Vasiliki beach, Lefkada, Greece

WRITTEN ON 2 MAY 2020

Here is a photo of Vasiliki beach on the island of Lefkada, Greece, where I spent a happy, relaxed week dinghy sailing seven years ago. When I got back from that holiday I looked so refreshed that, on buying a bottle of wine at the airport after my flight back, I got asked for ID (aged 36!)! One month after that my life began to fall apart (when my family’s precious dog, Freddie, suddenly became ill) and, three months after this photo was taken, my Dad delivered the earth-shattering news of his illness with the statement ‘We must prepare for the ship to sink, but hope that it doesn’t’ (probably inspired by his time as a volunteer crew member on the Isles of Scilly lifeboat, and by his career as a boatman). The ship certainly sank, one year and one month after the devastating diagnosis, and the wreckage and unremitting ripples of grief have been a constant obstacle since then!

Today is a Saturday. Since my Dad’s death in the early hours of a Saturday morning, on the 23rd August 2014, Saturday has been the absolute hardest day of every week for me. After seven weeks of working from home, without the standard Monday-Friday commute I realised, after walking back from the Coop this afternoon, that I feel refreshed. It is strange but wonderful not feeling tired on a Saturday, as I usually do. In fact, the last time I remember feeling as aware of the beauty and infinite possibilities of life as I do today was when I was sailing at Vasiliki. So, it took seven years of trying to face one of my worst fears, and seven weeks of staying at home, but I am now going to properly embrace all that Saturdays have to offer instead of wrestling with quiet dread as the end of each week approaches.

I feel sorry for the hundreds of thousands of people worldwide who are experiencing acute grief at the agonising loss of loved ones to COVID-19, for all frontline healthcare workers obliged to risk their lives to save others, and for everyone else striving to help others and improve the state of the world, who are just trying to stay afloat and must be exhausted from pushing themselves and from the relentless, daily pressure. I also feel sorry for everyone thrown into poverty, fear and despair by the current international, economic turmoil. The journey of grief continues to be a constant learning curve but, if there is one overriding lesson I have absorbed in the past seven years, it is that when we do feel happiness we must enjoy every minute of it unapologetically!

John A. Shedd reportedly said ‘A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for’. Despite the indescribably depressing worldwide news which none of us can escape from, I am going to try harder to regularly recreate that Vasiliki feeling, and to focus more on navigating around obstacles rather than allowing them to frighten me into making frequent about-turns!

‘There is no secret to balance. You just have to feel the waves’. Frank Herbert.