‘Life’ a wise man once said to me when I was a headstrong young woman, ‘will not be a fortnight of golden moments’.
This past week wasn’t even ten minutes of them. I was, as my mother would have said, overtired and silly following several days of burning the birthday candles at both ends. Both the weather and I were humid and overcast/hung. Living with the detritus created by two adult sons was getting on my nerves (Yes, even I, hardly Mrs Beeton, was beginning to notice the chaos they left throughout the house). And then I had an exceptionally tough time at my day job when I had to deal with three cases, all of them the most unspeakable crimes, one of which left me in tears.
Most of us reading this live in a very sheltered bubble compared to many other people which makes it even more gut wrenching when you come face to face with very, very real life.
Enter the youngest son whose particular talent since he was tiny has been to give incredibly good advice, which I have, on occasion, taken.
‘Talk to someone’ he said. And a list, please, of people who would chose to listen to this? ‘Friends’ he said. ‘That’s what they’re for’. So I did and goodness me they were wonderful.
I was with one particular chum who has worked in nursing all her life and she was describing how she dealt with the feelings you’re left with after terrible situations. Her phone rang and it was a 95 year old lady who used to be one of our clients when we were involved in cooking lunches for the elderly. No doubt many of you remember the anarchy that was Gravygate. This lady had walked a mile to her doctors in the heat and been kept waiting for an hour and a half before being sent home with a packet of pills.
My immediate reaction was predictably to suggest that we go round and slap the receptionist. Where do they breed these people? Couldn’t she have put the old lady at the front of the queue or was everyone waiting even older than 95?
Grabbing a few vital supplies we jumped in the car and went instead to the old lady’s house. Nurse did some nursing and got her into bed while I prepared food and drinks. Her response? ‘I’ve never been a bother like this’.
And of course she wasn’t. We were only too pleased to be off on another adventure although this one turned out well, certainly when compared with the time we were in a pantomime together, or managed to destroy the entire electrical system at our sons’ school minutes before an important visitor arrived. Let’s draw a thick burkha over that one.
And what did the patient most good was not the medicine but the fact that her friends spent time listening to her worries and putting her mind at rest.
It is good to talk, even if it’s not about something jolly.
Thank you all for listening.