It’s a golden August morning, on the day that I notice I’m alive.
Early light seeps through the curtains. I make plans. All I need to do to take my excited boys to the beach. I move to get out of bed and as I try to stand, my legs buckle beneath me. It’s surreal, distant. Not happening to me.
I become a powerless mass on the floor.
Hours later, I’m in the cardiac unit of our local hospital, my body covered in sensors connected to various machines. I’ve learned a new term, heart failure. The doctor’s face, intently serious, a slight shake of his head as he feels my pulse. I’m a tall, strongly built, forty-four-year-old; alongside my fragile elderly wardmates, I feel like an animal in the wrong cage at a zoo.
‘Stop’ says my body. And I am stopped, virtually strapped to the bed. Absent are the chaotic demands of children, injured husband, dogs, elderly parents, coaching business. I rest, without choice, waiting for each day to unfold.
My thoughts drift to another rude awakening, years ago.
Opening gravel-filled eyes, dry throat failing to swallow. Bedspread, rough. Dim light. Confusion. I’m fully clothed. Long winter coat, high-heeled boots. My suitcase parked near a desk.
On my feet. Hot. Spine dripping. Where am I? What day is it? Is it day or night? Which country? City? Which hotel? Did I miss a meeting? Where should I be right now?
Scanning the room for my rucksack. My executive rucksack, to which I am unreasonably attached. My constant companion as I travel the world, containing all that I need to communicate with others, to work, to be efficient, to perform.
Minutes later, breathing easily, resting my tired body, brain calming. I’m in New York, a Hilton hotel in Manhattan. Sunday evening local time. Meeting on Monday morning.
Flight from London, where I had a twenty-two-hour pit-stop. Too few hours with my husband. Forty-eight hours ago, bright light, heat, exotic sounds of Mumbai.
Water is my saviour. Cool and infinitely delicious as it slips down my dry throat. Hot and fast flowing, it soothes my aching muscles and washes away the dirt, sweat and fatigue of travel. Cleansed and refreshed, I become aware of a shift at the core of my being, a decision has been made.
I’m about to leave the tyrannous luxury of my Corporate life and make my ninth house move in fourteen years, to a place and a house of my choosing, back to rural life, to a home, where we will live for more than twenty years.
I think back to how in earlier times, I was eager and chafing for challenge.
Sky, a distant pale grey. Wind, not too strong. I’m above the low-lying office block, above the local buildings. Far-reaching views, ignored. My view, dark, with an unpleasant odour.
‘So, what d’ you think? How much is in there?’ My companion asks in his deep northern voice, large nicotine-stained teeth exposed, he can’t stop himself grinning.
‘I haven’t a clue. What d’you think?’ I look him straight in the eye, serious, but enjoying his sense of humour.
He gives a non-committal grunt, and gently lays a restraining hand on my arm, as I move to lift my safety goggles trying to get a better look, ‘You mustn’t do that.’
We climb back down the long metal ladder, my feet in unfamiliar safety boots, new, like my white coat and shiny yellow hard hat. My companion leads the way, we are stock-taking at a chemical plant. He, over sixty years old, has worked here for more than forty years. As we walk and talk, we realise he had already been working here for fifteen years, at the time I was born. He shows me round the site while we measure, count and record.
He is one of my three, middle-aged, assistant managers, who each have several clerks working under them. And if my language is archaic, it was the 1990s. Yes, I’m his boss. How does life work, that at twenty-five, I’m the one held responsible, rather than those who’ve worked here for decades?
I was lucky. Born to a life where I could go to university, be accepted onto the graduate development scheme of a blue-chip multinational, pass my finance exams to become a chartered management accountant, whilst being shuttled around various departments for a couple of years. So, obviously, I’m the one qualified to be in charge.
Painfully aware of my youth and inexperience, I unconsciously follow my father’s example from years of observing him drawing out visitors to our lively household, asking questions and listening with gentle curiosity and respect. I learn that people learn as they explain, as they seek to find means to layout a problem, to make it clear, they gain clarity themselves, the solution becomes obvious. They know what to do and all I did was listen and ask what I hoped were intelligent questions.
My style of management, or is it leadership, is set. I feel like I’ve found a cunning trick, it makes work easy, and I enjoy the relationships we create.
My wakeful dozing in the hospital bed is interrupted by the familiar, irregular rhythm of two pairs of crutches. My parents arrive breathless and exhausted, at my bedside. They look more at home in this ward than I do. Their grim faces become less taut as I rouse myself to be alert and conversational. I have no news to soften the reality of my state, the doctors are baffled, I have no risk factors and the tests have shown almost nothing.
Once they leave, we indulge in mutual worry. I, picturing their painful, slow progress through long hospital corridors; they, baffled, conjecturing, what possible reason can there be for my heart to suddenly slow down? What about the children?
And perhaps it is as well that none of us know what lies ahead.
My parents live to know that I recover from this bout of myocarditis, my heart inflamed, reacting to a virus; that blood tests showing elevated calcium, leading to the discovery of parathyroid tumours in my neck; that I recover from throat surgery to remove the tumours and return to normal life; that we lose my father-in-law, ten years their junior, within months of his diagnosis.
They do not know that they will both suffer horrible deaths, just over a year apart, or that I will become familiar not only with Cardiology, but also Oncology and Haematology. They do not know how much I miss them as I experience cancer treatments, or how glad I am that they do not have to bear witness.
They do not know of my eldest son’s illness that prevents him living a normal life, how much I miss their support, or of our grief for his misplaced years.
Almost ten years of illness and loss, leave me feeling as though I’ve been carried out to sea into the darkness of a perpetual storm, repeatedly hurled against jagged rocks until I’m broken into pieces, which lie shuddering with absent life.
My coaching clients deserve better.
Having tried many therapies, this time I seek help from another coach, a soul-based coach working with both mind and body.
Eighteen months later my journal reads:
I am alive. My whole-body fizzes with excitement, I am revelling in life. It is glorious. I celebrate all that life is and that I am part of it.
A few months into my work as a client, I begin the year-long training to become a soul-based coach, these skills are different, I want them too. As I learn to facilitate my clients using metaphor and we access the power and creativity of their subconscious minds, I feel like I’ve found another cunning trick, a shortcut to magic, working directly with their deepest truth.
And in a world where we are elusive even to ourselves, I learn to trust myself to feel the pain I’ve hidden, to allow it to process and flow through my body. I learn to notice when I need to remember I’m alive, to connect to inner stillness, and be calm enough to listen to the voice that always knows. I know that my work in a space that becomes sacred, with human connection and transformation, is exactly where I’m meant to be.
I remember to notice blue-sky days, the glint of sun on water, and that storms always pass.