They say that variety
is the spice of life, and there may be some truth in that slightly
overused quotation. Something a little different can often have a
positive impact so it was with plenty of excitement but also a little
trepidation that we set out on a road trip on Friday.
With just the two of us
in the car we drove up (or should that be across?) country towards
the Welsh border, along motorways, A roads and plenty of little
country lanes full of puddles and winter mud. The car was filthy by
the time we arrived but the sun shone and the countryside looked
green and the bare trees stood out against the deep blue sky. We
passed fields of cattle and sheep and row upon row of fruit trees
waiting for spring to arrive to bring them to life.
From the moment we set
out, with our daughter, her partner and a friend in the other car, it
was almost adventure-like. We had a break at a motorway service
station and even raced a little once we left coffee, bacon rolls and
Burger King chips behind, to see who could get to the hotel first.
We won.
But the really good
thing about Friday was the reason for our adventure. We were going to
a funeral. The funeral of someone who had just died from cancer.
Let me explain.
Funerals can be pretty
emotional events. This was the funeral of someone close, but not too
close, to our immediate family. He had been suffering from cancer for a while,
but was given just months to live at the end of last summer. Sadly,
after an emotional Christmas, he passed away in the first few days of
the new year.
I am sure that this hit my wife quite
badly.
So when I say that this
was a good thing, what I mean is that we had to face some cancer
related reality, but in a place where there was company and no time
to overly dwell on personal feelings or worries. It was sad. People
cried, including my wife. But she offered support and sympathy to the
wife of the bereaved and got to chat to a lot of people, some of
whom she had not seen in years and some she was meeting for the first time. And what could have been
difficult became a mixture of learning (what they did which she would
not want to do when / if it happened to her) and a "pleasant in the circumstances" social
event.
She even got to meet
someone who had been through two separate bouts of cancer and was
living a fantastically positive and happy life herself. I think that
reminder really helped.
There was plenty of
talk in the car on the journey home, but positive comments and
thoughts rather than the sort of thing I was fearing. She was happy
in discussing the sad situation but avoided some of the usual
pitfalls that we seem to experience at home.
In fact the only
difficulties we had were with her navigation and my driving!
So there were positives
all over the place which is a great thing for me to be writing today.
Being outdoors, even if it was mostly in a car, gave us that
connection with nature which seems to improve moods almost without
fail. And the idea of a simple adventure like a road trip with
friends and family offered up some childlike fun which was welcomed by
all. The biggest positive however was that a weekend of sadness, and
in particular cancer-related sadness, was met with a positive and
realistic response rather than a nudge into a downward spiral of
introspection and worry.
I think we need to run
away from life and have fun like this more often.