On autumnal days, the sun folds into itself. Its exit leaves me wondering if I’m a stranger in my home. In a single turn of my wrist, I shift from shielding my eyes from the intense glare flooding the window, to turning on the lamp. It tuts at being forced into work so early in the day, and I acknowledge its displeasure by holding my breath, releasing an audible sigh that the rising moon inherits reluctantly, as if aware of my melancholy. I’m coming to realise that the death of a loved one is like autumn sunshine. It takes its leave at will, defiant in its finality. I am thinking of grief today, but also about how loss has invited me to question my purpose in life.
As the sun flits, I am at my home on Rathlin Island, mourning my parents, the administration of where, when and how I feel that pain fluctuating as I count the years; almost three for Mum, almost two for Dad. I am choosing to write when it is almost their upcoming anniversary season, pretending distance will somehow dilute the definitiveness of their departure. It is my daddy’s birthday and a second year of ghostly best wishes have appeared on his Facebook timeline. They will linger there, with the best of intentions, and I will resist the temptation to frantically free the words from their accidental falsehood. I will return to this space on the same day next year, secretly wishing there will be more misdemeanours so the pretence can continue.
There were 6,491 deaths registered in Scotland in 2023 with dementias listed as the underlying cause. My mum, whilst more than a number, is a statistic of that year. They do not record deaths from hospital-acquired infections in Scotland, but if they chronicled such data, my dad’s demise a year later would add to the grim tally. Like Mum, his life is greater than a scientific measurement, and quantifying the extent to which they contributed to the world is something that now consumes me. Perhaps selfishly, I am considering how they mirror the person I have become. Must a person be extraordinary to have had meaning?
We all have a legacy. What we inherit, how we live, and how we interact with others shapes us. Carrying out brave acts that fuel hope in desperate situations is powerful. But I will never be a hero, nor an activist taking dangerous risks to my personal safety. Perhaps that doesn’t matter. As a novelist and filmmaker, I create social, cultural, and political content that drives me. While I once wished my work was profound in a more meaningful manner, I now understand legacy has multiple layers. My creativity holds importance precisely because it reflects the notes of a regular life.
My mum, from a working-class Irish immigrant family, grew up in a swimming baths in Glasgow. She played badminton and loved dogs and football. My dad was born on a farm on Rathlin Island in Ireland. He was a member of the lifesaving team before travelling to Scotland. When my siblings and I were born, they circumnavigated our upbringing and created a meaningful heritage. Not just in terms of the positive characteristics they fashioned, impressing upon us that boys and girls were equal, but also in their gentle movement through life, reflecting their own background. In their legacy, I inhabit paths tread by generations of working-class Irish and Scots relations, and I do so with pride. These Celtic origins and attributes have been visible throughout my working life.
This year, I made a lyrical documentary for Radio 4 as part of the Illuminated series. The East Light unravels my lineage and culture, using the physical presence of the East Lighthouse on Rathlin Island as a metaphor for understanding the circular connections I have with my family and my Irish roots. The process taught me legacy is as simple as the light we follow.
This summer, daylight dominated. I rarely saw the night sky. When I went to bed, long shadows were still sheathing the hawthorn, and by the time I got up in the morning, ribbons of orange, pink and yellow swaddled my farmland. I wasn’t intentionally turning my back to the darkness. Sometimes I embraced it, like the July night two vulnerable owlets, screeching for their parents while nesting in thick whin high in the cliff behind me, drew me from bed. Although it was black-dark, I propped my elbows on the edge of the open window, picturing the fast flashes of uncertainty in their eyes. I wasn’t purely drawing on imagination. I witnessed a similar fear before. In the same way I can envision what the owlets will become, I recall the internal pain my parents faced while undertaking a significant life transition in reverse, acknowledging firstly with alarm and then latterly with a saddened acceptance, that their child was nursing them toward their final flight.
Earlier today, after I had watched the sun drop, I held a pencil between my left thumb and forefinger and sketched a wrist and hand, carefully shading lives lived into wrinkles, knuckles and nails, each carefully weighted stroke engrained with meaning. As I drew, I thought I wanted to turn the image over and stretch the fingers open so I could feel warmth. Or perhaps I thought I yearned to caress its palm, or, more than that, I thought I wanted to feel my father’s beard stubble tickle my cheek as the warm fingers of my mother wrapped tightly around mine. Maybe I did want all those things, but when I finished drawing I rested my stained fingers on my collar bone and sighed, bending into the surrounding dust, acknowledging the meaning of its existence for the first time. Life is all around me, even life I can no longer see.
Copper coloured sycamore leaves are gathering at my feet. Having played their part, they will carry out the rest of their existence in a quieter, calmer way. In mourning, perhaps. Despite the downward push from the breeze, the garden swing is still. I straighten my back so I can peer at the seat, knowing it houses a plaque bearing the name of my first grandchild, a beautiful boy born sleeping. But his memory isn’t in isolation. My parents are with him, physically in the form of their buried remains, and spiritually, in their love, which is quietly enduring beneath the sweeping strokes of the East Light.
And now, I am almost ready to step into the beacon. It will soon be time to share my story. That of the ordinary life they gifted me.
