Notes from a trailing spouse

We are sitting in the aula, all dressed up and teary eyed and melancholically proud. It’s the final day for the oldest kids: there will be boring speeches and music and more boring speeches and more music and more bland dull boring speeches and then they will get their diplomas and that will be it. They will walk out these doors for the last time, ready for the world.

In the front row, next to the director, sits a guy in a kilt. I remember him. He met us when we arrived here in Switzerland four years ago and implored us in a markedly Scottish accent to let our kids learn Norwegian at school. It’s vital for them to master their mother tongue, he said, to stay connected to their roots.

Yeah, yeah, I said, they’ll be fine, we speak Norwegian at home and I used to be a Norwegian teacher, so…

Aye, he interrupted, you like languages? So you know how important they are. In my experience…

Yes, I said, but sorry, we have to go, we have to speak with other teachers.

And as we walked away, my wife whispered, in case he understood Norwegian: he seems like someone you might like to get to know? Maybe have a coffee with him?

Yeah yeah…

And somehow, he says all the things I would have wanted to say. And somehow, he says it in an accent I know and cherish. Where others were bland and generic, he takes a stand and makes sure we all understand that solidarity is important, with everyone, and that it’s vital to use your influence for good, and that, yeah, it’s important to keep your own roots at the same time. And then he quotes not Homer, not some German philosopher, but a union leader from Glasgow.

Huh, my wife whispers, he seems like someone you would have liked to get to know? Maybe you should have had a coffee with him these four years?

I look at my son and his friends.

Then I wipe away another tear. Stealthily.