by Dinah Latham
Walking Forward, Looking Back
A District Nurse's Life Journey
Dinah Latham
Copyright © 2014 Dinah Latham
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study,
or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in
any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the
publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with
the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries
concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
While the patient stories used in this publication are real, names and any identifying features or aspects have been changed to maintain absolute confidentiality for them and any family members. Details have been so
restructured and disorganised that resemblance to any persons living or
dead is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Cover
Foreword
Preface
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
THE QUEEN’S NURSING INSTITUTE
Foreword
There was a small boy standing on a large beach. There had been a violent storm with rough seas that had thrown all the starfish right up to the very top of the beach, beyond the high tide line. The boy was surrounded by thousands of starfish, and one by one he was throwing them back into the sea. A passer-by said to him, “What are you doing? There are far too many of them. You can’t possibly make a difference to all of those.”
The little boy bent down and picked up another starfish and, as he threw it back into the sea, he said,
“But I can make a difference to this one.”
Preface
I’ve heard it said that the life of every man is a diary. I love diaries… other people’s real lives laid bare. Somehow I’ve never had the persistence to keep one of those daily records past the third week in January, just as my New Year resolutions begin to falter.
Yet I have begun to reflect on my life as I have found myself in a new and untried world: that of the dog walker. Translated, that means ‘dog owner being walked by her dog’, the journey being accompanied by many stops for dog to nose around, observe and explore, determined to leave no leaf unturned.
Quite why these hesitations have set my mind travelling backwards I’m not sure, but here I am, on a chilly morning with my dog by my side, randomly flicking through a lifetime of unwritten diaries. I’m bewildered as to style and presentation; how to record reflections that are unselective as to date, time or sequence, encouraged by discoveries whilst walking, maybe prompted by weather, season or something we’ve seen. How then will this indiscriminate panorama take on any discernable shape? It promises to be a narrative that reads more like dipping in and out of a bag of assorted sweets, never being quite sure what you will find in your hand each time or what the taste will be…
1
GOOD MORNING MR LION
I’m not sure what led me to get a dog but whatever my uncertainty was then, there is no doubt that it is she who is leading me now.
I had, in some distant past, cherished the idea of becoming a district nurse and midwife, which meant to me a home of my own where I could have a dog. In those days, in the early 1960s, the district nurse and midwife was a job undertaken by one person with both qualifications who was given a home to rent within the community she served. Indeed, as my career plan took shape, so it was to be… but instead of getting the dog, I got a husband. The husband, four children, a divorce and a long struggle working more than full-time hours for over twenty years meant that dog ownership had been pushed to the bottom of any wish list.
Nursing in the community brought me close to families at both the beginning and end of their lives. Caring for patients who are dying, where they and their families have chosen to have their last months and death at home, is always a contemplative time. Being closely involved with those who are facing impending death and reflecting on their lives meant that I often found myself considering what I would regret not having done, were I to be diagnosed with a life-threatening disease. Whenever I pondered this big question, what bubbled, almost incongruously, to the surface every time was sadness that I had never owned a dog. I disapproved of my thoughts and reproached myself that I couldn’t come up with some more worthwhile regret, such as lamenting the fact that I’d never written a seminal text on the essence of nursing care or won ‘the nurse of the year’ award; but no, while I didn’t understand it, what came up every time was sorrow at not having experienced befriending a dog.
So, being more aware than most that life’s direction can turn on a sixpence, I set about making it happen at my first realistic opportunity which was when I retired. Being inexperienced, a novice, I read books and I talked to people – all of whom it seemed did their best to dissuade me, telling me what a bad idea it was.
“They’re a terrible tie, you know.”
“What happens if you get an awful, probably vicious, rescue dog?”
“What happens if you want to jet off to Paris for lunch with a lover in the freedom of your retirement?”
The latter possibility called for some thought… but not for long; there is a really good hotel and restaurant locally that serves the most fantastic crème brûlée. I understand they have four-poster beds (I’ve always dreamt of nights of rapturous passion in a four-poster bed) and I think they do unbelievably scrumptious croissants for breakfast too. Why would I want to fly to Paris?
It’s perhaps doubtful that I’ll have a need to book in frequently…
Sometimes fortune takes a paw. This point in my life came together with a very active dog with a joyful disposition. I had no notion then of the profound relationship that was to develop between us; the companionship that would add an unexpected richness to my life. This union may just have been the coming together of chance and good timing but destiny or happy accident, it was certainly a blessing. It was her need to be taken on long walks, and me sharing her twice daily sojourns, that allowed me to deliberate, to reflect and to make sense of my own life journey.
I discovered what an entirely changed experience it is walking with and without a dog. It’s a completely different activity. To go for a walk with a dog that enjoys it so much compels one to enter into the event with the same amount of excitement and fervour: to tilt your nose high, to sniff in the freshness of a new day with front legs fully extended forwards over the front doorstep, leaving your back legs behind, stretched to their absolute limit and still inside the doorway, is enough to make anyone wag their tail. She greets every day with boundless enthusiasm and optimism wherever we go. As alarm cl
ocks are going off all over town and as the thin, feeble sun inches above the skyline, we walk.
I was told she was thought to be a Bearded/Border Collie cross when I collected her from the rescue. However, since then, those who are in the know tell me that this is incorrect and that she is in fact a Working Beardie (rather than a Show Beardie). Whatever the breed, Harriet, the seven-week-old puppy, arrived to turn my life upside down. She was to make sure I wasn’t going to vegetate in my retirement, to remind me of how much joy there is in every waking moment and to be sure to savour the wonder of a dandelion clock as it blows away in the wind… even when it lands on your nose and makes you sneeze.
And so it was that our walks, and my reflections, began.
* * *
We set off to our left, going first over to the quadrangle on North Road opposite our front door. Most days we hesitate outside the door, Harriet turning her head this way and that wondering which way we’ll start off today. Neither of us really knows but there, pausing on the pavement outside our door, is our starting point and our daily beginning.
As we head along the road towards the common, Harriet increases her pace, encouraging me to pick up mine. I resist being asked to exaggerate my step rate too much. I know we’re off on at least a two-hour trek and, even though I’m unsure quite where we’ll walk to or which direction we’ll return home from, I do know that deliberate rapid-type walking it is not. Anyway, her four paws are capable of a much greater pace than my two. This is a retired day when I am able to allow my mind to wander along with my feet in an unstructured, maybe even disordered, way. The deliciousness of that lack of severe organisation of thought, as well as the timekeeping that is needed when in the workplace, never escapes me as we start off in the mornings; so let’s just go and see what happens.
I’m not sure about her mind, but certainly the route Harriet takes is disordered. It’s all over the place once she’s off the lead: first following her nose, then distracted by an interesting looking stick, followed by a gambol across the field with a snoopy looking dog friend, before returning to my feet, just to make sure I’m still coming, before she runs ahead again.
* * *
The last time I had walked regularly was all the way back with the daily walks, taking the children to and from school. More structured then, definite times for leaving, and we aimed for a good steady pace to make sure we got there on time. There would be Izzie in the pram – one of the old style, coach-built carriages, so well sprung that it bounced easily along the pavement with no effort – and the three boys, Jon, Ben and Matt, bobbing along on either side, either reciting their tables, knocking conkers out of the tree with a stick, carefully carrying the jar with the stickleback in it for the nature table, or dragging their satchel along the ground, while they dawdled behind, creeping unwillingly to school.
It was always a reflective time, the walk to and from school: sometimes busy with chatter, sometimes thoughtful with growing minds working out the ways of the world. Rain or shine, wind or frost, it was a good time; a precious time for sharing thoughts.
One happening was constant: over the lane it sloped rapidly away to our right, downhill to the riverbed, while we turned left and pushed the pram steadily up the hilly bit. Here we all gathered on the corner in readiness to cross the road to the pavement on the second leg of the journey. A large tree dominated this corner and it had a sawn off branch at the top, just where the trunk ended and the other branches began. The old, weathered, lopped off, cross-section surface of this would-be branch bore the clear image of a lion’s face, created by its age rings. It became a morning ritual, repeated over many years, all raised faces and voices greeting him with:
“Good Morning, Mr Lion.”
So here I am, many years later, on regular walks again but without either the children or Mr Lion; with no set destination and only Harriet and my thoughts for company.
The lack of the rigid schedule required when at work, allowing thoughts to wander, to reflect and to meander, is perhaps never encountered so acutely as in retirement. The rich tapestry of one’s life billows out behind like the brightly coloured canopy of a hot air balloon as it prepares to launch. The sun streaks through its richly-coloured panels and we gather in our recollections, capturing them to store in our memory basket.
Knowing there are fewer years ahead of us than behind us perhaps encourages this luxury of reminiscence… a time to explore not just the relationships of our lives but the emotions entwined with all we have done, been and become.
I’ve begun to think about a lot of new beginnings as they’ve presented themselves to me now in this new life I’m leading. I’ve come into my pint-sized, ground floor flat, leaving my single parent, post-divorce home, to enable me financially to retire. Until now, either some or all of the grown-up children had returned, and returned again, to live at home following university, right up to the time I moved. So, alongside retirement, I was now beginning life alone. A whole new life of beginnings…
* * *
An earlyish walk today for Harriet and me: the air is crisp and fresh with the dew catching the weak, early morning sun across the rectory field. My fingers tingle. Harriet noses her way through the overgrown track and hesitates as the tracks cross, waiting to see which way we are going today. I choose to go along the brow of the hill and left across the cornfield, where we can look down over the rooftops in the valley. We continue down across the field and turn at the bottom to come up the hill the other side of the wide meadow. It gets steeper as we come to the edge of the woodland as it streaks up to the road. As we walk on, heading home through the high street, the hustle and bustle of the day is just beginning: people making their way to work but shops not open yet. Around the corner, we are greeted by a gathering of yellow-jacketed children. Laughter and chatter, lunch bags swung around shoulders, with high pitched screeches of “Hi Harriet!” Harriet’s ears prick up and her tail wags, while lots of hands wave to her across the road. We wave and carry on travelling as the ‘walking train’ of yellow jackets turns away and sets off to school. I watch them go and find myself thinking about walking to my village school for the very first time.
* * *
It’s difficult to remember my first day at school in context, without the memories of that day being affected by all that followed – the devastating despair of learning I was a failure.
“You’re not as bright as your sisters, are you?”
“Do you have to write in that silly way with your left hand?”
I was to learn that, from this day forward, I would forever be known as ‘the girl with the red hair’.
My absolute sinking feeling as ‘The Problem’ was written at the top of the blackboard on Monday morning and me knowing, right there and then, that I would never be able to work out how long it would take to fill a bath if one tap ran at half the speed of the other and the bath was deeper at one end than the other. Never in a million years, let alone find out by Friday… and not enough brain to see that it didn’t matter anyway, and certainly not enough nerve to say so!
Nasty teachers, nasty ink that spilled all over the desk and me, a longing to be the blackboard monitor so I could rub the board clean at the end of each day (a dream never to be fulfilled) and years of working very hard running parallel with a total lack of achievement.
All this alters the reality of that first day at school which was really about a very happy, excited little girl who wanted to learn to read.
* * *
Harriet disappears into a thicket and I’m quite a way ahead before I realise she’s not following. I turn to call her and she appears with, horror of horrors, something in her mouth. Her head is up, showing off her ‘catch’! As she bounds towards me I’m deciding what action I’ll take with her find, not sure whether I want it to be a mangy well dead offering or can I heroically rescue some injured bird or rabbit? She arrives and drops her treasure at my feet – a very old battered shoe. I laugh with relief and Harriet looks dejected. She picks
up her prize, shakes it violently to make sure it’s really dead and trots ahead of me in disgust, turning every few strides as if to convince me of her hunting prowess. Who had owned the shoe? How had he lost it? How did he get home without it? My mind reflects on his misfortune and into the world of shoes and their significance...
* * *
I had spent several years trying to stretch a totally inadequate income to feed, clothe and buy shoes for my family of four children – the first three of whom were boisterous boys who actually didn’t care what went on their feet unless it was a pair of football boots. There was never any debate over which style or colour of shoe; they just wanted out of the shop as quickly as possible.
I then took my daughter for her first real pair of proper grown-up shoes. She was about three years old and she stood in the shop looking at herself in the full length mirror, staring down at the brown buckle shoes – the cheapest pair in the shop that fitted. Her crestfallen look made me ask what was wrong. Her eyes filled with tears as she looked up at me and said:
“I really wanted red shoes with a strap and a button.”
I was instantly transported back to the days of desperately wanting new clothes and knowing that the new clothes my elder sisters had would eventually be mine, and with the absolute longing to have something new that was just mine and not a hand-me-down. It was the same longing I saw in my daughter’s eyes then.
Izzie got her new red shoes, with a strap and buttons; they were totally impractical, didn’t match anything, looked faintly ridiculous with most outfits, but were very precious to her… and to me. They represented an indulgence, a wasteful expenditure in a world of budgetary constraints that can make us as small-minded as the coins left in our purse. I never regretted that extravagance – a joy for Izzie, a lesson for me – sometimes just go with it, just do it and don’t count the cost, however unyielding the budget.
* * *
We’re really stretching our legs this morning, Harriet and I. We’ve been walking for quite some time and now we’ve hit the town. It’s a bright sunny morning but somehow we’ve not quite got the timing right so we’re just meeting all those who are off to work early. I decide to stop and have a coffee, sitting outside on the pavement. I still feel like a decadent spendthrift when I indulge like this. It remains a luxury that has more to do with taking pleasure in the lack of the morning rush that accompanies retirement than any real need for either rest or rations. The smell of the coffee is enticing. Even Harriet joins in with my mood by lying down and just watching what’s going on as the world rolls by. It’s as though she’s mirroring my feelings of wanting everyone to slow down and enjoy the morning, rather than looking quite so harassed, all hurrying along, worrying what this day will bring, or perhaps how much they’ve got to get done.