Keeping Mum: Fact versus Friction

What are the odds that The Lord himself would be a victim of the busy volcano in Iceland this week? Probably quite high, but this fact detracts a little from the pathos of the story, so we will move on and assume there is a deeply moving irony to this, the most unfortunate of a series of unfortunate events. (I will hand out tissues at the end).

This tale of tragedy and trains unfolded just so: The Lord and son had enjoyed a holiday together the week before and as luck would have it, they returned safely to London just before the Volcano decided to wreak havoc with the planes in Europe. The Lord then went on to Greece, where he remained until he was due to return and have son for a few more days before the Easter Holidays drew to a close. As it happened, The Lord’s timely return to London was not to be and I received word from Lord Central that he was currently in Athens on business and was now stuck, unable to get back to London and to son.

One of the drawbacks to our divorce is that it seems to have left little room for humour, which is a shame because I always enjoyed making fun of the Lord, as he did making fun of my ability to eat an entire bird in one sitting and various other foodstuffs in a manner most unbecoming of any would-be lady. On this occasion, I would have liked to have had a little joke with The Lord about his alleged business trip to Athens (anyone who has young children will know that often you need a holiday from the holiday) but I erred on the side of caution and stuck to the facts.

This rather unfortunate series of events (twice mentioned now, for added effect) created a potentially explosive state of affairs in relation to contact. The Lord had effectively lost out on three days with son. What to do? All sorts of legal arguments then began to run through my mind, as they do. It occurred to me that the volcanic eruption could be classed as an Act of God and so contact could be forfeited; this would apply to me also, had I had the misfortune of being stuck on an island with sandy beaches and all the Moussaka I could eat. It then occurred to me that no provision for such unforeseen events was made in our contact order and so in actual fact there was no obligation to deal with the issue at all. Finally, I then briefly considered the merits of cancelling out the missed few days on the basis that I had given The Lord extra contact for various reasons over the years and that this would amply cover the lost time. With such brilliant and creative legal arguments, there was no need to have to face the mental gymnastics massaging contact would cause and possible disruption of son’s routine, right? Wrong.

Once families come out of the highly artificial world of the family courts, the law begins to fade not unlike the distant memory of a chastising parent might. At that point, for families who have changed shape and resurface to find their place in the world, they are for the most part on their own, with nothing but their conscience to guide them. And without wishing to give conscience a bad name, it could be viewed as the driving force behind communication.

Whilst I am clearly being less than serious about the legal arguments (they did not really run through my mind at all, but in an attempt to keep the story dramatic I felt it necessary to add them not least of all because any story with an erupting volcano and mountains of ash deserves to be steeped in excitement and intrigue), I did consider the ethics of making up the lost contact. It did not take me long to realise that there was no harm in doing just that and that if the contact was made up sensibly, to suit son and The Lord, it could be a truly well executed exercise.

If the tables had been turned and I myself was stranded and losing valuable time to be with son, I would hope that The Lord would view the situation in much the same way as I do and where tensions remain beneath the surface, there is always a constant caution before proposing anything in relation to contact. Negotiating contact in this way can sometimes feel as if you are working with a dormant volcano, carefully trying to observe its behaviour with a view to preventing any eruptions that may end up burning the entire family. And as time moves on, communication becomes easier. This is in part due to trial and error, which teaches you how to communicate with one another as well as old feelings being put to one side and although I know that The Lord will continue to seek more contact, not just for time lost but for grievances forgotten, the peace that understanding brings, the realisation that such tensions are to be expected, make living in fact more alluring than living in fear.

For in affairs of the heart, the highest stake is often our conscience. It may seem like an irrelevant by-product of our evolutionary history as human beings, but conscience is always ticking away in the back of the brain, waiting for well timed epiphanies and life lessons to echo sentiments like “I told you so” and “There’s a point here somewhere”, within the ventricles of our mind.

And those echoes are foot prints of the path we take on the journey of our family; they become a part of who we are and they affect the way we view the world and the way we behave. Conscience is not just a mythical creature designed to torture us into submission. It is the key to our survival. And with that, I await The Lord’s proposal for the lost contact and I secretly hope that he too believes in executions of fact and not the frailties of fiction.