DESPERATE Times

I was doing a phone assessment, exploring the causes of my patient’s fatigue and how best to use the limited energy she had left.

“How’s your mood?” I asked.

She started to cry.

“Not good,” she whispered, “I’m just going to get worse. I can’t see the point of carrying on anymore.”

Tears and gulps of air flowed down the connection.

I held my own breath for a moment, slowed my thoughts down about how to deal with such pain at a distance, with no visual clues and no chance to offer a comforting hand. I knew I needed to give her space in case she needed to say more. I recognised the momentousness of her voicing this feeling at all. And I knew I needed to listen well.

Depression, grief, exhaustion had sapped her of strength physically and emotionally, and drained the initiative and impetus to do the things that gave her purpose and fulfilment. She had no faith to give her hope for after death and life had lost its meaning.

As gently as I could, I probed what was most important to her in her life? Because this was the place to focus what energy she had.

Her family came the reply.

I posited how difficult it can be to let others care for us when we have been used to caring for them but also how precious those memories of the little times, those poignant moments near the end of a life can be for those left behind.  So to prioritise and treasure these. I hoped she would hear the idea of finding purpose through this that hung in the air between us. And with a little prompting, she remembered that her family loved her for who she was not how much she did.

I’ve not been in her shoes. But I have been in her family’s.

I know the pain of walking alongside a loved one for their final months and weeks. I know the helplessness of being unable to stop their deterioration. I know the sense of losing them bit by bit each day. I know the unreadiness for the transition from dependent to decision maker. I know the growing confidence as I became the reassuring parent and they the child.

And I know how much those harrowing times harboured diamonds to continue to reminisce over as a family later, pinpoints of starlight that that make us forget the indigo darkness that made them stand out. Even the grimmest, most desperate experiences can prove to be the most cherished. And there lies hope for all of us

Every week the Five Minute Friday community free write for limited time inspired by a given prompt word. It’s also a fantastically supportive groups for writers. You can find more inspirational writing here: Community – Five Minute Friday

Accountability

At each day’s start

We sit down

And go through yesterday

Together

But first

We sit still and quiet

Together

Mind settling

Acclimatising

To a new day

Remembering context

And perspective

Before detailing

Failures and successes

Troubles and celebrations

Some days

I don’t turn up

Too tired

Too busy

Too distracted

But you always

Welcome me back

Smiling kindly

At my apologies

Using them

To set new goals

More realistic

I have learned

Not to be afraid

Of your gaze

Your questions

Your examination

And I wonder if

That final reckoning

Will not be

A trial

With unexpected evidence

And verdict in the balance

But a going over

Of accounts

Regularly discussed

A summing up

Of what we

Already know

About me

And how far I have progressed

Every week the Five Minute Friday community free write for limited time inspired by a given prompt word. It’s also a fantastically supportive groups for writers. You can find more inspirational writing here: Community – Five Minute Friday

Where are you FROM?

My university cohort in York comprised students from across England and Scotland, from the Hebrides downwards. The only Londoner, I was the most southerly. Moving two hundred miles was an immense learning experience, not just in the academic sense but of the differences in perspective.

A frequent question was: Where are you from? And I was quickly made aware that my colleagues had no idea of the size of London. They assumed it was the same size as the city we were studying in. They pictured only the London they had seen on TV and in films: Buckingham Palace, Covent Garden, Big Ben. They asked me if I knew their friend in Brixton.

With decreasing patience, I explained that London was a series of towns, villages, and enclaves that had merged into each other. That it was better to consider it a county rather than a city. That its population was larger than the whole of ancient Yorkshire (which was now split into four counties), let alone York. That South London was actually in Surrey and North London Middlesex and each had very different characteristics. That asking if I knew their friend who lived on the other side of the river (i.e. the Thames, of which there are so many tributaries running through he capital) was like me asking someone in Scarborough if they knew someone in Leeds. That London had at its centre not one but two cities. And that the one they thought they knew wasn’t London at all but Westminster.*

I gave up telling of the exact town I was so proud to have been born in – famous for John Keats, Chas’n’Dave, and Bruce Forsyth – because no one outside of North London had heard of it. So I told them I was from neighbouring Tottenham, as the football club was so well known (and my grandad had worked there). Sadly, it also became infamous that first university term when riots made the national news. Friends assumed my family lived on the specific estate where these happened.

These days, I’ve lived in Hampshire longer than I did in London. And now that’s where I say I’m from. My kids were born and raised here and that anchors my belonging. I continue to work and volunteer and socialise here. My church is here. I’ve laughed and cried, celebrated and mourned here. I’ve rooted and grown here just like the garden I’ve developed over the years.

But I still live in a small town that no one else has heard of, apart maybe from the local motorway services, or for its neighbouring well known military town or international airshow.

And however long I live and love here, the core of me is still from London. No matter how much we have both changed.

And I wonder if that’s a bit like being a Christian? Or a human being generally?

That however long and strong we live and love on Earth, there’s still a core of us that originates and belongs in Heaven? That our roots are in God Himself. Or as St Augustine put it:

“Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.”

(* For my international readers, some geography might help: In area, York is 105 square miles, London 607, Yorkshire 4596; in population, York has 559 thousand residents, London 9 million, Yorkshire 5.4 million; on a clear day – and that’s unlikely – it would take an hour to drive the 22 miles from Edmonton to Brixton; it’s about an hour and a half to drive the 70 miles from Scarborough to Leeds)

Every week the Five Minute Friday community free write for limited time inspired by a given prompt word. It’s also a fantastically supportive groups for writers. You can find more inspirational writing here: Community – Five Minute Friday