2021: some things I am grateful for

As we approach the end of the year I always take a few moments to reflect on what I am grateful for. Over the last few years those thoughts have moved from the back of a diary to this blog.

For me 2021 started off rough. Mum died on 31^st December 2020 which was devastating. It was also a relief because I couldn’t bear to see her suffer any more, and had she lived even days longer I don’t think we would have been able to honour her wish of dying at home. I miss Mum enormously.

Even though we don’t yet know how yet and we continue to live with enormous uncertainty, the impact of 2021, like 2020 will be felt for years to come globally, domestically, in cities, communities and families. 

However the old saying goes whilst each day may not be good, there are good things in every day. If we apply that to the year there is lots I am grateful for.  

Here are some of my top ones:

1. Memories of my darling Mum: in one of our last conversations she said when you need courage just think of me. I do often. I had Mum’s wedding ring melded with mine. When I need courage I can play with my wedding ring and use Mum's memory as fuel.  

2. My Dad: I remember reading an interview with Zadie Smith where she talked about how we commonly understand that children want to make their parents proud, but we talk less about the fact that parents want to make their children proud. I can only hope that Dad is half as proud of me as I am of him. I have learned so much from him this year: his care for Mum and my brother whilst they were alive, his thoughtfulness and honouring of their memory now they are dead, his ability to ‘get on with it’ without pretending it doesn't hurt and his care for me, Jonny, his grandchildren and great grandchildren.  

3. My lovely husband, Jonny: I have felt - and appreciated - his love and support enormously this last 18 months. 

4. Family and friends: If we are lucky, when times are tough friends and family put their hands on your back to hold you up, and their arms around you to steady you. The last 18 months have shown time and again how lucky I am. 

5. Work: I have enjoyed my third year as CEO of MHFA England - what a community of change-makers – we have trained over 200,000 people since the beginning of the pandemic. I have also been grateful for the collaboration and solidarity of (mental health) leaders across the third sector who have helped each other through this pandemic.

In June I finished my tenure at Stonewall. The commitment of the team to LGBTQIA equality for all is unquestionable. I n the face of relentless division we at Stonewall always stand together in solidarity fearlessly and unapologetically. I am grateful to have the privilege of chairing the Headspace Health International Advisory Board, the Support After Suicide Partnership and the Dying Matters Campaign this year.

6. The NHS, care staff, the vaccine scientists and courageous leaders: in the face of ongoing challenge created by pre-pandemic inequalities and the pandemic itself, imagine the brains, the determination, the commitment and the determination to keep us safe, to keep us going and to tackle the big social issues of our time including mental health, food poverty, poverty, homelessness and violence with grit and determination. Thank you to all those working on the frontline as key workers and to the courageous leaders tackling injustices and inequity. 

7. My animals! Dolly dog: we should all learn to listen and love like Doll does. Boris (the horse) really helped when I was glum at the beginning of the year. He helped lift my spirits. The first time I rode him in April after six months away I fell off. The next day I also fell off. The next day I fell off twice and had a right old thump on the head which left me wondering who I was, where I was and how I got there. It was an odd week in which he was cross, presumably because I had 'left him' and I had lost my ability to balance. Anyway forward two months and we were completing One Day Events successfully. As I said last year whilst I will never achieve the Olympic dreams I had as a child, I am grateful that as I head towards fifty I still get the same buzz from horses as I did when I first sat on Toby, my friend Robin’s Shetland pony circa 1978. And in an uplifting end to 2021, I found out I have qualified for British Eventing National Championships in June 2022. 

8. My health: sometimes we can take it for granted but I have seen too many reasons why we can’t. In the last couple of years my brother has died at 45, one friend died from suicide at 32, another at 41 and another friend from cancer at 53. I always remember the words of the Priest when a school friend died in a car crash in 1991. She said something like ‘this untimely death teaches us that we don’t have a god given right to any particular time on earth, take the moments as they come’. That felt ridiculous at 17, but now as we worry about the signs of getting old, the wrinkles, the grey hair, or the hairy ears it all makes sense. Whilst I don’t know many things for sure, I do know this: getting old is a privilege. And as we come to the end of another year when so many people have died, our health really is the most precious thing. I am grateful for my physical and mental health and that I get to feel joy each and every day.

2021, you have been a beast at times. Thanks for the lessons and the good times. And thank you to everyone who has walked it with me.