The Megrahi Forum: The Opposite Of Vengence

A comment published in the Scottish review about the Lockerbie bomber's release. By Sheila Hetherington, my Grandmother.

The atrocious murder of 270 innocent, happy, excited people heading home for Christmas appalled the world 21 years ago, and continues to appal us now. Families and friends of the victims will grieve until they themselves die. Generations to come will continue to mourn. The foul act will be remembered as long as memory lasts.
Justice demands that the truth should be uncovered. The present position is deeply unsatisfactory. There are countless theories and counter-theories, suspicions involving a number of foreign governments, talk of relevant papers being made permanently unavailable for inspection. But that inquiry, though urgent, is for the future.
Meantime a man who is thought to have helped to perpetrate this crime is dying. I cannot believe that his death in prison a few months from now could have brought solace to the bereaved, or relieved their anguish in any way, though their personal suffering can only be whole-heartedly respected and understood.
So what should have happened to Megrahi? In practical terms, to remove the prisoner to a hospice or hospital to die in this country would, as Mr MacAskill has pointed out, have brought distress and disturbance to other patients whose right it is to find peace and tranquility at their own time of death. A hospice surrounded by up to 40 policemen is unthinkable, callous and would have been rightly condemned.
Vengeance is not a national characteristic, I think, and, when sought, it often bounces back insidiously and viciously. Jim Swire and others still in profound grief have urged against it. And particularly, since in any case we have some doubts as to Megrahi's innocence or guilt, it must be avoided. Mercy is the opposite of vengeance. It is unconditional. It too bounces back unexpectedly, bringing its own blessings.
The return of Megrahi to Tripoli was not well done. He could have been slipped home without publicity, in a British plane. The scenes at Tripoli airport were abhorrent and disgraceful, and we must be prepared for more of these scenes to come.
I sometimes wonder if BBC News is always impartial in its reporting. Headlines such as 'Scotland's First Minister, Alex Salmond, has been forced to defend the decision...' seem perhaps to be a trifle biased against Mr MacAskill.
Returning Megrahi to die at home was a courageous act of mercy. It was an entirely selfless, non-political judgment, and it is distressing to see that some party members, both within and outside Scotland, are seeking to turn it to political advantage. This opportunism is demeaning, and it is reassuring to see that some of our leading politicans – Lord Steel and Henry McLeish to mention only two – have not stooped to such manoevrings, but have praised Mr MacAskill's decision as courageous, and 'the right thing to do'.
I too believe that it was.

The most lovely drive in the world?

"The most lovely drive in the world? For me is between Jemimaville and Cromarty on a June evening with herons on the shore line, stippled sunlight on the fields, and my newly-left-school-daughter learner-driving beside me, slightly too close to the ditch chatting and laughing and full of hope. Seems I blinked and she went from playgroup to here." -Auntie Lindys Facebook status, 11th June 2009.

Enough

Recently, I overheard a mother and daughter in their last moments together at the airport. They had announced the departure. Standing near the security gate, they hugged, and the mother said, 'I love you, and I wish you enough.'

The daughter replied, 'Mom, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Mom.'

They kissed, and the daughter left. The mother walked over to the window where I was seated. Standing there, I could see she wanted and needed to cry. I tried not to intrude on her privacy, but she welcomed me in by asking, 'Did you ever say goodbye to someone knowing it would be forever?'

'Yes, I have,' I replied. 'Forgive me for asking, but why is this a forever goodbye?'

'I am old, and she lives so far away. I have challenges ahead, and the reality is - her next trip back will be for my funeral,' she said.

'When you were saying goodbye, I heard you say, 'I wish you enough.' May I ask what that means?'

She began to smile. 'That's a wish that has been handed down from other generations. My parents used to say it to everyone.' She paused a moment and looked up as if trying to remember it in detail, and she smiled even more. 'When we said, 'I wish you enough,' we wanted the other person to have a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them.'

Then, turning toward me, she shared the following as if she were reciting it from memory:

'I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright no matter how gray the day may appear.

I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun even more.

I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive and everlasting.

I wish you enough pain so that even the smallest of joys in life may appear bigger.

I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.

I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.

I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final goodbye.

Then, she began to cry, and walked away.

They say, it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them, but an entire life to forget them.

Coincidences

This was written by my Grandmother for a magazine article:

..I'm alone in the cafe, enjoying an americano, and vaguely musing about coincidence - which Wikipedia defines as "the noteworthy alignment of two or more events or circumstances without an obvious causal connection." Whatever they are, coincidences seem to have occurred so frequently in my life that they seem to be normal events.

I remember one or two in particular ... The aunt who enquired of Hamish (my first husband) "Tell me, Hamish, where is Ian (his brother)? "He's in Canada", Hamish replied. "Oh, I have a young friend in Canada too, said my aunt. I'll go and find his address." Hamish and I smiled broadly at each other as we waited. It transpired that her young friend not only lived in 0ttawa,as Ian did, but in the same apartment block. In fact they were already great friends.

My son was born on his late grandmother's birthday. Hamish phoned Ian in Ottawa with the news. Ian relayed these tidings to everyone at the party that he and his wife Therese were holding at that moment. One of the guests pricked up his ears. "Hamish Cameron, you say? Your brother?" It transpired that the guest had been the trade commissioner in Lahore when we lived there, and had hosted our farewell party.

When I met Alastair, neither of us realised that my grandmother's cousin had been Principal of Glasgow University immediately before Alastair's father. In fact, had Robert Rait not died unexpectedly early, in office, Hector Hetherington would never have been called back to Glasgow from Liverpool - and many people's lives would have been completely different.

These are only a few of what have seemed to be remarkable coincidences in my life - there have been many more. (My train of thought today began because my granddaughter has found a house to share with her student friends next year, in Dundee. It's in the road where my mother was born and brought up.)

Perhaps the most significant coincidence of my life is that my parents chanced to meet at all ... if not, where would I be now? Indeed, without coincidence where would any of us be now?