Remember this – your childhood isn’t who you are. It’s the beginning of who you are. It’s just the opening chapter. You are the person who gets to write the rest of the story.
To Felix, Wesley, Amory, Conrad and Domino,
As the tiny plane takes off over the turquoise waters and pink-sand beaches, and climbs higher and higher, further away from our home here in the Bahamas, I lean back and close my eyes. Finally, no phone ringing, no decisions to be made, no meeting scheduled, no dog needing to be walked. A moment alone to look down at the island disappearing out of sight and think just how extraordinary it has all been.
As I have told you often, nothing was really expected of me except to marry sensibly and live quietly in the English countryside. I went to a school where I was encouraged to sew and do needlepoint, and we had to wear a second pair of knickers over our knickers, just in case someone ever caught sight of the first pair of knickers, as that would have been shocking and unladylike.
My mother knew trouble was brewing when I opted to go to school in Scotland, where they could not care less if I even wore knickers, as long as I paid attention to the school motto: Plus est en vous (There is more in you).
These words meant little to me while shivering in Scotland for a few years, then feeling lost afterwards, not entirely sure of myself. But from the moment I became a mother, I understood the galaxy of change that followed. This was the purpose of my life. You are the purpose in my life.
Raising a family on a small island in the middle of the Caribbean is not without its challenges. But your father and I had found each other here; he was shoeless and suntanned, running a small hotel with a copy of Joseph Conrad’s An Outcast of the Islands in one hand and a Bloody Mary in the other. Four months later, I was pregnant with you, Felix, my beloved, stormy firstborn child.
We never married. We didn’t feel the need. Somehow, being strangers in a strange land bound us more than any ceremony ever could. Hibiscus Hill, our home, provided us with the blank canvas upon which we could paint our own story, and what followed was not only an enduring relationship with one another, but also with island life.
Wesley, you appeared just a little after Felix. I have a picture beside my bed of you together, standing naked by the garden gate, aged about two years old – one black bottom and one white bottom, brothers for life. How thankful I am that you became my child.
When I think of our life, I imagine I am running on our beach at sunrise with the dogs. Most of you are still asleep in the house while I run. The small town across the dunes behind me stirs beneath a blanket of breaking dawn. I can hear the faint cry of cockerels strutting along the lanes; the smell of salt air and casuarina trees floats down to the water’s edge. As I return, Conrad, you pass me on the path, sleepy but hopeful, surfboard in hand, in search of the perfect wave. Your enthusiasm is infectious.
The architecture and view from the harbor have hardly changed in the past 200 years, although many layers of time are faintly visible, just as they are in our own lives. It is unthinkable that family life will not change. It has been changing slowly from the beginning and will go on changing far into the future.
Amory, your wild and beautiful imagination has always been fueled by island life. When asked by your father why you had attacked and shredded the banana tree he had been cultivating for so many months, you replied with such childish honesty: “I thought it was a ghost.”
And Domino, you have grown up in the true spirit of the Bond girl you are named after. You cheer me on, encourage me, teach me, lift my heart and point me towards a horizon where women can stand strong together, to live more extraordinary lives. We can only hope that, as we move forward, we remember and prize the simple memories this life together has offered us.
The greatest gift I have ever received is the love from you all, my five children. Remember this – your childhood isn’t who you are. It’s the beginning of who you are. It’s just the opening chapter. You are the person who gets to write the rest of the story. So write a good one, never forgetting ‘There is more in you’.
With love from your mother, India
From the book Grace Mothers – Letters to Our Children by Georgie Abay, Julie Adams and Claire Brayford