Oh my gosh was I tired today. I remember so many people answering me ‘tired’ when I asked How are you?, and, I confess, I could feel irritation rise in my gut. I wanted to push for a single positive in their life, almost to shake them. Oh, what I have learned since those days! I guess its experiential compassion. And, more, that, the pretence that life is always wonderful, is good, in balance. But an overdose of ‘wonderful’ is, frankly, both unreal and impossible and therefore not to be believed. However, I was brought up this way. You left your ‘stuff’ at home and, out there, you were upbeat and cheerful. There was a dichotomy in that, nonetheless because once back home the lode re-landed with a big heavy thump and nobody, including me had addressed the ‘stuff’ or even knew how to. I heard it chortle like a goblin as it held me in stasis, thrilling with its power and control. For years I avoided asking the How Are You question, or asking it whilst in full flight, not waiting for the answer, afeared that involving meant solving. Not now. Now I know what it is like to feel lonely, lost and scared, my ‘stuff’ all consuming, the goblin growing into a giant. Perhaps that is where they were, those ones I hurtled past in my busy and productive life, so called. Perhaps, had I stopped to ask, to listen, to lay a hand on another’s, to say I’m here, I might have made a difference to them. Although I could never sort their stuff, not even my own, that act of friendship just might have lifted them a little at a pivotal moment in their lives whilst taking nothing away from my own. In fact, it might have shifted my perception and that, I have learned, is always a good thing. A self-centred life is all very well, but nobody learns a thing from such a life, including the person living it.
I am just returned from a visit to the cancer centre in Glasgow. The hotel is near the clinic, minutes away in fact. I found Google maps and did the whole thing of current location and destination. But, then, I couldn’t work out how to hold my phone. This way takes me left, that way, right. I could wander for days if I don’t get this right. Here comes someone, airpods in, moving purposefully. We make eye contact. Can you help me please, I ask, with a smile. I get one back and I can feel the warmth of it. He stops. Sure, he says. He must be all of 25, and in a hurry. Yet still, he is kind. I may have electric blue hair, but he will have clocked the wrinkles. I’m heading for the cancer clinic, I say, oncology department. He melts. You say cancer and everyone melts, as I do. I think it is up here…..I wave my arm across most of Glasgow. He grins. Yes, but bring that arm in. It is just above us, up that wee hill, just a couple of minutes. That’s the main entrance. I thank him and we share an eye smile. He could be my son and he is kind and he stopped for me. Braced and re-energised, I march up said hill and down again, a little, down toward the entrance, where everyone looks down. Of course they do. Whether going in or coming out, there is a cancer in there somewhere.
Through the doors and I am assailed with signs, people moving by, more people than I see in a week on the island. Nothing fits with my instructions. I swing round and back again, looking daft. Can I help you? asks a woman with a badge. Oh, yes please, I am here for a CT scan. Radiography, she says, and points to the big sign I obviously missed. I march on, more corridors, more possible rights and lefts. I ignore them all, arriving at a reception desk where I am greeted with a big smile and a welcome, as if I was the DJ for their party. It chuckles me and I love it. I give my details and am guided to take a seat, which I take amongst others who look up through sad eyes and down again. I am here with cancer. They have cancer. We are all scared.
I politely stick my butt in a chair and settle beneath the ghastly tube lighting. We are slightly off from the main drag, one that hums with passing nurses, technicians, equipment, patients in wheelchairs, patients in rolling beds. We all watch. We all thank our lucky stars, for now. After fifteen minutes of a silence that begs, longs to evolve into chat, I know it is I who will do this. I am the DJ. How can I begin, I wonder. It thinks me, a lot, and then I find something. Does anyone know if it’s ok to keep a mobile on? (I know the answer, but that’s not. the point). Oh, you can connect, a woman says, she, with her husband in a wheelchair, You just look on the wall, there’s the wifi and the password. I thank her and rise, crossing the divide. I am now respectfully between her and another man with a stick. I smile at both, casting a rainbow. I sign in, not that I give a damn about wifi right now, and see my Poppy dog as my screensaver. I pivot to the woman, show her. Oh, she says, Oh, and asks me to show her husband, which I do. He tells me their border terrier died 12 weeks ago and they are both lost without him. I say how sorry I am and that my own wee girl is also dead, not so long ago. I ask questions about their dog, how they feel, and warmth rises. Then I go back to my seat and ask the young woman beside me if she has a dog. She has, she had, she also mourns her wee yorkie, is completely lost without her. We all talk dog for a while, and if I look, I can see the connections multiply across the thoroughly scrubbed floor of a cancer waiting room. It’s like theNorthern Lights and as beautiful. The last man in, the one with the stick is yet to be drawn in. So, I say, do you have a dog? He beams. I do, a German Shepherd. A beautiful girl. Tell me about her, I say, leaning forward, and he does and every single one of us is thoroughly engaged.
And, despite what any of us are going through or facing, I could see tiredness lift into a sparkle.
Judy Fairbairns 