My Happiest Family Holiday Memory
The happiest memory with my family? Perhaps it should be something sensational, the kind of memory that comes with a fanfare of trumpets, bursts of fireworks and a collage of photogenic smiles to line the kitchen wall.
Some cataclysmic cinematic event that made us realise how important family is and pulled us all together again in one joyful moment. I mean, it’s a tall order, isn’t it, the ‘happiest memory’? If I asked each member of my family which theirs was, none of us would come up with the same answer. I’m pretty sure it would involve rollercoasters or ice cream for the kids and chilling with a beer by a pool for my husband. Nothing earth-shattering or particularly memorable in any case.
As in every family, some great and awful things have happened in our lives, but the best things I remember are mostly the simplest. And, like everything really worth having, the best is also bittersweet.
My happiest memory is drenched in sunshine and, luckily for my husband, involves a pool (but no beer). It is set in France, in the pretty seaside town of Saint-Jean-de-Luz in the Basque country. We were spending a few days in a quiet, family-run hotel before moving on to a campsite. We decided to spend an hour or two by the pool while we planned that day’s trip to the nearby Pyrenees.
It was a glorious hot day, made all the sweeter by the fact that we had spent the first few days of our trip dodging wet weather while in San Sebastien in Spain. This had left us all somewhat short-tempered, and we were really getting on each other’s nerves. My ungrateful eight-year-old daughter and thirteen-year-old son complained incessantly about the food (too colourful), the weather (just like Ireland), the sea (too cold) and the location - (no theme parks and it’s not America). Staying in one room together had gone from being like a fun sleepover to something I dreaded as night fell and the bickering began.
So here we were by the pool, planning our trip under a cloudless sky. There weren’t many other guests around, so we practically had the area to ourselves. It was one of those perfectly shaped, deep blue pools surrounded by landscaped gardens. The water was refreshing without being cold, and the sun loungers were unbelievably comfortable. The kids were happy to do nothing and splash about. My husband and I lay back with our books after our swim and actually – I kid you not – started to read: entire sentences, whole pages, the possibility of a chapter.
We lay side by side, our bodies prone, basking under the shade of our well-positioned umbrellas. There were no flying insects around, everything was within arms reach, my suncream didn’t stick to anything, and there was a lovely gentle breeze. I turned my page and searched the sky for signs of a cloud. I listened out for signs that my kids were losing patience, but all I heard was laughter. My husband and I turned to each other at the same time. I was struck by how content he looked, how years seemed to drop away from him.
“Is it dangerous to admit that I’m feeling relaxed?” he asked. “This feels too good to be true”.
That was it, the unfamiliar feeling of relaxation. We were actually relaxed for possibly the first time since we had started going on family holidays. We were lying in the sun while our children were immersed in the water, old enough to be safe in it, warm enough to stay in it and young enough to play.
My husband and I were free to lounge, read and swim as we pleased without running back and forth, keeping children alive. It was both a glimpse of things to come and a reminder of what holidays had been before children. I heard the tinkling of cutlery and glassware being laid on tables behind us on the lawn.
They were setting up for lunch, and I was hungry. In one of those slightly creepy moments where couples read each other’s minds (or stomachs), we wordlessly agreed to ditch the day trip for a long alfresco lunch, possibly sliding into a lazy afternoon by the pool. The rest of that beautiful day was spent doing absolutely nothing.
We never had another day like that on our trip. It was all our holidays distilled into one moment, the kind you never recreate. I remember the way my son goofed around, all gangly and awkward but completely unselfconscious as he followed orders barked out by his sister - the ringleader of long, inventive pool games. My spirit soared as I watched them divebomb and glide underwater. I wondered if they would remember this, even a fragment of it, as something pure and joyful.
I sighed and settled back into the sunlounger. Beneath my happiness was the shadow of sadness, a regret for their disappearing childhood. I knew I would miss this, would miss their beautiful silliness and the contentment both my husband and I then felt. I didn’t bother to take a photo. No need. I knew it would become what it is now, one of the happiest days of our lives.
Written by Allyson Dowling
Allyson is a freelance writer and translator who lives by the sea with her family in Ireland. She is also a skincare and yoga fanatic, obsessive reader, sea swimmer and self-improvement junkie who may sometimes keep a box of chocolates hidden under her bed.
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