Dear Readers,
Every now and then life quietly joins two moments separated by decades. Last week, that happened to me.
Thirty years ago, I took a sabbatical from my demanding career in London to volunteer at an orphanage in the hills of Santa Teresa in Rio de Janeiro. I was thirty-four, single, lonely, and searching for something more meaningful than the life I had built for myself.
The home provided a safe haven for children who had been abandoned or rescued from desperate circumstances. I remember it as though it was yesterday, stepping through the gate for the first time and being greeted by a horde of little Brazilian children, aged somewhere between two and ten. Before I’d even put my bags down, they were climbing into my arms.
One little girl in particular became my shadow. Her name was Bianca. She had an immense curiosity about her, but an equal measure of angst. I wanted to sweep her up and protect her.
I loved every minute of my time with all of the children.. We sang songs in English, rolled around on the floor playing rough and tumble. I helped them to eat with knives and forks, and, most importantly, allowed the children to simply be children. It wasn’t always easy. Many had endured things that no child should ever experience, and some of the stories I heard stayed with me long after I returned to London.
As time went on, IÂ convinced myself that I was going to adopt Bianca. I had absolutely no idea how I would make it happen, but my heart had already decided.
When I shared my plans with the woman who ran the home, my heart sank. Their mission was to reunite the children with relatives wherever possible or find them loving Brazilian families. Overseas adoption simply wasn’t an option. I understood completely but it still broke my heart.
When I wasn’t working at the orphanage, I took to the streets to soak up the fabulous Brazilian culture. One evening I found myself sitting alone at a little bar overlooking Rio. As I sipped a caipirinha and watched the city stretch out below me, beautiful bossa nova music drifted from the radio behind the bar.
One song in particular stopped me in my tracks – O Barquinho (The Little Boat).
I’d never heard it before. I asked the bartender about it. My Portuguese was almost non-existent and his English wasn’t much better, but between us we managed to have a conversation about this beautiful bossa nova classic that speaks of love gently drifting across the sea. It burrowed its way into my heart and there it stayed, almost forgotten, until recently.
Fast forward thirty years, and last week I found myself sitting in The Ellington Jazz Club in Perth, watching my 19-year-old daughter, Matilda perform her own show with a professional jazz band. She and her friend, Ella had been invited to headline the evening after both receiving awards for musical excellence.
I was already emotional by the end of their first piece. Then the band began to play the opening notes of O Barquinho.
For a few moments, thirty years simply disappeared. As I listened to Matilda sing in Portuguese – a language she doesn’t even speak, I was transported back to that little bar overlooking Rio, to Bianca, and to a younger version of myself who had no idea where life would eventually lead her.
If you’d like to hear the performance that brought everything flooding back, you can watch a short clip here.
Looking back at the old photograph now, I don’t just see a young woman who desperately wanted to rescue a little girl. I see someone discovering that she had an enormous capacity to love. At the time, I thought that love had nowhere to go. I couldn’t possibly have known that, years later, it would be poured into two children of my own.
I still think about Bianca from time to time and wonder where life took her. I hope she found the love and security every child deserves.
And then I look at my own life. I see a husband I adore. Two extraordinary children who have given me somewhere to pour that love and who continue to fill me with awe. A daughter whose voice somehow carried me back across three decades and two continents. Matilda has grown into an extraordinary young woman. In many ways, she became the inspiration for BrÃd, one of the central characters in my debut novel, In a Different Light. If you find kindness, wisdom and quiet strength in BrÃd, you’ll know where I got them from.
Sometimes life only makes sense when we look backwards. The people we’ve loved, the places we’ve been, the dreams that never came true – they don’t disappear. Somehow they become part of the people we eventually become.
For that, I feel deeply grateful.
If you’ve ever found that your life quietly joined two moments that were separated by decades, then I’d love to hear about it. Feel free to write and tell me any time.
Thanks for being here.
Love,
Gill x
