A source of solace

The last few days have been difficult for me. My Auntie Gina has had a brain tumour and after only a few months from diagnosis, died on Monday night. She wasn't quite 65, and had been fit and well up until a year ago when she suffered what was diagnosed at the time as a stroke.

I 'blurted' a tweet out into the world just after I found out, just after 11 in the evening. It was a cry of pain, that I had wanted to see her before she died, to let her know how much I love her, and my Uncle, and to say a "Good bye". In fact I had organised with my Brother that I'd drive us down south to see her the following day (Tuesday). That wasn't to be.

I tried to delete the tweet, with mixed success. At the time I felt embarrassed that I'd share such a private moment with my 'followers', at least half of whom must be spam. And I also didn't want to make anyone feel awkward that I'd been so forthright. It's not exactly a culturally English thing to do. I had a few direct messages from people who had seen the tweet, which really touched me, and want to say thanks to them again here.

I'd spoken with my Mum (they were Sisters), and seen my Brother, who had turned up on his motorbike just as I tried to phone him. My God, sibling connection! (We fought like cat and dog when we were kids.) In wanting to pay my own respects to my Aunt though, my natural inclination was to turn to the hills for solace.

In fact I returned to the same place that time and again I have returned to when times were hard, and there's been a few!

Higger Tor, Padley Gorge, Burbage Brook. Names so familiar to me, and probably the entire outdoor community of Sheffield, plus a few more besides. But it's a place of contrasts and palpable history, from the stone circles and cairns on Lawrence Field, the supposed Iron Age fort of Carl Wark, the Packhorse Bridges and tracks and the more recent millstones, quarried from the gritstone abound in this area. More recent still is Longshaw Lodge which was bequeathed to the National Trust in the 30s (I think), a seat of the Duke of Rutland.

I didn't bother taking a map; I know the area pretty well. I didn't set off on a specific route; rather I wanted the route to find me. If I'd taken a GPS to track the way I walked, the line would have wiggled all over the place, crossing itself and returning to the same places several times. It was a walk of absorption. But not into myself, rather it brought me out of myself and I felt connected to the world at large. To nature and the environment, no matter that none of it was untouched by man (how much of the UK is actually untouched by man anyway).

Sitting on a rock, making myself a brew and feeling part of this earth was probably the best thing I could do for myself at this time. I wonder at the reasons other people go to the hills. And how other people deal with grief when they don't engage with the natural world in the same way I do.

One of the remarkable things I remember about my Aunt (which extends to my Uncle, too), is a sense and feeling of being loved completely by them. I dwarfed each of them in height and stature, but they still look on me as their Niece, as flesh and blood. I went out with one of my Cousins best friends for a few years, and in that time got to know my extended family more than just as blood relatives I visited a couple of times a year. That feeling of being loved is a precious memory. Well, not just a memory, because it wont leave me. So I don't feel guilty about not seeing my Aunt in her last few days. She will have known how much I love her, and I draw comfort from that.