Message and smiles from Grace

Achieving a long term personal goal is terrific isn’t it? I have been looking forward to my fiftieth blood donation and last week I did it. It made me smile inside and out.                                                         

Smiling is the focus of this week’s blog written by my daughter Grace. It’s not the first time she’s written for the blog. Here are her words now.

Happy belated Father’s Day to the daddy’s out there! Father’s Day should probably have been a difficult day for me; it wasn’t though because daddy always scoffed at Father’s Day, he said it was just another made up holiday for the card companies to make money; this was very typical of his general attitude to life, and something that I treasure.

This past week has been somewhat of a transformative one. On Monday morning I was taken aside at work and told that unfortunately they don’t have vacancies for full time staff and that they would keep me on for another month as an intern while I look for something else. They also offered to give me glowing references and put me in touch with some recruiters.

This caused me to reevaluate my current situation and question where I want to be and what I want to do next. If Daddy was still alive I know he would be a measured voice of reason affirming that I was making the correct choices as to what I should do next. He was always really good with the career and life path guidance stuff. A reassuring voice when I was finding new pathways challenging and assuring me that I was capable of working things out. In fact the last time I spoke with Daddy on Skype, a week or so before he died, I was talking about how I was finding work an exhaustingly steep learning curve, he finished the conversation by telling me to “keep smiling,” this was a mantra I know he was trying to abide by in his struggle with MSA, and now I try to make it mine.

So with the idea of keeping smiling in mind I have been thinking about what to do now my time at Brunswick is coming to a close. I have come to the conclusion that what matters is to do something that makes me happy and with that in mind I am considering a move back to Leeds for a little while. My visa in the states is coming to an end and I have missed my friends and family massively while in the U.S. I have also come to realise that I miss the countryside and the ability of the rural landscape to lift my soul. The skyscrapers of NYC just don’t do that for me. Reid has also agreed to try out Britain again, he misses British pubs and fish and chips; it has nothing to do with me!

I thought I would be coming back to the UK to support mummy with my dad’s decline, but in the end that isn’t going to be the case. It will be hard to go back to The Old Chapel for the second time without Daddy being there, although the first time when I went back for the funeral I felt his presence in the house which was lovely. It will be difficult because it has been easier to accept his passing living in NYC as he was never here with me to start with. There will always be things that are difficult in the months and years ahead, but in the past two and a half months I have come to focus on the positives and have enjoyed telling stories about daddy to others, although some people are still awkward about me talking about my deceased father. Things have got less painful, it isn’t just a cliché.

Grace and Reid smiling , Christmas 2011

Parties

It has definitely been the week for parties and other social events for me. How about you? The village picnic in a farmhouse garden to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee was cold but the company was very warm and the tasty delicacies provided by one family were melt in the mouth wateringly good. I haven’t felt like opening a bottle of wine since Simon died but I was pleased when I was asked to share a bottle of red with two ladies who are well into their eighties. Thursday’s party was very different. My niece has reached the 40 milestone and her daughter arranged a fun evening for her, a meal first with family and friends and then a disco. I braved the flashing lights and loud computer generated (?) head banging music for about ten minutes, watched some very interesting movements on the dance floor, admired the decorations and then decided I just had to leave them to it. I did dance the following evening. It was an 80^th birthday celebration for a much loved and wonderful lady called Rose. She surprised everyone by wearing a stunning dress she had bought in the 1960s. All three events were memorable and very happy occasions.

It is so important to make memories and what better way than bringing lots of people together. It’s a chance to step out of our routine lives and catch up with friends and acquaintances and to meet new people. It would have been easy not to bother and I certainly had to force myself to get into the car and drive to Lancaster on a very wet evening for my niece’s celebrations. I am so glad I did.

This afternoon I’ve visited a lovely garden in a nearby village and driven on to visit a textile artist in her open studio/home. In both places I saw a riot of colours and met lots of people I haven’t seen for ages. One person was the mother of a girl I used to teach and another was one of my ex students at the High School. We exchanged memories and caught up with each other’s lives.  It has reminded me that we are all part of the people we meet and the people we meet are part of us, some a lot more than others. I can think of a few special people who have inspired me and helped to make me the person I am today and of course one was Simon.

I am moving on, on some days apparently easily and occasionally painfully; two journeys simultaneously in the world of the world and in the inner world of myself and my relationships. It’s all one world really.

Have a good week and take time to make memories.

Wanderings

I have been discovering the pleasures of walking on my own this afternoon. I set out for the Yorkshire Dales Ice Cream farm, a short walk from home across the fields that I must have done hundreds of times in the time I have lived in Eastby, but there was no incentive of an ice cream at Calm Slate Farm until two years ago. I sat at the top of one of the field stiles for a while, listening to and watching the birds. Four curlews circled in the sky for a time and there was a lone lapwing making its characteristic peewit call. I walked through a big meadow bright yellow with buttercups. Lower to the ground were flimsy dandelion clocks, bright pinky red clover, ox-eye daisies, delicate may flowers and bright blue speedwell. It was so peaceful until I got to the top of the convex slope and saw and heard the Ice Cream Farm. I intended buying my favourite Mango sorbet but the queue was too long so I didn’t bother and headed back home. The last time Simon and I visited in March we called there on the way back from the gym. It was warmer than today but much quieter.

The events in the village this weekend and the programmes on television and articles I’ve read connected with the Diamond Jubilee have all encouraged looking back to significant events. I have enjoyed seeing the youthful images of the Queen especially as a young mother. One programme included extracts from letters she had written to her mother soon after she was married. It spurred me on to look at some of the letters Simon wrote to me when he was working in Newcastle during the week and only coming home at weekends in the mid 1980s. I also have all the letters I wrote to my grandma around the same time. I used to write to her every week and I never realised that she’d kept them all until I was given them when she died. After she died I continued my weekly letters but to my dad.

Simon’s letters reminded me of how hard he worked how passionate he was about getting things right and how much he cared for and loved me and the children. They also helped me to feel his energy again. Having lived in the slow lane with him for at least two years I am finding it hard to lose the images of the body he inhabited when he died. I don’t want to remember him like that.

Simon would have loved the Himalayan garden and sculpture park I visited with a friend last week. It is only open for six weeks each year when the azaleas and rhododendrons are out. It was a tonic being there as I am sure you can imagine when you see the picture below.