Beauty technician helps to nail feeling of intense grief

Maddie was amazed and a bit emotional when she was offered the job as a sessional worker in a newly-set-up “warm-bank”.

She had been out of work for some time and this would make a huge difference to her life.

But, she confessed to her new boss: “If I hadn’t got the job, I’d still be coming to the warm-bank, because I really didn’t think I could afford to heat my house this winter.”

Her boss – a man I know and admire – said: “Thanks!”

Maddie asked him what for. He said: “For confirming that we employed someone who would know what it felt like to come to us to stay warm.”

The best person for any job, I think, is the one who has been at the sharp end of the need being filled.

Good luck to Maddie and all the others who are trying hard to make a difference this winter.

Sometimes you overhear things that leave you wondering. I was working nearby as a little girl and her mum left an organised party. There were happy farewells. The girl clutched a gift bag. Then, I heard her ask: “Mum, was that deliberate?” Mum asked what she meant. The girl explained: “Well... everyone was so nice”. Then they were gone.

So, I don’t know what she meant. But, I do know that some of us set an example of, say, cynicism, or negativity, that can pervade family life to such an extent that people behaving otherwise can appear to our children as artificial, put on, deliberate rather than natural.

The examples we set can sometimes last for generations.

But, just as negative behaviours can come to be seen as the only way, so can positive behaviours.

If only we are “deliberate” in choosing them.

For 50 years, Sarah felt her mum had never really loved her. Mum lost her first child, a boy, when he was five months old.

Sarah had always felt like a poor second best. Somehow, she found herself telling her nail technician this. The young woman asked what age Mum had been. “Ohh, that’s the same age as me,” she said, when Sarah told her. “I’d be a hopeless wreck if that happened.”

For the first time, Sarah understood her mum had been a hopeless wreck through those early years. Understandably. It was an awful loss to bear, and Mum hadn’t been much more than a child herself.

Picturing her nail technician dealing with that grief brought a huge wave of sympathy – which she immediately transferred to her mum. And that, in turn, helped her understand that she absolutely had been loved...just the best her mum was able.

Neil was organising a food and nutrition event in Ayrshire, and I offered to help. There were all sorts of governmental agencies and voluntary groups involved, with a varied list of possible activities.

“And, of course,” he said, “we’ll see what different things the New Scots bring to the table.”

I was confused, but I simply assumed he had some new volunteers, all called Scott.

“No, no, no,” he said, laughing. “The New Scots... the Syrians, the Ukrainians, and others.”

I’d never heard the phrase before, but I liked it.

I heard the Collins Dictionary have published a list of words and phrases that became so popular in the last year, they were worth including in next year’s dictionary. “New Scots”, “New Welsh”, “New English”, “New Northern Irish”. How long until those words make the grade?

So much more future-affirming than “refugee”.