little linguist taking after him; meticulous in his explanations; twisting and untwisting words with delight.