gratitude

Day 654

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Driving around in hot weather, I found myself looking for a shady spot to park the car so that it wouldn’t be too hot when I came back to it. Walking in the piercing sunshine, I found myself once again, looking for shade. I just expected trees to be there when I needed them. I stopped to think how many trees had I planted myself to rightfully expect them to be there for me. None. Not one.

Oprah Winfrey talks about the poverty she faced in childhood. One year her mother took her aside and said there would be no Christmas. However, at midnight there was a knock on the door and a few nuns brought gifts for Oprah and her siblings. She was deeply moved by the fact that someone remembered them and their predicament that night. She went on to raise funds for thousands of poor children to receive gifts on Christmas. ‘Give what you are given’ she says.

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If you want to feel good, do good.

I did plant a bay tree about 12 years ago but after 3 years it died. I felt awful and stuck with indoor plants thereafter. I think it is time to try again.

 

 

Day 653

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A note out of Saagar’s memory book from University:

“So, I have a memory I’d like to share. We were in the room above Saagar’s on C Curve and somebody was jumping up and down on the floor.
Jack (big guy, played guitar with Saagar in Lenny and the Mandem) said to them, ”No, no. Don’t jump up and down like that. It makes the floor wobble.” And he jumped up and down a few times himself to demonstrate.

Thirty seconds later Saagar comes storming into the room, HOLDING A LIGHT FITTING, saying, “I think this is pretty f***ing funny. Don’t you?” and nursing a rather nasty bump on the head. We laughed for about 10 minutes. And once we told him what had happened I think he saw the funny side too. You couldn’t make up comic timing like that.

I’ll remember Saagar for his magnificent drumming, (I’ll certainly remember him when I have to get premature hearing aids thanks to how loud he was!) nights spent watching those awful BBC 3 trashy medical shows, recoiling in horror and sympathy at various horrible interventions on men’s gentleman’s areas; and he really liked my multi-coloured shorts.

Truth be told though, I owe Saagar more than those memories(although I’ll always hold on to those). I february this year, I hit a nadir of my own and I reached a point where I seriously considered ending my own life as well. Not that I wanted to. I never wanted to. But when you have mental health problems it’s like civil war erupting inside your head where the other side persuades you that ending your own life is the right thing to do. And it does that by making you believe that things are never going to get better. At the point when, in your mind, suicide becomes a realistic option, you really genuinely believe that.
The thing that stayed my hand when I reached that point was Saagar. I had seen the fallout from when somebody takes their own life. I knew I mustn’t do that to my family(and a second time for many of my friends). It was that that made me stop and seek help and now I have made a full recovery.

In a way, I owe Saagar my life.

If Saagar hadn’t killed himself, I almost certainly would have done and perhaps it would be my name on the stone and him writing a message in a book to my family.
I want to thank him for my continued existence and apologise more than words can convey to his family that this is the way things happened.”

Bless!

Day 651

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Scan 12

A face

A face or a mask?
Which one tells the truth I ask.
What schemes and works on the inside?
How much is revealed and how much we hide?
How much can the naked eye see?
What proportion of reality?

A soothing whisper to my soul.
His face makes me feel whole.
Deepens the cracks of my heartbreak.
Bringing back the crazy crippling ache.
A face I see with my eyes closed.
Trying to stay clam and composed.

Teaming crowds on the street
That’s the one my eyes thirst to meet
With open arms, come to me and greet
And carry me off my feet.
But the face is invisible
The presence just beyond reach- nearly imperceptible.

What lay behind those expressions?
Those funny faces and exaggerations?
That face could light up the darkest of spaces
How did it miss all the safe places?
Why could I not look behind the mask?
Being his Mum, it couldn’t have been that tricky a task.

Now the face is the screensaver on my phone,
It’s my watch, my diary and my home.
I live in it and it lives in me in every way.
It’s my umbrella on a rainy day.
It is the constant that helps me maintain
The will to sing and dance in the rain.

Day 643

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Today I learnt an interesting fact – statistics show that most injuries in the gym occur at the first or the last repetition of an exercise. The first, because of inadequate warming up and bracing. The last due to loosening up before time possibly because of tiredness.

Saagar attended the gym regularly. Sometimes we went there together. I would spend time on the treadmill, bike and rowing machine but he would be in the weights room. He was good. He knew his stuff and the results were visible. He would often cringe at the poor technique in weight lifting that he saw some other members of the gym practise. He was very tempted to guide them so they could save their backs, joints and posture but he held back. He taught me a few things which I remember clearly.

The other side of the coin: Saagar was a hard core carnivore. He could live on meat but the house rule was that an accompanying green leafy salad was mandatory. He mostly followed that rule but sometimes he picked up one leaf and put it in his mouth and with a crooked smile, say,”Salad done.” Rascal!

Today my gym instructor said to me,”Immaculate technique” after a set of goblet squats. I replied with a faint smile,”Good teacher.” Only I knew who I was talking about.

Day 640

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In 1960 Roald Dahl’s son Theo developed hydrocephalus (fluid collection in the brain) following a road accident. He needed repeated surgeries to drain the fluid through a thin tube (shunt) away from his brain. The problem was that the shunts repeatedly got blocked.

Dahl knew Stanley Wade, an expert in precision hydraulic engineering from their shared hobby of flying model aircrafts. In 1960 a team formed by Wade, neurosurgeon Kenneth Till and Dahl invented a new valve with a negligible risk of blockage. By the time the device was perfected, Theo had healed to the point at which it was not necessary for him. However, several thousand other children around the world benefited from the WDT valve before medical technology progressed beyond it.

His daughter Olivia died of measles at the age of seven in 1962. Her death destroyed him. Many years later he spoke of his lack of fear of death, “If Olivia can do it, so can I.”

Roald Dahl believed in taking practical steps to improve the lives of those around him. He generously gave his time and money to help seriously ill children and their families, including many he never met. Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Children’s Charity helps to make life better for seriously ill children and young people in the UK.

The charity believes that every child has the right to a more marvellous life, no matter how ill they are, or short their life may be. They focus upon helping those who have the biggest needs, and who aren’t being fully supported by anybody else. This might be because they have a serious rare condition, be living in poverty, or not have any family at all.

2016 marks 100 years since the birth of Roald Dahl, an extraordinary storyteller, a pilot, a spy, an inventor and most of all, a father.

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