Driving with Una

I was driving to Dublin, early one weekday morning, and I had Marty Whelan on, as I often do if I’m on the road at that time. I like Marty. He keeps it positive, no matter what, and he runs seat-of-the-pants interviews that can’t help but make you twitch. Also, he plays good tunes and that is the point, really.

Marty was playing one of his good tunes. It was by Elena Kats-Chernin and was called Eliza Aria. You’ll probably know it better as the music from the Lloyds TSB animated telly ads that started way back in 2008. Click here for a link to the tune in case it helps you relate to this post.  

The ads showed a series of distinctively animated characters on their everyday life journeys and suggested how Lloyds TSB might help. You’d know it if you saw it or heard it again.

It’s a funny thing but, back in the day, these ads always made my think of my wife’s sister Una, who I was extremely fond of. Although Una was the older sister, and a few years ahead of Patricia and me, we often seemed to be a little further down the road in some ways. Patricia and I had met before Una met her lovely Frank and we also had our kids before Una went on to have her three lovely daughters. We also settled in London a few years before Una arrived to do the same. Una was ahead of us in many, many ways but in these matters of life and young families, we seemed to take the lead.

And, because one of the characters in the animated advert reminded me a little of Una, the adverts came to mean a little more to me than just commericials. They were like a pictorial representation of Una’s life, as she settled down in London, met the love of her life, bought her own house, pursued her career as a GP and had her wonderful children. In a funny, light-hearted way, the adverts made me think of Una whenever I caught sight of one of them. Nothing remarkable, just another of my diverse passing thoughts.

The other day, when that distinctive tune from the adverts came on my car radio at about 7.30 in the morning, with the sun just crawling up, it evoked Una for me in a rather surprising way.

I remembered the last time I drove with Una in my car. How she sat in the passenger seat next to me. The seat that was now empty. She was coming over on her own for a day or two, staying in Ballinrobe. I picked her up from her London flight at Knock Airport. I was a bit late and Una was standing outside the terminal doors waiting when I pulled up. I regretted that greatly because Una was not well at the time and I hated the idea of her waiting in the cold for me. She didn’t mind though; she was smiling and glad to see me and we set off on the road to Ballinrobe in fine spirits, Una riding shotgun with her bags on the back seat.

Una and me always got on really well. We could always chat effortlessly about lots of things, but we particularly enjoyed taking about movies. We had seen quite a few together over the years. When I was working in Dublin for a few months and Trish had to stay in London, we went to the Savoy a few times and, even in London, we went a few times ourselves when Trish was busy studying. And, of course, we went as a party of three many, many times. On our drive from the airport we talked about ‘Saving Mr. Banks’ and how I had liked it and how I thought Una and her kids might like it too. The journey was not long, and maybe I’m projecting here, but I think we both knew that this would be the last time we would ever drive in a car together.

So this tune came on the radio the other morning and it evoked Una for me. And, as it did so, A wealth of memories came flooding back, all in a rush, as the music played. Everyday moments. Remarkable one-off moments. Una at our front door, smiling. Una skiing in Colorado. Una on her Wedding Day. Una locked out of her house. Una being sad in the curry house. Una giving the famous runner a lift home from the tube station. Una at the last night of the proms when we sneaked in at the last minute. Unforgettable things that we sometimes tend to forget. And, yes, I may have shed a tear or two, which I don’t very often do, and I don’t mind saying it.

And perhaps it was a form of self-hypnosis, with the music and the empty pre-dawn road, but these memories were more vivid and ‘coloured-in’ than they had ever seemed to be before. They were 4K Ultra HD memories that you could almost reach out and touch. For a moment, it was almost like Una was riding shotgun once more.

We are the keepers of the memories of the friends and the family who are no longer with us. Evoking these memories can sometimes make them spring up once more, vibrant, and three-dimensional inside of our minds. 

Even when our loved ones are still alive and right there in front of us, they really only ever exist for us inside our own minds. We can’t ever 'inhabit' them or ‘become’ them, we can only really know of them what we think of them. Granted, we can touch them and hug them and talk to them and these things are obviously vital. But the 'mind' part is very important too and it is the only part that doesn’t go away after the person dies. The person who has gone is still there, inside of our minds.

Sometimes it takes an unexpected tune to bring them back.