When Nuno turned 55 his sons gave him a scooter. It was a huge surprise – he was not expecting it. For many years he had not ridden any motorbikes but he had begun to show some interest of late and he was really excited about the gift. We were all celebrating his birthday at a fantastic terrace restaurant over the beach on a warm July evening when his sons asked him to come out because of some “emergency”. We …
Category: Family
This year my son Pedro and his friends will all be turning eighteen. In Portugal, of late, there is this tradition that eighteen-year old parties are a big celebration, and both girls and boys dress up for them. In the case of boys, they are expected to dress formally, with a jacket, a tie, a white or light blue shirt and grey or beige trousers, and leather shoes of course. A few days ago Pedro told me “Mom, next week …
It’s raining outside. More: it’s stormy. Rather than a May afternoon, it looks like we are back in January or February…I’ve just come back from my son Pedro’s rugby match where, alongside with other dedicated rugby mums and dads I stood firm during 80 minutes trying to protect ourselves from the rain, the cold and the wind, while we watched our sons play. Pedro has been playing for ten years, so all the parents know one another quite well. As …
Dear Mom, Today I would like us to travel back in time together – one of the things we love most – and remember some of the most cherished moments we have shared. My first memories of you are those of a smiling, vibrant, charming and elegant young woman, always impeccable and full of life. You were very young when I was born, only 23. As was usual then, you had only been married for a year and you already …
It’s 3 am and I’m at the hospital with my elder son Afonso. It doesn’t matter how old our children are…when they are sick it’s always the same anguish, as when they were small and we spent the night by their bed checking their fever every hour… This evening as I arrived home he told me his tummy was not right, he had the usual symptoms (!) and was feeling feverish. I fetched our thermometer – that fortunately hasn’t been …
Your birthday was on the 4th of April. You were born on a distant day of the year 1918, in the city of Lourenço Marques, in Mozambique (nowadays Maputo, a name you hate, I know). You were the third child of Manuel de Freitas and Marie-Agnès Grabowski, what we would call today an “international couple”: he was Portuguese, born and bred on the island of Madeira having emigrated to Mozambique in his early twenties in search of a better life; she …
It’s Father’s day today, and this year I’ll write about a great father. He became a father in his late twenties. His firstborn was a bright child, his inquisitive brown eyes always wanting to know more about life. Then he became a father again, of another lively boy, and from the first moment he was totally involved with his sons, doing all the things that are normal for today’s fathers but were not so usual back then: changing diapers, feeding …
He’s looking out of the window. Outside it’s raining – it’s been raining all day, a grey, dreary, winter day, one of those days when you just want to stay at home, doing nothing and feeling happy that you don’t have to go out. Only today the only thing he wanted was to be playing in the rain, wallowing in the mud, tackling his adversaries, fighting to get the ball through and score. Instead, he’s watching the match from the …
“Blue Eyes, Baby’s got blue eyes, Like a deep blue sea, On a blue blue day” – so goes the beautiful song by Elton John that always makes me think of my elder son. My own Blue Eyes was a much desired, much longed for baby. On the very happy day that he was born I looked at him and told everyone “this baby will have blue eyes” – everyone said no, it’s just the “milk” (supposedly all newborn babies …