Superstition ain’t the way

The nature/nurture debate rages daily in our house. Two teenage children; one obsessive compulsive argumentative and one budding geneticist ensure there’s never a dull moment. Rationalism is all. But somehow I can’t escape the nurtured superstition. It’s completely irrational to nod three times when you see a magpie, as the father of my children told me. At least until a trailer of rowing boats reversed into his car. He still nods three times when he sees a magpie.

Another bird-related superstition that I cannot escape, was instilled into my sixteen-year old brain when studying for O levels. 

The raven himself is hoarse

That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan

Under my battlements.

So says Lady Macbeth- dooming my mind to a lifetime of associating ravens with death.

 

Some years ago I taught a lovely little girl, whose father came and told me his cancer was inoperable and he would die in the next few weeks. One morning I came in early and there was a single raven on the playground. I felt cold. The child’s father had died in the early hours. So much for the rational mind.

Earlier this year, I too was diagnosed with cancer. Irrationally I railed that I couldn’t have cancer because I have two teenage children. The educationalist in me was furious that I had got it just at the time when my health could completely screw up one child’s GCSEs and the other’s A levels. 

 

The first day I went into my school after my diagnosis, there was a raven on the playground. There was a stillness that I have never felt before or since. 

 

So with as much fury and bluster as I could mange, I chased the bugger away.