Jackie McGregor: Northern Irish people have the kindest hearts: holding a mirror to the past
“Goodbye my friend,” I sang the Spice Girls’ lyrics into the ancient mirror, while giving it a final polish. I remembered watching Mum clean it when I was a child, she’d use a white vinegar mixture and buff it vigorously with crumpled newspaper.
“You’ve seen it all, haven’t you?” I asked softly, as I levered it off the wall, labouring under the weight.
My father brought the large, ornate mirror home when I was a child. It hung in the hall for decades, then moved house with me, but it now looked out of place in my boho home.
I felt the time had come to let it go.
Looking into the mirror was like watching an old family cine-camera movie. It had been a silent witness to so much, every milestone, every rush out the front door. It was there for my parents’ date nights, Mum giving a last spray of perfume while Dad combed his hair.
It saw me transition from schoolgirl to a bride, standing there in acres of cream satin, taking one last look through my veil and remembering myself rooted there as a child with a net curtain over my head, picturing this exact moment in the future.
I waddled past it on my way to the hospital to give birth. It held the image of me gazing at myself as a mother, with my newborn baby in my arms. Inevitably, it reflected my saddest moments too, when I stared into it as an adult orphan, dressed in black, gathering courage to say my final goodbyes to my parents.
As time went on, it captured my son drowning in his first school uniform, then standing a head taller than me when he started university. It was practically an entire family photo album in glass.
But eventually, we have to give up the past to make room for the present.
I donated it so it could be used again. We’re a generous lot here in Northern Ireland. We consistently top UK charity surveys, giving around £250 million a year, with nearly 40% of us regularly donating items to charity shops instead of binning things.
Recycling simply means taking something that’s fulfilled its purpose and transforming it, so it’s journey can begin again.
As a population of givers, the motto on Belfast’s coat of arms seems entirely fitting: Pro tanto quid retribuamus – “what shall we give in return for so much?”
By donating the mirror, I wasn’t giving away the memories: I was letting the vessel that once captured them be useful for someone else.
It was time for the mirror to start a new chapter.
A whole new set of faces may be looking into it now, as it stands in the background of new lives. Perhaps it’s propped against a wall in student digs, witnessing one too many ciders and first-love flushed faces.
Maybe a new little family will glance into it for their milestones too. A toddler might draw on it with their mum’s lipstick, as I once did.
On reflection, I like to think it trapped a lot of our joy behind its glass, ready to mirror it back to whoever looks into it next.
Our part in its story might be over, but it’s a whole new beginning for my old reflective friend.