Monday 18 June 2018

Beyond the Bucket List

Liz Atkinson, the Head of Care Services at Cancer Focus, is about to take early retirement. This was heralded by a very well attended event in Belfast at which tributes were made to her work in supporting people suffering from cancer and their families. Liz leads the Cancer Focus counselling, therapy and advisory services. She also helped found the Sing for Life Choir. And I know only too well how important these services are, as I have benefited from them enormously over the past seven years.

When all the tributes were made and the presents given, Liz spoke about why she was taking early retirement. She said that she had been working with people suffering from life-threatening illness for forty years. This experience had shown her that life was short and precious, and it had given her the great privilege of spending time with people who were not going to recover. It had taught her that you should follow your dreams and not be distracted from them, but focus your time on what really matters for you. She said that her teenage daughter had come to her and said that she wanted to be an actress. Instead of telling her to become a teacher or a solicitor, Liz and her husband said, if that’s what you really want, then go for it. Her daughter is now at drama school.

After a long and successful career in nursing and the charitable sector helping others, Liz said that she now wanted to take on some new challenges. She told us that she had always wanted to learn to play the piano and now she would. She also spoke about doing plenty of gardening, spending more time singing with the choir and finally visiting places around the world that she had only read about. There was great applause and then we tucked into the cake.

I think Liz’s thoughts on what you learn from a life-threatening illness were very well put. I have been feeling exactly the same way. The past two and a half years have been very hard going for me: two cancer recurrences and three major operations. But now I have been cancer free for twenty months. And after the last operation, the dreaded thoracotomy some nine months ago, I have also been able to both breathe and eat normally. As the pain from this surgery recedes, I can at last begin to focus on things other than my fears.

Once a week, T and I have been going on little trips, afternoons out to different places, not too far away, such as Carlingford. We are also planning a holiday to Scotland in August and taking in the Edinburgh Festival. In the autumn we will have a trip to our favourite hotel in Mayo, the Mulranny Park, on the shores of Clew Bay. And when the dark and cold of winter returns we intend to get away to La Gomera.

What Liz didn’t spend much time on was the distractions from your purpose and how easy it is to become diverted. Every day there are problems that arise, many of these emanating from other peoples’ disturbances and inadequacies. What cancer has taught me is that life is also far too short to become embroiled in this sort of stuff. The best policy is never to suffer fools and always to speak your mind. On the journey of life there are many false friends. Far better to have fewer genuine ones.





Monday 11 June 2018

The Perils of Dog Walking

I took Rex for a walk at Castlewellan today. It was the first time I had driven him in the car on my own. He has learnt to get into the front of the car, but normally one of us sits with him to hold and reassure him. Rex jumped in as usual and sat anxiously in the footwell. I tied him to the door by the lead and we set off. Rex shivered for a while, but soon settled down and rested. We parked at Dollies Brae and embarked on the round the lake loop, Rex on a flexi-lead. The walk turned out to be eventful and shocking.

The first incident was an encounter with two Yorkshire Terriers. They advanced yapping, encircling Rex rather like Red Indians attacking a wagon train in an old Western. Rex sat and kept careful watch as the terriers darted around him, barking and snapping. He was certainly intimidated and I was delighted to see an old lady appear to drag the terriers off. We resumed the walk.

We reached the other side of the lake without encountering many other dogs. Then a large black poodle appeared. They sniffed each other. The owners were some way down the path shouting to the dog. Suddenly a fight broke out. The dogs were rolling on the ground, biting and snarling. I pulled Rex away from the big black poodle but it jumped up and began biting him on the back until a chubby middle-aged woman arrived panting and dragged it off Rex by grabbing its hair. She produced a collar from her pocket and slipped over the poodle’s neck and put its lead on.

She snapped that my dog was very aggressive and I should have warned her of this.

I said that Rex wasn’t aggressive. It was her dog that wasn’t under control and had been the aggressor.

We had several exchanges about whose dog was the aggressor.

I told her she needed to keep her dog under control.

She shouted that her dog was under control.

By this time the husband had arrived, a large man in shorts with a beer belly; he glared at me.

I told her that her dog had been loose and wasn’t wearing a collar.

She shouted that he was wearing a collar.

I said, well he is now because you just put it on.

You’re not a nice man, she said.

He was wearing a collar, shouted the man in a broad Belfast accent, pushing my shoulder.

He wasn’t before, I said.

You calling my wife a liar, shouted the man, pushing me in the chest very aggressively.

I’ve had enough of this, I said, and began to walk away.

He followed me, shouting, where d’you think you’re going?

Then I felt a slap to the left side of my face; a light blow from the back of his hand.

Come on then, he shouted, d’you want to make something of it?

He was spoiling for a fight. It was just me and them on the far side of the lake. I kept walking.

In his shorts, he looked like a middle-aged schoolyard bully. I noticed he was working hard to keep up with me.

Then another light slap to the side of my face.

Come on then, he shouted again, d’you want to make something of it?

I sneered at him and kept walking away.

They soon receded into the distance and my heart-rate came down. I returned to the car with Rex. After this shocking incident, I decided not to come dog walking in Castlewellan on my own again. You never know who or what you might encounter.





Saturday 2 June 2018

A Remarkable Man

My good friend and neighbour Charlie has passed away. He’d been in hospital for some weeks suffering from leukaemia. A week ago he took a sudden turn for the worse. And, a few days later, he died in the small hours surrounded by his family.

I last saw him about a week before he died. Despite his ill health, he was pleased to see me. He explained that the consultant had told him there was no further treatment that could be given to remedy the disease. He told me that he had suspected that this was the case for several weeks. In some senses it was a relief to him that this news was now out in the open. Typically, Charlie met this final challenge thoughtfully and unflinchingly.  

He was born on the farm at the end of our laneway and went to the village school. Despite passing the eleven-plus he didn’t go to grammar school, but left at 14 and worked on the family farm. He married Margorie and had three children. As the small farm was not bringing in enough, he began work as a bread delivery man for Ormeau Bakery. Intelligent, hardworking and with good judgement, Charlie tended to succeed at whatever he turned his hand to. Unsurprisingly, he worked his way up to Sales Manager for the whole of Ireland.

After retirement from the bakery he took up sheep farming again, delivered books to schools across NI and built houses for his children and grandchildren. He also spent a good amount of time helping me with any tasks that were beyond me. I knew for sure that Charlie would either have the answer to my problem or know who to turn to. His knowledge of the local area was legendary. He could describe the entire lineage of most families going back many generations. He knew who had lived in what ruined house and where they went when they left it. He knew who owned what land, how they had come by it and what crops or animals they had kept since his father’s time.

Over the 17 years I had lived next door, in the house that Charlie had built for his eldest son (who emigrated to the USA), I spent many evenings at his home being entertained with stories about local people. He was my link with the past, my present helper and my pal. No challenge was too big or too small for him. He was a supremely skilled man (all self-taught) and extremely versatile. At the same time, he was goodhearted, considerate and modest. I will miss him very much.

Charlie’s body came home from the hospital and there was a wake. On the third morning about fifty family and friends gathered at the house for prayers led by the minister. Then the coffin was lifted and carried down the lane, one man at each corner. Slowly we travelled the three-quarters of a mile to the church. I was honoured to be one of those who carried him. And I hope, that when my time comes, I have a similar send off.

Throughout the wake, Rex had barked madly at each new visitor. But when the cortege walked down the lane he sat in silence and solemnly watched everyone pass by. The hedgerows were bursting with white hawthorn blossom and the verges were thick with cow parsley. The little church at the crossroads was filled to overflowing. Extra chairs were brought in and set in the aisles and vestibule. The service concluded with ‘Abide with Me’. We filed into the graveyard, which was bathed in strong sunshine. Charlie was laid in the earth beside his mother and father. May he rest in peace.