You teach the best the things you most need to learn – first published 18 July 2014

In mid July 2014 we knew Commando Senior was not long for this world. Every time my phone rang it felt like a harbinger of doom. Each night Commando would pop in to his father’s little house on the way to work to check on him. He’d phone me afterwards to let me know he was still alive. Each night he seemed to be getting weaker, further away from this world and closer to the next one. When Commando called me on my mobile at work one sunny Tuesday morning I thought the worst. There is more than one kind of worst though…

18 July 2014

Tuesday morning, basking in the glow of a blog award and a sunny walk to work, Commando, grim voiced, was on the phone. My first thought was Commando Senior and I sat through the phone call tense, mentally preparing to grab my bag and make a dash.

Turns out the disaster I’d envisioned and the disaster unfolding were two entirely different things. No, I’m not going into detail. What I will say is that my kindhearted son Bard’s habit of picking up waifs and strays backfired on him big time. Sometimes, waifs and strays are that way for a reason and helping them, letting them into your life, can end badly. It’s is a lesson Bard has to learn and this time he learned the hard way.

Good deeds are, sadly, not always repaid by good deeds. For the second time someone Bard had taken under his wing and into his flat had ended up repaying him in the worst possible way. The lesson is, there are some people you just can’t help and compassion is a gift that should be given with care. Not all the recipients are as worthy as you’d think.

For a while it felt as if it was all too much to cope with. The family have all been teetering on the brink of disaster for weeks, playing a waiting game because Commando Senior’s illness can only have one end and it’s an end none of us really want to face. There was too much to do to dwell on how I felt though. Calls to make, problems to solve. They kept me occupied. It’s what I do.

Of course, once it was over and I had time to think, all the possibilities went through my head. The things that could have happened. Anger. A mother’s protective instinct. Powerlessness. Fear. It was not a good or restful night. For all my fine talk of letting things go, not dwelling on the might have beens, problems and disasters being lessons in disguise etc. etc. I couldn’t stop my stupid brain from wandering over and over it.

As my favourite author, Richard Bach once said, you teach the best the things you most need to learn…

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