My Three Blessings ... by Sheila Claydon

My three blessings:)

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It's been a very busy summer! Not that I'm complaining.

My youngest granddaughter (12) has been visiting from Singapore. She has grown seven inches since her last visit and is now almost as tall as her adult cousins (24 and 19). To see the three of them together is a joy. Despite the geographical and age differences they are close and it is a delight to watch as the older ones spend time with and spoil their now not so little cousin. 

We are lucky that, as well as regular visits, we can all use the Internet to stay in touch and the family chat messages between the three of them are frequently hilarious. 

There are many differences too. The youngest, who has always lived abroad in hot countries, cannot understand why our homes don't have air conditioning. Her six week visit was during the UK's longest hot dry summer since 1976. No rain and excessively high temperatures, so we could well understand her reasoning even as we explained that unlike this year, we hardly ever need it. 

She loved the wide open spaces of our small coastal town too. The fact that she could walk through woodland without seeing a soul or walk along an almost empty beach with our dog running freely beside her was something she will never experience in Singapore. She was also fascinated by the fact that nearly everyone she met either greeted her with a smile or said hello, something that happens in small communities but not in the cities and countries she is used to. 

                                      

She loved the space in the house too. The fact that she could distance herself from everyone when she wanted to by just climbing stairs to her bedroom, something that is impossible in a small apartment where her bedroom is right next to the living room and all the noises and conversations of everyday life.

And more than anything she loved looking after our little dog. Preparing her meals, brushing her, even cleaning her teeth and, of course, taking her for a walk on her own. When she called from Singapore once she arrived home, the first thing she wanted to see was the dog.

She does, however, enjoy a very privileged life in Singapore and has quickly settled back into her everyday routines with friends, school and sports. She just enjoys the differences she experiences when she visits her UK family.

It all got me thinking, well reminiscing really, back to when I wrote my When Paths Meet trilogy. Three sisters, not cousins, but with the same big age gaps and very different lifestyles and experiences. Each of them with a problem to solve, and each of them recognising the importance of family. 

Growing old is...lucky! by Sheila Claydon

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I know this book cover doesn't seem to match the title of my blog, but bear with me!

A couple of weeks ago my cousin was 80, so I called him to wish him a happy special birthday. Our whole life we have teased one another so I knew our conversation wouldn't be emotional nor full of the cliches often used on such occasions. What I wasn't expecting when I laughingly asked him how he had got to be so old, however, was his answer.

"It's because I'm lucky." he said.

Wow!

Then, on 9 Feb, I read fellow author Barbara Baker's BWL blogpost 'He's determined to Ski again' about her 90 year old father, and I clicked on the link to her YouTube video of him doing just that Dad Skiing Again - 90 years young - YouTube . He was amazing. So graceful and determined.

Double wow!

That video together with my cousin's words, were so uplifting. And my cousin is right. To achieve a very old age relatively healthy in both mind and body is not just lucky, it's a privilege. A privilege not granted to everyone. Like many people, I have lost friends in their forties and fifties. I also know two children who lost their mothers while they were still in reception class and another girl who died from a brain tumour when she was barely in her teens. The unlucky ones.

So old age needs to be celebrated. Medication, even operations, might be needed to keep some aches and pains at bay but they need to be celebrated too because, even as recently as the mid twentieth century, very little of it was available.  We are the lucky ones, which is something we should never forget, which brings me on to my book Saving Katy Gray the final book of my When Paths Meet trilogy.

It is a romance but behind the romance is the story of a bright and intelligent woman gradually succumbing to dementia and how, with Katy Gray's help, she found herself again. Not completely but enough. Enough to live a fulfilling life. Enough to use the skills she never forgot even on her worse days. The hero, the heroine, the romance are still there but I hope that readers will take from it the wider lessons. The ones that make growing older just part of life's story. 

I have two favourite sayings about ageing. The first is a slick throwaway, attributed to the film star Bette Davis.  And there is a lot of truth in it for even the healthiest of us as we grow older.

Old age ain't no place for sissies 

The second, by Albert Einstein, is the one I want to live by though.

Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious 

children before the great mystery into which we were born.

If I can do that right to the end, then I will indeed be lucky, and privileged. I hope you will too.

Other books in my When Paths Meet series deal with autism, childhood trauma, adoption, desperation and death. Not subjects that are usually associated with romance you say! Don't be fooled, these books are contemporary romance with a capital R. It is romance that is embedded in real life, however, because very few of us tread a smooth path where love is concerned. If you decide to read them, I hope you enjoy them.