by Mattie Lennon
 

"Reminiscences make one feel so deliciously aged and sad"— George Bernard Shaw

Dancing on the Edge by Kay Forristal makes me feel aged and sad and a lot of other things. 

Many Irish autobiographies are an uneven mix of love, cruelty, rain, sunshine and hope. This book has all the above with the added, unusual ingredients of healing and forgiveness. Kay Forristal has a power of observation to equal that of Alice Taylor coupled with Mannix Flynn's ability to accurately recount suffering without bitterness. 

She was born the youngest in a family of ten in a Munster town in 1954. The book opens with a trip to the airport, aged 3, when her parents " ... Were about to lose their first born to Emigration." Her brother, aged 17, was going to America. 

Everything from the tough colorful lifestyle of the visiting Gypsies to catching "Kissans" in a jam-jar, under the supervision of a loving father, is described in detail with feeling and humor. 

She had an active inquiring mind and today looks back on many childhood experiences, which " ... fired my imagination and sharpened my curiosity." 

One stormy night, when her mother was giving sustenance to a tramp, Kathleen was looking at a picture of the Eiffel Tower. The man-of-the-roads asked, "What's that"? (I am familiar with Kathleen's native town and one thing you won't find in it is a person who is stuck for an answer). Kathleen replied, " It's downtown beside the ESB and it was all lit up for the festival." 

Many readers who were born around the middle of the last century will understand when she says how her father was incapable of affectionate contact. 

"I didn't hear the words 'I love you' in our home. We had the presence of love instead." (She only once saw her parents kiss; it was on a Christmas Eve.) 

Because she was the youngest, her parents kept her together with them "in a safe bubble of protection." This left her "quite unprepared for life on a larger scale" when old enough to go to school. The cruelty of the first nun she encountered, in school, was unbelievable. But then (and this is where her balanced memory shines) she, " ... met Sister Catherine, when I was five, an angel in a Nun's habit." 

Sister Catherine was one of a minority of nuns who showed kindness to Kay, who was the victim of violence, humiliation and all sorts of degrading treatment. Years later, as the mother of a growing family, she was on a visit to her home town when she spotted a nun from her school, in the street. 

"I froze. Panic waves swept over me and I was afraid I would be physically sick ... " She spoke to her mother about the incident to be told, " The day you were born I cried bitter tears ... Because I knew I would have to send you to the Nuns, and I knew that you would suffer as a result of that." 

Of course, visits home bring back more pleasant memories, like her "initiation" in her first job in a furniture store in her native town. This emporium boasted a large display window and on Kay's first day there she was called into the window by a male member of staff who was making up a double bed as part of the display. 

Soon a sizable crowd had gathered outside to view ... If you want to know what they were watching you'll have to read the book! 

The author has published two volumes of poetry: Poetry in Motion and New Beginnings. However it was with some reluctance that she embarked on Dancing on the Edge. Perhaps, for a while, she believed Emerson that, "Poetry makes it's own pertinence and a single stanza outweighs a book of prose." When she took up the pen, she immediately became aware of her self-worth. 

The reader is taken by the hand and brought on a journey from the 'fifties to the present time. 

As a 49-year-old grandmother, the author re-visited her childhood through a class reunion in her old school. Once again she experienced the camaraderie of her old classmates and the support of her best friend, Maggie, "who could sing." 

She asked a kindly geriatric nun for a go on her motorized wheelchair. She also confronted (and forgave) her erstwhile tormenters, setting herself — and possibly them — on the path to healing. That's when she left her past behind her, including her name. (She parted company with the "Kathleen" by which she had been known for almost half a century and became Kay.) That was when she realized that she had a story worth telling. 

"When it was suggested to me that I write a book about my life, my answer was that I had done nothing with my life and had no real achievements ... I was wrong." 

And, now, the author's peace of mind, contentment, sense of fulfillment and well rounded attitude to all facets of life are testimony to the words of Dag Hammarskjóld " Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is again made clean." 

Dancing On The Edge is available from the author; 

Kay Forristal 
7 Abbey Park 
Ferrybank, Waterford 
IRELAND 
Price 12 Euro ( including P&P)
 
 
 

Writer Mattie Lennon is a regular contributor to The Irish American Post. Living in Lucan, Co. Dublin, he can be reached at lennonaspect@iol.ie