Old Schooled.

I bumped into this old friend from school the other day...

I hadn’t seen her in…jesus.  Twenty years? 

I won’t mention her name, but it was good to see her.  

You know…those kids in school who…I mean you are aware of them…you see them around…but they are mostly pretty quiet, and you don’t have much to do with them?

Well, I was hardly a social butterfly…I didn’t have much to do with anyone.  School was…well, Hell.  But school is supposed to be.  How else can they prepare you for life but trundle you off to Hell?  

And that’s what Catholic School was…basically a portal to Hell.

So anyway…I said to this old friend…

well, actually, we both said it at exactly the same time…

“Were you raped by the priests too?!”

we both laughed.  SNAP!  

Well, you have to, don’t you?  I mean…how else do you get your head around something like that? 

‘For god so loved his children…he sent his armies of pedophile priests in to rape them.  And it was good.’

I couldn’t invent something as obscene as that.

I think you have to laugh. 

My old friend said to me with a cheeky smile… ‘at least my priest was straight...you guys were FORCED to be gay!’

& I did my best Seinfeld in reply, 

‘not that there’s anything wrong with being gay!’

For children who were raped...this is what passes for humour.  

Making the best of a bad situation. 

But…it alleviates the horror of what happened. 

Laughter IS the best medicine.  What was that formula for comedy? 

‘Tragedy plus Time?’  There’s something in that.

Might as well laugh. 

No one wants to hear you bitch about it.  You do that…one day you wake up…there’ll be no motherfucker around. 

Then…the terrorists win. 

Most people would rather not hear about it.  

Talk about it.  

Hell I’d rather not have to think about it.  But I have no choice.

So…I laugh about it. 

In the end…it’s about what interests people.

Most people are interested in stories of recovery; healing, growing, giving…loving.  So...this…what I am doing now…is how I teach the child in me who never got a chance for a de-brief...

to heal, grow, give…& love. 

Not to mention LAUGH.

This friend from school?  She said to me before we parted, ‘We should 
count ourselves lucky.  Some kids got NO attention at school.’

I smiled as she walked away. 

Bless her.

We’re going to be OK.