Two for joy

One of the legacies of my Northern, working class Nanna was to fill my soul with superstitions. I salute an individual magpie, mumbling my greeting to it; I heave a sigh of relief when I see two, inwardly believing that my day will be filled with joy; I pick up a single discarded penny and then pass it on to a friend so that their luck will never end; I avoid looking at a full moon through glass; I recoil in horror if a pair of new shoes are placed on the table! And don’t even get me started on the number 13!

I struggle to even type the numerals, but I’ve mentally added 1 and 3 to make 4 whilst writing this piece to ensure that my mind remains at ease. This number is a crafty little bugger that has burrowed deep into my psyche. You will never see a digital volume in my presence, be it on the TV, radio or smart device, rest on the number 13.

I shuddered when I discovered that my daughter’s college bus was the number 13 and felt a wave of relief when she informed that she was using the better alternatives. (I’ve just added the 2 recently typed numbers together to make 26). I had a cinema date once where not only the screen was my nemesis number but my seat was too. It was too early for me to reveal full weirdo to my cinema companion so I watched the film intermittently chanting 1+3=4 in my head until it finished.  It was a rubbish date anyway. If my phone is on 13% charge as I’m about to turn the lights out for sleep I will wait for it to lose 1% more before I allow the sandman to sprinkle his grains of slumber in my direction.

Has something catastrophic happened to me involving this number or the other superstitions? Not yet (note, the use of the word yet so that I don’t ‘tempt fate’, another of Nanna T’s phrases). I’ve broken mirrors, crossed on the stairs, stood on a pavement crack, spilled salt without throwing it over my shoulder and all of those days progressed with little note.

What has happened to me though is the traumatic event when my baby daughter was attached to wires and tubes maintaining the life in her 13 month old body when she contracted pneumococcal meningitis. This disease was my number 13. Day 1 of her coma was my crossing on the stairs; day 5 was walking under a ladder; day 9 was shattering that mirror into millions of pieces; then came day 10. Day 10 was the penny picked up; day 10 was the discovery of the four-leafed clover; day 10 was 2 magpies that turned into 3. On day 10 she woke up.

These superstitions were a tease, a rib, when I was a child watching my wonderful nanna go through all of her rituals. I would mischievously wait at the bottom of the stairs until she was halfway down and then would run past her up the stairs giggling; I would pull open the curtains when it was a full moon, shouting ‘look Nanna!’; I would try to steer her under a ladder when out on a walk, and that gorgeous northern soul would always greet each one of these events with raucous laughter and unswerving love.

She crafted and deftly handed these superstitions to me subconsciously knowing that they now keep me looking hopefully forward when memories of the past trauma start to push themselves to the front of my mind; whenever life feels like it’s not going my way; when I’ve just had a bad day. And when I look up raising my hand to salute a solitary magpie and see another one fly in, I know that my gorgeous Nanna T is still watching over me.