A
moment in Time…
It’s fair to say that most of the talks
that I give to students in particular, those most especially that chose to come
with us to experience Kilimanjaro begin with ‘ Great moments are borne out of
great opportunities…’
Ironically, just a matter of days ago I
would get to have mine… just not in the circumstances that I was expecting!
The call came from Denise, my sister.
She’s 2 ½ years younger - but ten times wiser.
‘Dad’s
got cancer he’s in for the operation on the 20th if not before that -I
thought you should know’. The ‘thought you should know’ tells its
own story and that’s a story for another day on another day of the Kili climb
perhaps… but for now suffice to say I had my sister to be grateful to for
letting me know at all.
There are those amongst you that have
received similar news and have had to deal with the implications whatever they
may have held – that you have each done so with great dignity and commendable
spirit I have no doubts – none at all in fact. Me? - not so well…
I suddenly realised that I had spent feck
all quality time with my dad throughout my entire existence and that there were
more years filled by silence than by loving hugs and special memories. It’s not
a fault thing – just a simple fact…
Now there’s another line that I’m rather
fond of quoting to my students states
that that having come off Everest blind we
should at least acknowledge the simple fact that… ‘we are not judged by the things
that go wrong but simply by how we chose to react when they do’
Sometimes, if we are very, very lucky we
are indeed fortunate enough we have the common sense to actually practise
what we in fact preach to others. In my case a golden opportunity to make
amends lay before me. I took it. With open arms in fact!
The first call was tough – dad was trying
to get his head around the news – bless him and was having such a hard time
talking to anyone least of all me. I told him that we should have a pint before he
went in and a bite of lunch and just talk…
He thanked me for calling me but wasn’t
sure if that was going to be possible… I
texted and left messages – if you know me I can be quite the persistent type
(note for summit ‘he’s not going to let us quit no matter what!!!)
2 days ago he rang back and for the first
time in a very long time we chatted –we took the time to listen to each other
and actually failed to commit the cardinal sin of male to ‘other’ listening whereby we await the very first opportunity to jump in to give our own opinions!
I promised him I’d be there no
matter what, but most importantly he seemed genuinely glad that I would be…
Achieving a sense of ‘peace’ in our lives
is in fact very important age regardless… I know that each of you will have
your own respective peace offerings to make on the summit of Kilimanjaro. I
just want you each to know that I’ll be right there with you every step of the
way, offering every support that I possibly can and together we’ll find our own
respective paths….
Kili NY 2012 marks the first trip of its
kind… cherished moments remembered… - just not in the typical way or indeed
setting we are used to!
Who knows we might be onto something here
folks
Happy xmas everyone and see you all on the
other side in T 2
Ian
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