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.

A special visit

What a brilliant week it has been with almost wall to wall sunshine here in Yorkshire. The eleven Sierra Leonean teachers who were visiting their link schools in Craven had a perfect week. I met them on Friday when I was helping them and their English teacher partners to review and evaluate their visits (the Craven teachers visited Sierra Leone in the February half term) and joint global learning projects. We also did some action planning and discussed the possibility of setting up a teachers’ resource centre in Bo, Sierra Leone’s second city and where the Sierra Leonean schools are located. Simon and I met in Sierra Leone when we were starting our teaching careers and worked in secondary schools in the capital city, Freetown, for two years. It was a life changing experience for both of us then so I was very excited to meet the visiting teachers. 

Schoolgirls in Bo

Earlier in the week I had been wondering how they would be adjusting to our affluence; how expensive things would seem to them even in our cheapest shops and markets – Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the world and teachers’ salaries are a fraction of what they are here. Then I had an idea. Simon didn’t have a huge number of clothes but what he did have was always good quality so why not choose some of his leather shoes and lightweight jackets and offer them to the eight male teachers. Lucy, the link coordinator in Craven, thought it was a great idea so after we finished the training she put names in a hat and we got out the shoes and jackets – the first name out of the hat got the first choice and so on. The four pairs of shoes went first – leather shoes are impossible to buy in Sierra Leone. They were hugely appreciative and it makes me smile when I think some of Simon’s things will be loved and worn with pride in the country we both loved.

I had a chance to speak to Millicent, one of the female teachers yesterday as we ate our lunch together in the sunshine in the Millennium Square in Leeds. She was telling me about her experiences during the civil war that ravaged the country from 1991 to 2002. She was four months pregnant at the time and had to run for her life when the rebels attacked Bo and burnt down her house. As she and hundreds of others ran many were shot. She managed to get shelter for a night in a village 70 miles to the north but the rebels arrived the following day and lined up everyone, separating the women, men and children. They all thought they would be shot and she prayed earnestly. One man tried to run away but was captured and beheaded in front of his three children and everyone else. She was spared and took the children of the man eventually managing to get them back to Bo and their grandmother. When she returned to Bo she had nothing so had to manage by collecting firewood and selling it on the roadside. Yesterday she was content to sit in the sunshine and marvel that twelve years after all this happened she was in England. She had no money to spend but she has a future and a job she loves, three children and a home. It was a privilege to meet Millicent, a lovely gentle Christian lady.

Pig Racing

Pig racing, a trip to the cinema to see ‘Salmon Fishing in Yemen’ which Simon would have loved, a Fairtrade Schools event in Harrogate and a walk across the fields to the Yorkshire Dales Ice Cream Farm with my two youngest grandsons this morning, are just some of the things I’ve been up to this week. Oh and I’ve been wearing my new jeans and they are far more comfortable than I was expecting them to be. I also met up for lunch with a good friend and former colleague of Simon’s who now lives and works in New Zealand. Simon had been so looking forward to seeing her again but sadly it was not to be.

It’s just six weeks and two days since Simon died and yesterday the bill arrived from the undertaker. I can almost hear Simon saying well that’s the final nail in the coffin then. Despite all that has happened since Simon died I still can’t quite believe that I will never be able to have another conversation with him. I know that some people, including my dad - I still think talks to my mum every day - find comfort talking to their departed loved ones but I don’t. From time to time though I do recall Simon’s words to me, - usually the encouraging supportive ones and when he was teasing me.               

At last, the catalogue for the exhibition which includes some stunning photographs arrived on Tuesday last week; 5 days after the pots came home but it was definitely worth waiting for. Included is an interview with Simon about his collection – it gives yet another insight into my multi faceted husband.

I expect not many of you have experienced an evening of pig racing so I thought I would tell you all about it so that you know what you’ve been missing. First of all as you can see from the photo real pigs are not involved. By the way Adam, my 5 year old grandson acted as one of three official starters for two of the races – he’s the one with the Union Jack face in the photo. The pigs are identical, fluffy and pink and battery operated. The coloured ribbons around their necks identify them, for example my pig Roody in race 2 had a green ribbon. The ribbons are taken off after every race so no one knows the pig that is programmed to go a little faster than all the others. You bet on a pig or pigs in each race (in units of 50p). It gets very exciting as the pigs walk, or is lurch a better term, erratically towards the finishing line with their noses and tails twitching. The punters who have placed bets on the winning pig get a share of the winnings. I won nothing all evening and the two pigs I had sponsored were useless but Adam won a race with the much fancied ‘Scooby Do’. Pig racing evenings are not only good fun for all the family but great fund raisers – we raised over £800 last night for our church. So what’s stopping you organising one? The next thing I want to organise is a ‘Big Bra Hunt’. It’s an OXFAM idea – more about that another time.

Beautiful things

Simon would have been so pleased this week as he got a letter saying that his Cultural Quarters book, translated last year into Italian, has won the Premio Opera Straniera. I am not sure what that is but it sounds very grand doesn’t it? He would have also been pleased to see his pots back home after a very successful exhibition for Craven Museum and Art Gallery. There were 12,948 visitors, many more than usual for an exhibition at this time of year. The Arts Officer wrote in the visitor’s book ‘Thank you so much for your generosity in lending us this collection, which has made this the best, highest quality exhibition we have ever had in the gallery.’ I had lots of reservations when Simon said he wanted to do this but it was absolutely the right thing to do. I’m glad they’re back home now though.

It’s good to experience new things isn’t it? Yesterday I bought my first pair of jeans! Simon never liked men or women wearing jeans. My daughters who seem to live in jeans when they are not working will be amazed. I also helped to lamb a sheep for the first time this week as my neighbour and farmer friend needed me to hold a ewe while he pulled the lambs out. I now have a large bruise on my hand from a horn as the ewe struggled to free itself from my hold.

I’m discovering that I need to embrace sadness and find ways to combat restlessness and not being able to settle in the evenings sometimes. Looking at the beautiful things we have acquired together works wonders. Simon gave me some lovely contemporary jewellery. He chose carefully and my favourites are the very individual fun pieces. That reminds me of Keats’ words, ‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever, its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness.’ It’s so true and I am very lucky to have beautiful things to enjoy - thank you Simon. You have certainly left a wonderful legacy in so many ways.

Lessons from Simon

Simon mentioned his friend Ian in several of his blogs and this week’s words apart from this opening paragraph are his. To go with Ian’s thoughts I have chosen the photograph he took last winter. It shows part of our boundary wall which Simon recently used as his computer screen saver. I have been thinking about walls this week perhaps prompted by seeing Eve’s extension walls grow and interior divisions emerge. The new walls stand where the garage used to be. It was so much easier to knock down the garage walls than build up the new ones. Walls are very like our feelings aren’t they? It’s quite easy to make people sad by the things we say or don’t say. This week my walls are feeling strong because of the time I have spent talking to friends on the phone, reading email messages and letters or even better spending time with them. I have also felt free – as Simon’s body was failing him increasingly walls were hemming me in, but now they have been knocked down. Ian’s thoughts follow.

I cannot claim to be Simon’s life-long friend as I have only known him for about the last ten years. At first like many others, I felt a little intimidated by his direct manner and fierce intellect – he was never one to hold back on his thoughts, especially on art and education. Prior to MSA taking hold, we “enjoyed” many of his very long walks in the Dales and I therefore got to know him better - his immense energy and a passion for work, education, family and community.

He was an excellent hill walker – we called him the Mountain Goat who went faster up the hills when we were all flagging. My wife would bring along copious amounts of cakes and tea to try to slow him down but only with partial success.  I’m sure he thought we were all wimps and needed to toughen up. 

The onset of MSA was a great tragedy to a man of such drive and intellect who thrived on debate and communication. But Simon refused to be cowered and beaten. His approach to MSA was so inspiring. 

He made sure we all knew everything there was about it but he never complained to me about his condition even though I knew he was facing tremendous physical and mental challenges.

At our monthly lunch, we would witter on about politics and financial markets as well as his “hot buttons” of tuition fees, workplace learning and motor racing. I found myself doing more of the talking as his condition worsened but he never failed to listen carefully and come up with some insight or witty comment that would take me back or make me laugh.

My friendship with Simon taught me many lessons about how to live a full and ambitious life through whatever it throws at you. Just say yes to all new experiences, work and play hard, retain a positive attitude with a sense of humour, remain curious and hungry for knowledge, and above all, never accept no for an answer or second best. I learnt from him that it is good to question, challenge the accepted wisdom, and do things differently with a dogged determination.          

Simon, I will miss your wise counsel and never forget your valuable lessons on living and illness. It was an honour to carry you in a beautiful woolly coffin to your natural place in the Yorkshire Dales where I know you will rest in peace.