Building muscle memory in your heart

Grief is a process as unique as each individual who loses someone. There will always be a need for patience. It takes time to assimilate death. The loss is too final, too immense. The emotions are like powerful waves that must be weathered.  Don't rely on outward appearances. People swallow down loss in a variety of ways. It can be those who feel that the most, show it less. Often those with the most regrets and guilt are the ones throwing themselves into the grave whereas the quietness of a long time carer can mask an ocean of heart stopping grief. Don't tell them stuff like “it's for the best”, “he had his day”, “You couldn't have done more”, “I am shocked by what happened”. We either turn to verbal diarrhoea at such times or find it impossible to say anything and avoid the bereaved like lepers from an alien zone.  Find a better and more moderate path.

When Mandela was in prison and received the shocking news that his son had been killed in a car accident, he lay on his back in his prison bunk felled by the news. His close friend came and sat beside the bed, saying nothing but holding his hand through the long dark hours. Knowing that nothing can be done to fix what has happened, one realises words will not suffice. Where there is love you must offer your presence and find ways to let that love show. In the most barren and stark conditions that seed of love must be sown and shown. Expect anger, pain and blame. Weather the storm. Those emotions are better out than in. Bare your share in respect to those who have lost so much and in honour of those who have passed on. Such tests assail the very soul. Find whatever nobility you can muster to hold the breech between what the bereaved cannot bear and what they must. Give yourself time to master such skills. Summoning the courage to step up when every part of you wants to run is vital. Whatever strength you find will build muscle memory in your own heart. Don't avoid it. Death comes to us all. Prepare yourself to be worthy of a good death. Both your own and those you lose along the way. 

PS I like this poem, below, by Maya Angelou on the topic.

When I Think Of Death

When I think of death, and of late the idea has come with alarming frequency, I seem at peace with the idea that a day will dawn when I will no longer be among those living in this valley of strange humors.
I can accept the idea of my own demise, but I am unable to accept the death of anyone else.
I find it impossible to let a friend or relative go into that country of no return.
Disbelief becomes my close companion, and anger follows in its wake.
I answer the heroic question 'Death, where is thy sting? ' with ' it is here in my heart and mind and memories.'

Home Alone

The last child has flown the nest

The emptiness is sudden.

Music has left our home

But also his mess.

To be fair he is now a man 

no longer a child

but it seems that just when

Conversations become illuminating and inspiring

Offspring migrate.

Thank God for Skype, email and text

They allow precious connection to continue

vicariously through the virtual world.

How many times do my sons take me by surprise

With their views and insights?

So much more capable in this world, than I.

Better equipped to manage this disintegrating system.

Made of stronger stuff entirely.

I watch them and try to learn from them

much needed survival skills, very late.

I learn humility is appropriate in parenting.

They are not works of art

that I can strut before

explaining their character and meaning. 

No, these are independent entities

who have found their own path.

They are of me 

but forged in climes and culture 

far from my own.

They look at this world differently,

And I have learned to respect their view 

is broader and more complete.

I was bred in a tiny village

High in the Sperrin mountains in Northern Ireland.

The road was impossible in winter. 

We had one grocery shop 

in our one street but over twenty pubs.

There were two communities, Catholic and Protestant.

I examined them both,

like an amateur anthropologist.

Alternatively, amused and angered at their antics.

An outsider whose only connection

With my communities was a deep conviction

That life had to be more than this.

Mean more than this.

I’m grateful for the regular discussions at home

On life, science, religion and the solar system

That swept around our family table.

My mother hated the heated debates

And tried to herd us to more quiet pastures.

But the arguments, the marshalled defences

the cut and thrust, blew like a healthy wind 

through our minds.

Making this table of discussion

Not village-sized but of the universe.

Shouting aloud, truth is the only community.

Being alive to everything in this world,

The only antidote to ignorance. 

Not knowing is when you’ve

chosen not to see with your own eyes. 

This changes what we are.

What we can be.

Everything we will become

Is there in that choice.

To remain like granite what we are now

Or to embrace the person we could be.

The difference between the two 

is simply light years apart.

Stopping time and gaining speed and direction

I've broken my new watch. It lasted two weeks. Of all the useless powers to have, destroying watchers has got to be top of anyone's list. After zapping numerous watches, too many to list, I discovered a cheap one (the one before my last) that lasted more than a month. My father had the same skill, so I am thinking it is inherited.  I had actually began to relax, then, I had a stressful work-related week in Brussels.  My worst day of the week, Thursday, obviously was too much for the watch and it stopped. Given that it chose that particular day to die perhaps, I generate electromagnetic waves when in distress? Perhaps sufficiently intense to stop watch mechanisms? This business of messing with mechanical systems via distance seems nonsensical at first. But we all emit huge quantities of infrared radiation every moment of our lives. Sit in a packed conference room for a whole day soon you will become aware just how much heat energy is being constantly radiated from humans around you. Plants have an electromagnetic field around them that can be picked up. So is it too much to speculate there is a field of sorts around us? It's time I understood this thing.  Or is it purely imaginary? Can these magnetic fields do stuff?

Well, some aquatic animals, such as sharks and rays, have acute bioelectric sensors providing a sense known as electroreception (they can sense your body’s electricity in the water- darn them!), while migratory birds navigate in part by orienteering with respect to the Earth's magnetic field. In an extreme application of electromagnetism the electric eel is able to generate a large electric field outside its body used for hunting and self-defense through a dedicated electric organ.  So living things already use interaction with magnetic and electric fields to detect prey, navigate long distances and even to attack others. In addition, electromagnetic radiation at a certain frequency range has found a place in modern medical practice for the treatment of bone healing and for nerve stimulation and regeneration.  So electric and magnetic fields do quite a lot of stuff.

We all exist in the earth’s magnetic field which depending on your geographical location can be anywhere from (30 - 70) x 10^-6 Tesla.  Doesn’t sound a lot does it?  If you stand under high direct current transmission lines there can be an additional magnetic flux of around 20x 10^-6 Tesla produced.  Fast passenger trains based on magnetic levitation produce high magnetic flux densities close to the motor.  But inside the cabin the fields are relatively low, below 100 x 10^-6 Tesla.  Mind you a thousand times stronger localised fields can result from inductors beneath the floor of passenger coaches.  MRI machines use magnetic flux densities of 0.15-3 Tesla (usually limited to exposure of less than an hour).  However medical staff can be exposed for longer periods of time and in researching brain functions fields of up to 10 Tesla can be used.  There are many ways static magnetic fields interact with living matter.  Magnetic induction, magnetic mechanical and electronic interaction.  Static fields exert Lorentz forces over moving electrolytes and give rise to induced electric fields and currents.  So for example our flowing blood can be affected.  It is thought that the sinoartial node of the heart that controls cardiac pacing is perhaps the most sensitive to magnetic fields but that as long as we stay beneath 8Tesla things should be fine.  8Tesla applied to rats reduced blood flow, which is worrying, admittedly.  In fact, in magnetic fields above 4Tesla rats show aversion and avoidance characteristics.  It is suspected that the fields at this strength may interact with the vestibular apparatus - the parts of the ear responsible for balance.  Time varying magnetic fields as low as 2-3 Tesla can cause vertigo and nausea if patients/workers move within the field.  These magnetic fields induce currents in living tissues and in accordance with Faraday's law of induction these effects are substantial, especially if we move around within them.  That is the weird thing about electric and magnetic fields, they are quite different in how they operate.

If we are charged and within an electric field we experience immediately a force dependent on our charge and the strength of the electric field.  Magnetic fields however are related to the strength of the magnetic field, our charge and our velocity.  So we could be in a strong field and not know until we start moving. It is that velocity that will induce the full force.  

This always makes a fundamental statement to me about life.  On this magnetic planet we are governed by her rules and perhaps there are spiritual metaphors to be learned.  i.e. if you want change in your life, move!  Only when you move will the forces available to you come into play.  Being stationary will not avail.  Makes you feel that getting going is so important, just so that you can experience the dynamic powers that could be there.  Sailors know that unless a sailing yacht is moving steering does not work.  It is the movement of the boat that makes being able to steer possible.  It doesn’t matter if you have to tack in odd directions to catch the wind, you will achieve more by gaining some velocity.  Then work out where you want to go.

PS I have decided to give up on watches.  Don’t know why or how I break them but the evidence is clear, I do.  Time to accept that as a fact and move on.  It’s all quite new and I keep looking at my wrist for the time and of course there is nothing there.  The sad part is I am still surprised by its absence and it has been three weeks!  This getting old is tricky dicky.

Into the Arms of Strangers

In the documentary film entitled ‘Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport (2000), there is a scene where an elderly woman is questioned about her experiences as a Jewish child sent abroad before the start of the Second World War to the UK for safety. The British government accepted 10,000 such children. There were strict conditions about age and background and parents were excluded. So these youngsters were transported across Europe from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland to the UK. Thanks to the actions of the UK Government some of these children would be the sole survivors of entire Jewish families by the close of the war. 

This sweet old lady spoke in gentle whispers about her experience. Of her fear on the train on being separated from her family. How her father ran alongside the train at the station waving goodbye and she a young child, not understanding the horrendous situation, sulked and refused to hug or speak. To her she was being forced abroad and she was angry, confused and very frightened. They were allowed only one small case and at the border German guards entered the train of the scared children and searched them and their small cases terrifying them. When they crossed the border at the very next stop complete strangers handed in through the windows chocolate and sweets to welcome them. She could remember both the cruelty of the German guards and the shocking unexpected kindness at this first station outside Germany. The taste of the chocolate was sweet and unforgettable. A taste of freedom and she remembered the children cheering. 

Later, she arrived in a hall in England where she awaited a family to give her a home. People came and chose a child at lunchtimes in the village hall where they were all eating. She remembered not been chosen week after week. Watching others being picked on all sides. After a month a couple eventually chose her and she was so excited and so grateful she could barely speak. Aged eight she arrived at a strange home and was shown her bed in the small room upstairs. Grateful for this family choosing her at last, she tried to show her feelings by giving them a hug before going to bed. She had memories of her parent’s good night routine. In a gentle heartbreaking voice almost a whisper, but still wounded, she described how the woman told her “None of that soppy stuff here!” and pushed her away. It did nothing to reduce her gratitude to the couple but as the weeks and months passed she realised they had wanted a servant. Her role was to clean and work not receive kindness and love. 

Her disappointment, even now, fills her voice, her eyes, the room, the screen and all eye watching. Unbearable in its longing for something more. You want to reach in and hug that eight-year-old, ease the pain of her rejection. Why are such simple memories so vivid and so raw? Why do they reach across the decades and make us long that things were different? Her gentle acceptance, her resigned tone, awakens you to the sweet child still confused by the world’s unkindness. Your heart feels whittled and besieged by the unfairness. These days when refugees again stream across Europe may we all fare better than this mean spirited example. But remember, although devoid of love or tenderness, that couple did save a young life. Perhaps, they claim a far higher moral ground than us today? Now, that thought chills the very heart.

plan B to lose weight, saw my leg off

I have longed to lose weight my entire life. In my earliest diaries, full of adolescent angst, my weight is recorded in red at the top of many pages. That tally seem to accumulate with the passage of time. Despite my best endeavours the weight just grew and grew. Relatives kindly referred to me as ‘big boned’. I told myself that this explained my higher than usual weight. Others had tiny bird like bones that weighed practically nothing whereas I had these dinosaur-like brutes inside. It all made sense. On good days I told myself that having big bones was a mighty protection. Citing the well-known incident at school when I was hit by a speeding car and thrown off the road to land quite a distance away on a pavement. The damage to the car, the speed and the distress of the driver and spectators was entirely balanced by my extreme embarrassment over the whole affair. Everyone else appeared in a state of shock when I just turned purple in agonising embarrassment. Obviously, those big bones are a source of protection, I thought, as I limped on to the school bus uninjured. I overheard Colin Atcheson, my nemesis, two seats ahead tell his friend,

“Did you see that! Bloody big heifer ruined the poor guys car.”

 I sank lower in my seat by shifting my heifer-like haunches and wondered anew if everything in the entire universe was designed to humiliate me.

In later years I grew more philosophical. There were tiny fine girls who people looked after and cosseted. Then there were the big cart horses like me that were designed to carry suitcases and gas cylinders. I accepted that people came in different breeds like greyhounds and Saint Bernard's. We all come with our own attributes.

Approaching middle age I ballooned even more than usual. Strange how suddenly size 16 just seems smaller. Much better to embrace size 18 and have that loose freedom rather than constriction. Elastic tops to trousers were a great discovery. Huge billowing tops hide a multitude of sins. My attempts to lose weight continued and now turned more Machiavellian. I instructed my dear cousin (Del -you know your duty!) to saw my leg off if I died. Given the considerable thickness of my thighs (big boned all over), I reckoned this would reduce my weight to 10 stone. She was then instructed to make sure my reduced weight was mentioned in the funeral address. By hook or by crook I was determined to get to 10 stone. Such is the desperation of the perennial overweight woman!

There are advantages. In storms I am manage remarkably well. Others may cling to fences for support but my big bones anchor me quite sufficiently. When normal people walk into me on the pavement they invariably bounce back with a great velocity. The conservation of momentum is in my favour. I don't regard huge loads, shopping bags, suitcases or furniture as immovable. I have become accustomed to such obstacles giving way to my will. It is not all positive. I have an unfortunate tendency to pull handles off things. Tug doors of microwaves, break windows and other stuff. It seems most inanimate objects are not big boned like me! They are surprisingly vulnerable. Family members are accustomed to my ability to break things. They are also rarely worried about my safety. When I visit strange cities they worry more about my carelessness than my safety. Who knows what I might break while there? I do not expect to be attacked any more. Instead I am on guard in case I nudge someone onto the road or rail. Goodness knows what/who I could reverse into in shops and damage with my flanks.  These big bones carry a heavy responsibility.

Then suddenly a month ago my weight started to plummet it for no apparent reason. Do I have some strange wasting disease? Out of the blue I have become a size 14 and all of my wardrobe hangs like joke tents around my frame. I am shocked!  After over five decades of weight gain this has come left-of field. My latest theory is that those big bones been hollowed out by some calcium deficiency. They are large but now are hollow and don't weigh as much as they did. Don't worry I am no Greyhound, more of a cuddly Labrador. Just when you think you know yourself, something odd happens. Life is increasingly full of jokes that sneak up on you. It's sometimes hard to catch the punchline. I have not worked out this one yet.

PS I'd like to point out that when Clark Kent, or that thin vampire guy, stopped speeding cars, then both of them were admired as having superpowers. Note that when women such as I, demonstrate such abilities they are merely seen as excessively bulky!  That has got to be unfair!  

* Heifer is a young cow 

Managing Animals with kindness

Teaching animal management for two years in a college in Northern Ireland was a good experience. The teenagers were full of heart and soul. They looked out for each other and radiated goodwill. I was shocked at how wholesome the group was despite Mohican haircuts, piercings and tattoos. In the animal room in the college we had hamsters, guinea pigs, birds, rabbits and on occasion dogs, cats, kittens and puppies, miniature goats and snakes. The students had to learn animal handling skills and needed to practice. When I started I viewed these kids as dangerous to the vulnerable animals. With each passing month I reversed my position and realised the kids had much more to fear from the animals.  

These kids harboured no nastiness but I knew even carelessness can damage. However, I saw nothing but consideration and kindness shown towards the animals. Even then I was careful. People in my experience can be kind in public but in private moments lash out. Just because they were gentle when I watched did not mean that when left alone in charge of an animal they might show another side.  Being a teacher made you suspicious of humanity! You discover those with no discipline, those who are physically careless, the occasional student totally void of conscience and it makes you guarded and cynical. For example, I taught pure science in a college in a different town twice a week.  The science students there had a few cruel students in their midst. You saw the way they hurt others in the corridor by word and deed. As a teacher you intervened as necessary, but was well aware that such viciousness would find its expression in other areas outside your control. Students who desire to hurt others can find spaces to practice their favourite sport. Educators have to be equally inventive to spoil their game. 

Walking from one group with such dynamics back into my animal management class was like emerging into sunlight. You got to focus on niceties instead of the basics of civil behaviour. On one session on euthanasia they were shown videos of dogs being euthanised. Such was the effect on these tender hearts I learned to have a game or outing to compensate for the anguish it in engendered. Many of them did their weekly placements in vets around the town. They spoke of young healthy dogs been put down because owners had lost interest, moved house or divorced. Their outrage was tangible. Another student spoke about how an animal nurse had sniggered while euthanising an elderly ill dog. The class was outraged at this insensitivity and all pledged to do things better. No laughter or smiles in such circumstances. The ending of life deserved respect. Months after the death of a dog, a heartless snigger can be both brutal and unkind for its owner. One boy said a man brought in his dog to be euthanised and acted as if it was no big deal. All swagger and brass indifference. As the dog died the vet gently stroked the dog on the table. The owner started sobbing and crying in an emotional outburst which surprised the student.  It was another lesson learned. People often hide what they're really feeling. Don't make assumptions.

 All had tales to tell of pets they lost. The bereavement was often still raw years later and would fill the classroom with its intensity. The tenderness of their hearts was a mighty lesson for me. I confess I had become jaded in teaching. You begin to expect less of students and even less of yourself. You wait to be disappointed with their actions.  This class revived my hope in humanity. They were therapy to be with and to this day I am so grateful for what they taught me -  “Every child is potentially the light of the world.”

Education, diamond cutting or sausage filling?

When I was in primary school our tiny village school in the heart of the Sperrin Mountains (N. Ireland) was visited by two trainee teachers. They were full of new ideas including dividing up the class into groups and targeting us with topical questions. This was heady new material in the days of the 1970s. Especially, given our normal teacher, an aged limping man, who insisted on teaching us in the old currency (which included crowns and farthings! ). 

tea clipper

He was the son of a pilot of a tea clipper (a very fast sailing ship of the middle third of the 19th century) and started every day by reading biblical passages threatening brimstone and hell. Not used to the excitement of actually being asked to contribute, I'm afraid it all went to my head. The question was asked if girls should be educated separately from the boys, I stood up and announced that it would be akin to separating the cream from the milk. Not sure what I meant, one of the student teachers asked for clarification. I didn't hesitate to point out that separating the girls would mean taking away the best brains in the room.  This brought an enraged response from our old teacher who spluttered his rage and ended our first topical debate.  

In my teens, I attended a course of St John's ambulance service. They instructed us in how to prevent someone choking with the Heimlich manoeuvre. They showed how somebody could be resuscitated. If they had a heart attack they demonstrated how the heart could occasionally be restarted and how breathing for them could be maintained to avoid brain damage.  This actually seemed useful stuff!  It was one of those Road to Damascus experiences.  I remember thinking that all the education I'd had up to that point was a total waste of time. Years and years of fractions and factorial functions, history of Columbus and Hitler. Geography of the valleys, mountains and oxbow lakes all of it seemed completely pointless. Was education really all this crap? Was everything we learned entirely for the purpose of passing an end of year exam?  How did fairly intelligent people stand in front of the classroom and convey such a rubbish year after year without questioning the whole rotten system?   What on earth was the purpose of it all?

Years later when I worked at University I was reminded of the pitfalls of our education system. Here, in this university was supposed to be ‘the best of the best’. The cream of society, its thickest and richest. I found them devoid of real interest or real intelligence. Whatever our present educational system does, it certainly results in inoculating almost the entire population against any future education.

Don’t think you can avoid it all by home teaching or buying ridiculously expensive private schooling.  In my experience such children are usually academically brilliant but socially deformed.  They can have the most idillic childhoods but then are released into the real world.  The shock is traumatic and sometimes never recovered from.  The difference between what we would choose for our children and the playground dynamics that they often have to face are light years apart.  We would not wish it on our worst enemies but our children must weather such storms on a daily basis.   After all, workplaces are just playgrounds for adults and equally taxing.  If you missed the school bully don’t worry you will encounter them in your employment sooner or later.  

I wish it were not so.  I wish education was about finding the gems that lie hidden within us all.  Mining for those treasures that each individual uniquely possesses.  Crafting such gems into sparkling jewels that illuminate humanity.  Such delicate faceting of planes within crystals to catch the light and reflect more light is an art that is far cry from today’s sausage filling education system.  My grandfather used to call sausages, 'mystery packages' for all the wrong reasons.  He was a pig farmer after all and knew what he was talking about.  I feel the same about today's educational systems - they are not fit for purpose.